Yasser González: Bringing Change in Cuba one bicycle at a time
In Cuba, Yasser González is a fish swimming upstream: a die-hard urban cyclist in a city hostile towards bikes, a young entrepreneur in a country with a restricted private sector, and a bicycle activist in a regime wary of independent grassroots movements… A clear example of the explosive Cuban youth thriving to change a country that has tended towards homogenization and standardization, by promoting a different lifestyle. In this instance, the lifestyle of a Havana cyclist.
The freedom of a cyclist
Founder and owner of his own cycle-touring business, Citykleta, Yasser never shows up anywhere without his bicycle — a vintage race-bike that he brought over from Holland, on one of his trips out of Cuba. He always arrives on two wheels, whether for work, a meeting, a dinner, a party… Casually dressed, with fun patterned socks, a u-lock, and the trending “wasasa bugbag” where he keeps his puncture kit besides his wallet at all times, he is the epitome of a bicycle hipster, and one of the few you will find in Havana.
Although he owns a bicycle business, Yasser has no bike shop of his own for the time being. On his normal workdays, he moves around the city freely on his two wheels, from parks to cafés to hotels with internet. His routine changes drastically from one day to the next; the life of an urban cyclist combined with that of a digital nomad and entrepreneur in Havana.
Yasser and I meet up in one of his many “workplaces”: the Hotel Riviera, where he can connect to the internet and work online, the main platform in order to run his business. His bicycle is locked right outside, always in sight. As he works on his website and social media posts, with the Malecón as the backdrop, we discuss cycling, the environment, tourism, business and Cuba’s future.
I originally met Yasser during my first year living in Cuba in 2015, and he was the first urban cyclist I knew at the time, and for a while, the only one. Even though I naturally cycled around other cities I had lived in, at the time, cycling in Havana didn’t even occur to me, probably because I just saw no bicycles around… Meeting Yasser changed that for me.
I quickly became envious of the way he moved so freely around the city. And soon realized that the freedom of movement that cycling gave him mirrored the freedom with which he plans and dreams big, even with all the odds against him. As he pedals around the city, Yasser’s mind is always racing with ideas, ambitions and projects. With time, I started riding around Havana with Yasser, and his energy was contagious. Cycling in Havana opened me to new perspectives of the city, and with that to a broader vision of Cuba, of what it is, and of what it could become.
Through this common passion, we became close friends. As I have seen Yasser consistently challenge drivers who disrespect cyclists on the road, I also witness the trials and obstacles he faces daily, not only as a cyclist, but also as an entrepreneur and a young activist with a vision for the future of his country.
Becoming a Havana hipster
Even though other cities may be swarming with cycling hipsters of Yasser’s style, in Cuba, he is an anomaly. First and foremost, cyclists are scarce in Havana. In this city, you have no bike lanes, no bike parking, no bike shops from which to buy bicycles or even parts, no urban bicycle culture… Cyclists are in constant conflict with taxis and buses (who do not respect their right to the road), they never know where they will be able to park their bikes, and they are considered a bit of an oddity by everyone else… You need a certain determination to become a cyclist in Havana, which unfortunately means that they are few and far between.
Too hipster to be habanero, yet too habanero to be hipster, Yasser does not follow any one trend and doesn’t look like anyone else in the city. He is Yasser, known in Havana as “the bike guy” aka “el tipo de la bici”.
It’s not that Yasser is the only cyclist in the city — there are other “crazies” like him. What makes Yasser unique is his defense of cycling as something more than a sport, but a lifestyle. While other Havana cyclists are always decked out from head to toe in sports spandex, Yasser defends cycling as an essential element of his day to day life, whether he is wearing jeans, beach clothes or dressed for an outing. And he is one of few to do so.
For Yasser, the bicycle is not only his primary means of transportation, it is his way of experiencing Havana on a day to day basis: its roads, its parks, its events, its cafés, its bars and restaurants, its nightlife. Because of this, the bicycle conditions where he goes and what he does. ‘Where do I park my bicycle outside that bar?’ ‘Which way is the fastest, safest or nicest route to this café?’ ‘Is that a bike-friendly party?’ Whatever the theme or event, the bicycle will play a central role.
Cycling is therefore at the core of Yasser’s identity today. Yet when he started riding, he considered it a simple means of transportation. He chose to use it because it made it easier to live in the Cuban capital, which he moved to as a teenager from the Isla de Juventud.
“When I started working in Havana, I started to ride my bike to work… Everyone thought I was crazy, because it was too hot to ride, because of this and that… I didn’t care about the heat, I just cared about moving around where I wanted when I wanted, not when public transit, a driver or a bus, would allow me to move… That was the most important to me: to be free to move when I chose”.
To Yasser, cycling meant freedom. Eventually, it turned into much more: a cause worth working and fighting for. From being a simple means of transportation, cycling became his job, then his business, and eventually his life and political cause. As it gained more and more importance, he started to realize that through the bicycle, you could re-think your way of living, your city, your relationship with the environment… He realized that Havana was behind and that things needed to change. And that perhaps he could help change them.
Cycling as a catalyst of alternative tourism in Cuba
In order to build a business around cycling and to offer something fresh and different, Yasser explored the different ways of integrating cycling with a new kind of tourism — explorations that allowed him to develop a stronger awareness around what cycling could represent in a city and community. The story of how his business, Citykleta, came about is crucial to understanding his activist cause today.
Originally a software engineer, Yasser’s growing passion for cycling and interest in tourism drew him away from computers and towards bicycles early in his career. After four years working as a web-designer for the Cuban State, he gave up technology to start working at the first privately-owned cycling business of Havana in 2014, helping his friend Ebert Trujillo found Rutabikes. At this time, private business was just starting to flourish. Raúl Castro had set up a first law for private business in 2011, which quickly gave way to small private restaurants and bars. It was not until Ebert thought about cycling in 2014 that a bike shop was created in Havana.
As Yasser helped launch Rutabikes, he also became involved with backpacking travel platforms such as Couchsurfing. Motivated by the lifestyle he discovered there, he joined in on a project to open a backpacker’s hostel and create a network for alternative tourism and young travelers on the island, a sector that is to this day very underdeveloped in the Cuban tourism industry.
Yasser found in these adventurous travelers a shared interest for cycling, and realized that the two went hand in hand. But as he saw the backpackers hostel project fail and Couchsurfing little by little lose strength, faced with the rise of Airbnb, he couldn’t yet put his idea to the test.
Meanwhile, Obama’s shift in policy towards Cuba, starting in 2015, gave way to a new wave of investment and a rush of American tourists, further driving a growing and dynamic private sector. Airbnb took this opportunity to cater to this new field: it was the birth of Airbnb “experiences” in Cuba. The company partnered with local and independent Cubans who could share their knowledge of the country to give tourists the option of “off the beaten path”, authentic experiences, far from the professional old-fashioned tourism industry.
Airbnb found a Cuban youth ready to jump at the opportunity; a youth full of ideas and a desire to receive this in-flow of new tourists to show them their Cuba. Young Cubans who were just waiting for that alternative platform, independent from the State, and an opportunity to start their own business… Young Cubans just like Yasser.
The increase in tourism gave Yasser the chance to venture out on his own — he left Rutabikes and started thinking of how to get his own business started, and finally put his vision to the test. He was just getting started when he was spotted by Airbnb, who approached him to be one of the select few — worldwide — to create one of Airbnb’s “pilot experiences”. This was Yasser’s moment to implement his vision of tourism through cycling. His “Maverick Biker” two-day long experience became a top selling Airbnb experience in 2017.
Airbnb and the struggles of the Cuban private sector
But Yasser could not ride on this wave of glory for long. As Airbnb continued to grow in Cuba and the Experiences became a hit, Yasser was confronted by the trademark of capitalism: competition. He was no longer the only “bike guy” on Airbnb; others started doing what he was doing for cheaper, and his Experience took a hit.
Despite the initial close relationship and partnership developed with Airbnb, in the days when he was needed to establish a concept, Yasser was now just one of the millions who used this platform, and he had no choice but adhere to their way of doing things. And he realized that their way of doing things was not always to the benefit of the small business owner.
“For example, Airbnb takes care of marketing and sales for you so you don’t have to take care of it as a business, which seems great at first. But it also means you become completely dependent on the platform… and the clients are never really yours, but the platform’s…” He laments: “Airbnb don’t see us as partners, but as products”.
To really bring his own vision to life — a vision in which he could create cycling experiences for tourists as well as locals and through this promote cycling culture within Cuba — he needs independence not just from the State, but also from Airbnb, the very platform that initially helped him make a start and gain visibility. The only way to move forward is by building his own website and identity. He now needs to find another space in which to make his dreams a reality.
From cycling to business to activism
Despite the ups and downs with Airbnb, his successful year as the “Maverick Biker” and skills he learned through this time enabled him to finally launch his own bicycle business and brand in 2018. This was the start of Citykleta; he returned part-time to his computer, designed his own website, and dreamed of tech projects that revolve around cycling.
Inspired by the movement and new energy of the “Obama years”, when young businesses, cultural projects and alternative outlets were flourishing all around the city, Yasser conceived Citykleta’s brand and identity around this incipient contemporary Cuba and what he thought a bicycle business should look like in today’s Havana. This means Yasser puts all his bets on social media, web platforms, alternative tourism and small business, as well as the growing Cuban middle class youth to sustain Citykleta. And most of all, on a desire to transform and create change in his suffering and worn out city.
Yasser’s philosophy: through his business, thrive for change. This is where his entrepreneurial endeavors meet his activist aims, and feed one another.
Meeting so many travelers passionate about cycling, Yasser became more and more conscious that his city is seriously lacking in the bicycle infrastructure needed to make cycling more safe, pleasant and essential in the Cuban capital. After a trip to Berlin in 2015, where he first came into contact with the idea of a “bicycle culture”, Yasser was inspired to establish a stronger bicycle culture back home. He soon faced the reality of what this would mean and the work that would be needed for such an endeavor, in a city that had no thought for cyclists. Thus Yasser starts to convert from cyclists and entrepreneur to activist.
“I started realizing Havana was hostile for bikes as I got to know other cities that were so bike-friendly… When I started cycling in Havana it seemed normal to me that the drivers and cars not respect you, that it was uncomfortable to move by bike… but as I have developed more awareness on the subject, I have become more demanding and aware, my position on the matter has become more critical and political.”
He saw that cycling could be more than just a lifestyle choice or personal preference; a culture of cycling is also a way of contributing to a healthier and friendlier city. Advocating for bike infrastructure and bike lanes is more than just about cyclists, but about the environment. And he came to the realization that if he was going to dedicate his life to working with bicycles in Havana, even in the tourism industry, this vision would have to play a central role.
So his goal with Citykleta? Sure, an interesting and fun bike experience for visitors is part of it. But what if he could leverage this to transform the image of cycling in the Cuban capital? Through tours for tourists, rides with locals, the normalization of cycling in general… he wants to show Havana that cyclists are present, and that the city needs to take the bicycle into account and plan for it.
Cycling in Havana: going beyond the prejudices
In a country where political participation for the common citizen is limited and politics is an opaque world, Yasser is betting on creating a space of awareness from below; a grassroots movement that will spread and resonate progressively until it reaches the top, however that may be.
“What I am trying to do is change at the level of the people. I aspire for people to change their ideas around bicycles and maybe someday one of those people has some sort of link with an influential politician…”.
The only way young Cuban entrepreneurs, completely outside of the political world, can have a chance of influencing their city in Cuba, is for them to focus on the people and the culture first. Yasser hopes to do just that.
“My aim is to motivate more people to use bicycles in the city, because it’s necessary. Not to promote it as a product, but as a lifestyle, a means of transportation, a way of having fun… That’s what I try to do… I want people to have fun with bikes. It gives Cubans another image of cycling, that it can be fun, I want people to smile, to laugh as they ride.”
Making cycling look fun… seems easy. But in Cuba, it is not that simple.
Most Cubans see bicycles as a burden and consider having to ride one a hardship. They may use the heat as an excuse, but more than the heat, it is trauma that holds most Cubans back from cycling around the city. Many Cubans associate cycling to the “Special Period”, the traumatic economic crisis of the 1990s, when petrol shortages meant that bicycles imported en masse from China were the only way of moving around the capital for several years. For those who lived this period, bicycles mean poverty and bring back memories of the grimmest period in contemporary Cuban history.
To change this perspective, specifically among youth, Yasser tries to show young people that cycling around the city can be cool, that you do not need to be an all-star athlete; you can dress casually and show up at the city’s trendiest party on your bicycle.
“I’m looking to show people how to use their bicycle in their daily lives. That normal people use it in their day to day, that they don’t consider it as a means of exercise or that they are better than others, that you don’t need to be physically prepared… Anybody can just pick up their bicycle and spend the weekend with it…”
Most importantly, he wants to spread the image that cycling is not a painful memory that Cubans need to erase, but an essential element of a new, refreshed, contemporary Cuba. A 21st century Havana that thrives to be clean and green. For this, he needs the ordinary Cuban to see that cycling is not the past, but the future.
With this goal in mind, he’s launched initiatives such as Bicicletear La Habana, the city’s bicycle critical mass, Vuelta de Noche, a regular night ride that mixes locals and tourists, Bici-picnics, a social event mixing friends, food, music and bicycles, and Buen Día Ciclista, a morning coffee gathering for cyclists who commute to work. The goal: to socialize and hang out with bicycles, discover the city through a different lens, meet fellow cyclists, and show the city that they exist. These events aim to forge a Havana community of urban cyclists that cannot be ignored.
As this community and phenomenon eventually become an essential part of the city’s social fabric, Yasser hopes to put pressure on the government and push them to react… Through the bicycle, he thrives to create more environmental awareness in a population that has little interest in the matter and city officials that seem not to worry much about how to make a greener city.
Advocating for change in Cuba
Bringing about change in Cuba is not always easy in this context: not only is room for political action extremely limited, but there is also no stability and safety on which to build your businesses and projects.
Trump’s roll-back on American tourism in Cuba, the high cost of internet, the uncertainty and instability of being a small business owner in Cuba, the lack of protection, and the lack of a will in the Cuban government to promote urban cycling… And now a global pandemic… these are a few of the many elements that make Yasser’s life and project difficult. And sometimes, many times, he feels defeated.
When I have asked why he has not left the country, like many young entrepreneurial Cubans who get tired of the never-ending obstacles, he is offended. “Why would I leave?” He retorts to my question. But the look in his eyes makes it clear that he himself knows why he would leave. He even laments that it’s difficult to find guides and people loyal to his project, as many of the young enthusiasts he rallies to his cause all want one thing: to leave the country the first chance they get.
In reality, Yasser stays because he is committed to Cuba. Not in the way it is today, but in the way it could be if more people like him stayed and made the effort to change what needs to be changed. And he knows that in Cuba, he has created a space for himself, he is someone. “The bike guy”. And by being someone, he may change and achieve something. Whereas if he moved to Europe and to a cycling paradise, he may be more comfortable, but he would just be one more person, one more guy on a bike in a sea of people.
“I am part of that generation that, in reality, could live a better life outside of Cuba… but what would I do outside? What would I invent there? Everything is already invented. Here I know what’s going on, what needs to be done, what’s wrong and what needs to be changed… the way things work is wrong, the way we think out our city is wrong… but it’s not enough to just complain about it, it’s about trying to change something.”
Yasser’s determination to stay is understandable: the more he gets involved with the question of cycling in Cuba, and all that it means, the more he feels committed to his country and his city.
“Even though I am no artist, I consider myself a creative person: I am always thinking of how to create something, innovate something. And one of the reasons I haven’t left is the fear of feeling frustrated once I’ve left because I didn’t try to change anything here. Which is tied with my desire for change here. If no one changes anything, if no one tries, then nothing will ever change”.
Even though he may still be far from having a thriving business and transforming Havana into a cycling paradise, Yasser does not give up. He knows that big achievements come from progressive and small actions, one after the other, and despite the difficulties and slow pace, he feels that his actions are creating a movement. One bicycle at a time. One critical mass at a time. And he knows that the more passionate youth like him stay to work and fight in Cuba, the more likely it is that Cuba and Havana will evolve in a positive way.
