Cycling Sri Lanka Style 17 Jun 2012 by Ed

Those regular blog readers amongst you have been pretty starved of any updates for a while, the reason being that I’ve been taking a break for it all before the usual summer madness with my feet up in Sri Lanka (while Pete is currently cycling over a load of mountains in the South of France). But far from leaving my bike obsession at Heathrow I managed to find time to undertake a quick  photographic look into the Sri Lankan bike scene…

Bikes are everywhere from city to countryside, highway to beach… (Photo by Pete Robertshaw).

But rather them than me, bikes have to compete for road space with all manner of traffic, from tuck-tucks…

….makeshift human-powered carrying devices…

…mental bus drivers (overtaking on blind corners a speciality). To add to the ‘excitement’, all vehicles beep their horns as they approach a slower road-user as I sign that “I am here”. I’m amazed that more cyclists don’t end up in a ditch after being “warned” by a lorry doing 50kph.

Most of the bikes I saw were single-speeds, with a variety custom-made racks for carrying pretty much anything.

eg. Sticks.

Compared to over here I didn’t see a single lock in use.

And even the Police use them to get around rather than cars.

I did see a few serious cyclists in the proper gear but the only one I could manage to photograph was this guy out for a Sunday ride catching a bit of help from a passing motorbike!

All in all, I fantastic place to visit although not somewhere I’ll be taking my bike. However, the UCI should take a look at have a stage race there as the mountain roads into the tea plantations are as awesome as anything I’ve seen. Alpine switchbacks, amazing views and  great road surfaces. Just make sure you can get the other traffic off the road.