With its lack of genteel clubhouses, dress codes and caddies, cycling has never quite enjoyed the status of golf within business circles.
Yet, there are signs that more UAE executives are swapping their plus fours for Lycra, and choosing cycling as the perfect way to unwind or network – with some even commuting to work by bike.
Cycling now ranks as the favourite way for UAE residents to spend their free time, according to a survey published last month by RAKBank and YouGov.
The survey found that 27 per cent of men and women enjoy bike rides, placing it as the top leisure pursuit among the 1,000 people polled. Painting came next in the ranking, followed by playing music, angling and riding a jet ski.
Peter Mueller, an Australian who lives in Abu Dhabi, said cycling is an increasingly popular pursuit for business executives looking to network.
“Casual weekend group rides appear to have taken over from the golf course with respect to informally extending business contacts,” he says.
Mr Mueller, the UAE country manager for the engineering firm URS Corporation, has travelled by bike to his workplace for more than 11 years.
Although he says cycling is increasingly popular as a leisure pursuit, he does not know of many other office workers who commute by cycle.
In a move to address that, The National is launching its #CycleToWorkUAE initiative on January 13. On that day, this newspaper is encouraging readers to leave their cars behind and bike it to work, as part of its wider drive to promote fitness across the Emirates.
One person who needs no convincing of the virtues of cycling is the Dubai resident, Ben Joseph, who moved to the UAE from India earlier last year.
The 27-year-old, who works as a digital brand manager for an agency called Qrious Digital Marketing, says he cycles to work daily – even during the hot summer months – as well as in his spare time.
Despite Dubai’s sometimes unruly roads, Mr Joseph says he finds cycling therapeutic.
“It’s like meditation to me. Some people do yoga – I cycle,” he says. “That’s my zone of Zen. It’s the best form of de-stressing I can think of.”
Mr Joseph makes the 10km round trip between his home in Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) and workplace at Dubai Media City every weekday.
The route he takes – which he usually videos with a body-mounted camera – includes a busy flyover linking JLT with Dubai Media City. But that is a breeze compared with the “haywire” traffic in his native country, he says.
There are no showers at Mr Joseph’s workplace, but he takes a change of clothes with him. “I carry deodorants, perfumes – the works,” he says.
Mr Joseph says his colleagues do not regularly cycle to work, but that he encouraged two of them to take part in the Dubai Pink Ride Campaign in October, a charity event designed to raise funds for people with breast cancer. His two colleagues are now considering getting bikes of their own, he says.
Christopher O’Hearn, a 48-year-old media executive who lives in Dubai, is another keen cyclist. He clocks up an average of 1,000km a month on his bike, and races in the elite category of UAE Cycling Federation events.
He says it comes as no surprise that cycling ranks as one of the most popular leisure pursuits for UAE residents.
“It’s certainly very popular and it is not just an expat thing – there are some good local cycling clubs which have a lot of juniors,” he says. “Dubai is also a great place for cycling because you can go over to the mountains on the east coast or around Hatta where there is beautiful scenery.”
But despite his love of cycling, Mr O’Hearn says he does not ride to work because the route from his home in Business Bay to Dubai Media City would not be practical.
Though Dubai has “fantastic” facilities for leisure cyclists, Mr O’Hearn says the fact that many of the cycle lanes are not connected means that commuting by bike is difficult for some.
“I’m a very experienced cyclist, comfortable riding in urban traffic … But to get to say the Beach Road cycle path, which is not far from me, would mean navigating through a six-lane crossing with no hard shoulder in peak traffic. There’s just no way I’m going to do that,” the executive says.
“A secondary issue is lack of facilities at work – showers and so on, which is a necessity for much of the year,” Mr O’Hearn added. “But that’s not unique to the UAE, and I think is something that would develop if more people started to cycle to work.”
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