Cash-Strapped Greeks Trade Cars For Bikes

The high cost of road tax, fuel and auto-repairs have forced thousands of Greek commuters to ditch their cars for bicycles, said a report by Reuters on Wednesday, with many bicycle shop owners claiming that a new “bike culture” was emerging along the, formerly bike-adverse, streets of Athens.

The high cost of road tax, fuel and auto-repairs have forced thousands of Greek commuters to ditch their cars for bicycles, said a report by Reuters on Wednesday, with many bicycle shop owners claiming that a new “bike culture” was emerging along the, formerly bike-adverse, streets of Athens.

“People who were never interested in cycling are buying bikes,” noted bicycle-maker Giorgos Vogiatzis, who claimed that his sales had boomed over the past two years from a modest 40 bikes a year to over 350.

This year, Greece’s official statistics office also reported that bicycle sales in the country had grown by nearly 25 percent since 2011, compared to a 40 percent annual decline in the number of cars starting from 2010.

Vogiatzis estimates that a brand new bicycle shop was now popping up in Athens every month, replacing dozens of other shop-fronts that had closed due to the economic crisis.

[quote]”They’re sprouting up like mushrooms,” Vogiatzis said. “Every neighbourhood has its bike shop just as it’s got its kebab shop.”[/quote]

“A lot of people are starting to see it (cycling) as an alternative (to driving),” added Tolis Tsimoyannis, a cycling aficionado who imports fold-up bikes from Taiwan.

Tsimoyannis, who opened his business in 2006, said that many of his new customers were students and people in their 40s who were struggling to make ends meet.

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With fuel prices rising to about 1.72 euros per litre in July, many Greek commuters such as Elena Koniaraki, 39, a music saleswoman, have also given up their cars under a “cash for clunkers” scheme, which allowed Koniaraki to purchase a second-hand bike for the first time since childhood.

[quote]”At first my friends would laugh at me and say: Oh, poverty!” Koniaraki laughed. But now, “sometimes I’ll leave my local street market on my bike, loaded with bags of tomatoes, and people will stop and wave at me,” she said.[/quote]

The new national trend has even prompted the Athens mayor to begin work on a public bike hire scheme similar to those in other European capitals.

And even the lack of bicycle lanes and Athens’s mountainous landscape have not deterred Greece’s new cyclists from pedalling up and down steep hills and over potholed roads.

“This is not Berlin. Here it’s risky but you need to start thinking what you’ll cut back on – taxis, the metro,” said Koniaraki.

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Bicycle-maker Vogiatzis now says that he has had to hire two other staff to meet demand for all sorts of bikes.

[quote]”There’s no more money for luxuries (such as cars) and that helps (my business),” he said.[/quote]