The student and I are waiting on the Lija bus stop. We both need to go to the university in Msida. It’s 8am. We have already been waiting way over the time the bus was scheduled to arrive.

Both are edgy: he, I suppose, has a lecture; I am on a mission to time the journey.

The vehicle finally lumbers to the bus stop after 35 minutes of overdue waiting time. We hop in and plough through the traffic and, only thanks to the bus lanes, it takes us 20 minutes to arrive at our destination.

On day two I get the car. The same student is at the bus stop as I drive past – or rather, crawl past, for I immediately get stuck at the Lija roundabout. The trail down the bypass to reach the campus takes 45 minutes. Then, another snag: there is no parking spot.

After driving round the ring road for the umpteenth time, I give up, park in Swatar and walk to the university campus, flanked by car-owner students who seem resigned to doing this on a daily basis.

On day three, my journey to the university starts in front of the Lija church on my city bike. I am accompanied by Saviour Agius, a member of the Bicycle Advocacy Group (BAG).

Mr Agius, 30, from San Ġwann, cycles almost everywhere he goes. “Malta is essentially one big, busy city, and during the rush hour, it takes me half the time to cycle that it does to drive,” he says.

In recent months, BAG has noticed more and more people taking to cycling, possibly egged on by the frustration of the increase in traffic. However, they are concerned that many of the new cyclists are using the main roads instead of secondary routes, which are quicker and safer.

When you get to the office or home, all you want to do is rant and rant

We set off to the university via the life-friendlier pathways. We cycle down to the bus stop next to the Lija cemetery, cross the traffic lights on foot because the zebra crossing is for pedestrians only. We then cycle up to where the former Scan computer shop used to be and from there take the backroads.

It’s a pleasant cycle in the valley, past a field full of defunct Arriva bendy buses still awaiting their fate. Most of the ride is car-free, until we get to the back of the San Ġwann industrial estate, where we have to cross the busy road to get to the Mater Dei Hospital ring road. Fifteen minutes from the start of our journey in Lija, we are on campus, and this without pedalling furiously or even sweating.

According to BAG, university demographics show that the majority of students live in the vicinity of the three villages. “There can easily be an official cycling track from the Naxxar area to the university. The terrain is flat, there are no uphill struggles, all that’s needed is to illuminate the track and install cyclists’ traffic lights,” Mr Agius says.

We’re not done. From the Tal-Qroqq campus we cycle to Valletta. The ride is not as jolly.

We start off by crossing the skate park, again on foot because cycling is not allowed in a skate park. In Msida, we cycle through the side streets, but we must constantly be on the lookout for motorists parking and suddenly opening their car doors as we cycle past. The huge, wide pavements on the Msida seafront are only for pedestrians, leaving cyclists pedalling furiously next to zooming traffic.

At one point, I narrowly miss being crushed against the pavement by a bus.

There is another first-world problem: texting. With every chance they get, car drivers reach for their mobiles. That means their eyes are glued to their mobile phone displays and they are not alert to their surroundings and, of course, the proximity of cyclists.

“Drivers keep their mobiles in their laps to avoid warden fines, so they aren’t checking the mirrors for bicycles,” Mr Agius points out, highlighting the perils for cyclists. On the other hand, cyclists are focused on the road all the time. “Cyclists definitely take a break from social media,” he quips.

It take us 25 minutes from Tal-Qroqq to Valletta. We’re only held back because I’m on a normal city bike, whereas Mr Agius has a pedelec – a bicycle with an electric motor. For the uninitiated, this is a bicycle’s equivalent to the Batmobile. It zooms about with a minimum of effort, and it even folds into a small shoulder bag size so that, if caught in the rain, he can easily hop on a bus with it.

The pedelec does two things very well: it flattens out nasty hills, of which we have many, and it extends your range. This is what we need for Malta, where driving to and from work in a car has become a tense affair and makes people prone to road rage.

According to The Sunday Times of London, stress caused by traffic is a way of giving yourself type 2 diabetes. “When you get to the office or home, all you want to do is rant and rant. Plus, of course, we miss out on productivity just sitting in traffic jams,” says Mr Agius.

Malta is essentially one big, busy city, and during the rush hour, it takes me half the time to cycle that it does to drive

Other countries have long realised that the bicycle is the way forward. In London, there is a cycling superhighway. In the Netherlands and Denmark, millions of children ride their bikes to school daily on wide cycle paths totally separated from motor traffic.

It’s all about the infrastructure: when a bike road meets a car road, there are dedicated bike crossings and those in motor vehicles give way. And there is none of the hodgepodge of paint that prioritises cars and disappears into nowhere halfway down the road.

But what can we do to cycle safely until one day we have the right infrastructure in Malta?

The Bicycle Advocacy Group encourages people to use their Facebook page to seek advice on the best routes cyclists can take. “The more of us there are on the road, the better it will be for cars. If more two-wheeled commuters took to the road, we’d have a cleaner, healthier, happier city that is easier to navigate,” he argues.

Day four. I head to the Lija bus stop again. The student is already there, kicking a stone. As we wait, I tell him I found a way to get to the university on time. His eyes light up. I mention the bicycle. “Forget it,” he says. “I’d be a laughing stock. It’s not cool.”

Hmm. Maybe the young generation needs to recall what guitarist Bob Weir once said: “Bicycles are almost as good as guitars for meeting girls.”

Cycling success in Odense, Denmark

Odense, a city of 200,000 people, has almost 350 miles of bike lanes and 123 cyclist-only bridges.

About 80 per cent of children ride to school and there are training programmes in place to get even two-year-old kindergarten entrants to trundle to and from home on a balance bike. The official policy is that routes to schools should be sufficiently safe for those aged six or older to cycle alone if the family chooses.

Cycling extends to the other end of the demographic curve: senior citizens. When they can’t cycle anymore because of their age they push their bike along as a walking frame, leaning on it and, instead of feeling old and frail, they feel normal.

Odense has spent many years building up its cycle infrastructure and culture but has had continuous political support for any cycling initiative.

Five golden rules for motorists

1. Drive carefully. Treat cyclists as legitimate road users and don’t hassle them in any way. If there is a cycling lane, don’t drive close to the white line.

2. Take care when emerging from a side road. Remember cyclists are less visible than cars.

3. Take care when opening your car door. Look behind and make sure a cyclist is not approaching. Abruptly opened doors are a cause of serious injuries to cyclists.

4. Do not hoot at cyclists to get out of your way: they are going as fast as they can.

5. Do not text and drive – for your own safety and that of cyclists.