Every morning, hundreds of cyclists ride through the socially disadvantaged Kennedy neighborhood in southern Bogota.

Workers, seamstresses and students who hold on to the handlebars opt for pedal power over cars and buses.

Biking is a cheap alternative to public transportation and an effective way to beat Bogota’s appalling traffic jams. It has caught on in one of the world’s most congested cities.

“For the people of Bogota, it is a practical means of transportation, also because we are poor,” says Carlos Felipe Pardo, founder of Despacio, an NGO that supports alternative forms of mobility.

Ricardo Buitrago’s bike repair business has grown rapidly in the six years since its inception.

With grease-blackened hands, he says, up to 10,000 cyclists use the cycle path in front of his workshop every day.

One of them is Maria Ellis. She lives near her office in Bogota, but still takes over 1.5 hours to get to work.

“It takes 25 minutes by bike, so the bike is much better,” she smiled.

The eight million inhabitants of Bogota fear every car journey. During rush hour, crossing the city can take up to three hours.

In 2019, 880,000 bicycle rides were made daily in Bogota, according to the mayor’s office, accounting for nearly seven percent of all such movements in the capital.

And that number rose to 13 percent during the pandemic, according to Pardo.

Bogota was one of the first cities to set up temporary bike lanes during the pandemic to encourage mobility while maintaining social distancing.

It was a move repeated around the world, including Paris.

Bogota has nearly 600 kilometers (370 miles) of dedicated bike lanes, the most extensive bike lane network in Latin America, and the government is working to expand it further, Mobility Minister Avila Moreno said.

Not all are in good condition. Some are separated from heavy traffic only by plastic bollards, others have been deformed by tree roots.

Unlike in many European capitals, where cycling is sometimes considered a trend, in Colombia, with a minimum wage of just $220 a month, it is considered a reliable and affordable means of transport.

“Many see the bike as a cheap way to avoid public transport,” says Moreno.

Security guard Pedro Quimbaya, 53, says he saves 150,000 pesos ($35) a month on bus fares.

The downside is that it can be dangerous.

“During rush hour, the traffic is very heavy, there are too many bicycles, the lanes are not very good, you have to be very careful,” Ellis said.

In the first half of 2022, 50 cyclists were killed in traffic accidents in Bogotá.

Then theft threatens. Quimbaya says he was attacked several times and his $270 bike, more than a month’s salary, was stolen by a gang.

Nearly 11,000 bikes were stolen in 2020, according to the mayor’s office, and the number of thefts continues to rise.

Pardo says the capital needs more infrastructure, more security and better trained drivers.

“Bogota has made progress on all these fronts but still needs to improve,” he added.

Moreno, the recently appointed mobility minister, says the city has “huge potential”.

“It’s a work in progress that other big cities like Copenhagen have already gone through,” she said. “Bogota is going the same way.”

The municipality will deliver 3,300 public, free-to-use bicycles in October.

Colombia has long been in love with cycling, thanks in no small part to its great cycling champions such as Egan Bernal, who won the 2019 Tour de France, and Nairo Quintana, two-time Grand Tour winner.

Bogota’s last three mayors, including incumbent Claudia Lopez and current President Gustavo Petro, have encouraged the use of the bicycle.

Since 1974, the city’s main streets have been closed to vehicles for several hours on Sundays, to be replaced by thousands of bicycles.

Bogota “could become the cycling capital of the world. It is possible, although we are still far from it,” said Pardo, the head of the NGO.

“We can get people out of their cars and onto bikes,” Moreno said.

Buitrago, the bicycle mechanic, agrees: “The future belongs to the bicycle.”