Well done to the organisers of the Żabbar pilgrimage once again for a safe and well-organised event. However, I think the timesofmalta.com article was a bit short of the mark in describing it as an event attended by hundreds; thousands may be a better description. In nine years of regularly attending I have never seen so many people on bikes. I would really appreciate some idea of the actual total number of people on bikes on that day, it might be interesting, and give a realistic account of how hard the organisers actually work.

Importantly, although the pilgrimage is usually typified by people dusting off an old junker and riding that, this year there were far more “serious” cyclists, wearing helmets, on well-maintained bikes, with families etc... and this seems to coincide with seeing far more riders on the road as daily commuters this year.

With this in mind and coming between the pilgrimage and car-free day, a new bicycling advocacy group (called just that) has been launched on Facebook to gauge interest from local “commuting” cyclists in perhaps forming a more formal pressure group and trying to gauge or research cycling issues. Some of “BAG (Malta)” members already regularly meet with Transport Malta officials.

The Bicycling Advocacy Group (Malta) is open to all cyclists to air views on cycling improvements. These can be wide ranging and can include what their problems are, how accidents have happened to them and how they can help with training potential cyclists or becoming local cycling ambassadors. While encouraging people to join the page there is but one rule. BAG (Malta) is about mutual respect for all road users, so “bike bashing” and “car bashing” is not allowed; constructive commentary on how we can share roads is.