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Two
years ago Bahadir Atay broke his coccyx when a taxi knocked him off his
motorbike. For days he sat frustrated in a wheelchair at home in Istanbul,
desperate to be back on two wheels. Then, after a month, he smiled. He
had the wheelchair fixed on to a scooter. These days Atay is back on his
bike and determined as ever to see biking triumph in Turkey.
Motorbikes were once the untouchables of the Turkish traffic hierarchy.
They were so rare and so poorly made that they were unacknowledged by
road safety rules and traffic alike and developed a stigma of danger which
grew with increasing superstition. They shared the road rights of horse-carts,
the lowest priority of any vehicle in Turkey. But now, as road safety
laws are being improved for Turkey's application to join the EU, interest
and investments in motorbikes are greater than ever before.
Atay bought his first motorbike in secret when he was 13. He had to use
the money he saved up every Ramadan because his parents had forbidden
him to buy one. 'If they saw me with it I'd say "Oh no, this is my
friend's, not mine". If they knew, the motorbike would go.' So bad
was the motorbike's reputation among Atay's parents' generation that it
became a figure of superstition, an evil omen they called 'the devil's
carriage'. 'For so many years motorbiking in Turkey was very dangerous
because there were no helmets, protection or new bikes,' says Atay. 'Five
years ago people had very bad bikes. Now many people are racing or using
motorbikes on the road.'
With the interest has come investment from companies like Harley-Davidson,
despite the fact that Turkey was one of the few countries bypassed by
the Hell's Angels. 'Bikes are cheaper than five years ago. So many names
are coming to Turkey - from China, from America, from everywhere. You
can buy scooters, new, from the US for 30,000 Turkish lire (15,000E),'
says Atay. 'The culture is coming. And people are learning.'
The motorbike revolution in Turkey was a long time coming. 'If you look
at the geographical stripe, from Iran to Portugal, every country is bikers'
country but there was always one country left out in the middle, and that
was Turkey,' says Atay.
There is no question now that Turkey is in the fray. There are motorbikes
everywhere you look, including the banks of the Bosphorus where riders
stop to fish even in winter. With better safety bikers are emerging everywhere.
All over the country, far into the reaches of south-east Anatolia, they
fly across the open land. It's no longer only the eccentrics who brave
two wheels.
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