I wake up early enough to bike before the sun heats up the city. I rent a bike from Beirut by Bike, and I begin my cycle on the Corniche.

I might have cycled 15km back and forth, more, less, namely from the beginnings of Ras Beirut’s Abdel Nasser mosque, considered to be one of the hearts of the city, to as close as one can cycle without major hiccups to Ouzai, a possible beginning point of the city’s outskirts, or right before that. I’d been doing my duty cycle at the gym, reached 30km close to comfortably, but an outdoor cycle is like a fresh start.
 

The gears were challenging, a rented bike is challenging, the wind blowing against you is challenging and then you get to the bits that make it a cycle in Beirut and nowhere else. To add to the challenge, my bike had no bell, and so I had to depend on my voice to save people who were walking in all directions absent minded or thought absorbed to pay attention to an amateur cyclist.
 
The corniche is wide, but at times it just shrinks, and disappears.

Joumana Al Jabri