Clive Piper works from home but still manages to cycle 20 kilometres to “work” every day.
The hotel industry supplier lives in the Tecom district of Dubai.
With more than a million visitors checking into the city’s hotel rooms each month, there are plenty of broken plates and glasses to replace, says the director of sales and marketing at supplier Gemini.
Before he gets on the phone to suppliers and customers across the emirate, he takes to the roads of nearby housing developments.
Mr Piper is one of a fast growing number of cyclists throughout the country who are increasingly leaving the car at home whenever possible. He will be joining The National’s Cycle to Work campaign on January 13, part of the newspaper’s efforts to make the country more cycle-friendly while encouraging healthy living.
The British expat has been peddling around the streets and pavements of The Lakes and Emirates Hills each morning for the past two years.
But despite witnessing lots of the kind of hair-raising driving techniques for the which the city has become famous, he has so far avoided injury.
Unlike the industry he supplies, there have been happily no breakages yet.
“I’ve had a few near misses,” he concedes. “My hands are always hovering over the brakes.”
His biggest complaint is reserved for drivers who refuse to indicate when changing lanes as well as the lack of lane sense on roundabouts, which he prefers to avoid on his daily 45-minute spin.
“Of course you need to be vigilant,” he says. “But I think that cycling in Dubai has made me a better driver.”
scronin@thenational.ae
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