RIDER OF THE YEAR Siraj Balubaid

A refugee from Yemen, Siraj was given a bicycle by the charity Bikes for Refugees Scotland, and has transformed not just his life but that of others

You don’t have to work too hard to figure out why Siraj Balubaid secured almost 40% of votes in our reader poll – and with it our 2024 Rider of the Year award. The story of how this Yemeni refugee used his beloved bicycle to integrate into his adopted city of Glasgow is one our favourite features we’ve published this year and speaks of the boundary-breaking, frontier-opening possibilities of riding a bike. Siraj arrived in Scotland in 2019 from Yemen, happy at the prospect of the new life ahead of him but apprehensive at the thought of starting out all over again alone. It took three years for his asylum application to be processed by the Home Office, a “very stressful” period when he couldn’t work or easily study, despite…

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Cycling Plus (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 2025

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