Dubai Becomes a Different Destination When You Go on Bike

The Middle East’s glitzy City of Gold is more than just luxurious shopping and lounging

May 30, 2025 11:02 am EDT
What it's like to cycle the Pearl of the Persian Gulf
What it's like to cycle the Pearl of the Persian Gulf
Erik Trinidad/InsideHook

It was still dark when I arrived at a parking lot in Dubai’s Meydan district just before dawn and heard the familiar Muslim call to prayer coming from the speakers of a distant minaret. As the resonance of the age-old chants filled the sky, I noticed more and more individuals coming from their cars, gradually assembling at the same spot — only it was not for any religious reasons. Here, at Dubai’s rendezvous point for urban cycling, away from the glittering skyscrapers and luxury hotels of glossy magazine spreads, the local, Spandex-clad cycling community gathered with their bicycles for another type of daily pre-dawn ritual: to bike the 8.4 km (5.2 mile) Nad Al Sheba track (or the DxBike loop), multiple times until after the sunrise — and all before heading to the office. 

“It’s beautiful, the sun will come up on the right,” my new acquaintance Wolfgang informed me as we pedalled side by side for a brief moment in the predawn darkness, our faces occasionally flashing red from the blinking lights of the dozens of bikes whizzing along with us at 30 kph (18.6 mph). 

As an avid cyclist visiting Dubai, a destination known for leisure and luxuriation, I’d decided to be proactively active by biking its three cycling scenes: city, desert and mountain. In the city, I’d joined one of the several cycling groups that ride the popular DxBike loop in the early morning, before the desert sun really starts scorching. I rode with German expat Wolfgang Hohmann, founder and namesake of Wolfi’s — Dubai’s original pro bike shop — on a “Wolf Wednesday,” an open invite to ride with him and his casual peloton of about 50 cyclists from all walks of Dubai life. 

Pedaling with us were local Emeratis and resident expats from all around the world — Dubai’s population is over 90% expats, after all — and I took notice of different Europeans, Filipinos, Indians and Canadians. There were IT managers, creative types, some competitive Ironmen and Ironwomen, and even the Danish ambassador. For a visiting tourist like me, it was meeting the locals in this cycling group, and briefly partaking in their camaraderie, that truly immersed me in a slice of true Dubai life, something I couldn’t feel in the city’s usual tourist sites of glass and steel.

Paving the Bike Path

Historically, there was no cycling culture across the U.A.E. That changed in the early 2000s when a few expats, including Wolfgang Hohmann, started riding around the smaller roads on the outskirts of Dubai’s city center. Their enthusiasm for the sport caught attention from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and ultimately the royal family came to discover the benefits of cycling for the entire emirate and started developing facilities for the sport to grow. 

Meanwhile, Hohmann’s contagious passion for cycling, along with his lone bike shop that he founded in 2002, inadvertently spearheaded and fueled the cycling craze. Dubai’s cycling community grew in tandem with the expanding cycling infrastructure, and it continues to grow each year. In fact, there are even women cycling advocacy groups to inspire timid, local women to get on bicycles. 

“It’s easier when more people are doing it, because you feel like, ‘I could do it too,’” Hohmann told me. 

Today, Wolfi’s is not the only bike shop in town, and cycling in Dubai and neighboring Abu Dhabi has evolved to include, and even host, world-class cycling competitions. However, the sport remains open and inclusive to anyone, even a visitor, that is interested in partaking in it. 

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Cycles and the City

For my morning city ride, I’d biked with Hohmann’s “Wolf Gang” at the Nad Al Sheba track, a former loop once used for camel racing. It took us around Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid City real estate development, which was generally flat and fast, save for a few dips for underpasses. Some sections of the 8.4 km loop were lined with trees, while others were juxtaposed to construction sites, but the best sight of the early morning ride was when we came into view of the Dubai skyline, which only got brighter with each lap. By the time we rode our fourth and final lap, the sun had risen in the sky high enough to shine down on the planet’s tallest building, the shimmering Burj Khalifa.

The track is part of the Nad Al Sheba Cycle Park, which includes two other shorter loops, a couple of cafes, a bike rental and repair shop, and in Emerati fashion, free and convenient, regularly-maintained shower facilities so you can wash up after your session and continue your day clean. It’s the ultimate hub for urban cyclists in Dubai — even a tourist. 

A Cycling Oasis in the Desert

About a 40-minute drive south of the city, in the Al Marmoom Desert Conservation Reserve, lies a popular recreational oasis: Saih Al Salam, more commonly known as “Al Qudra,” comprising a series of man-made lakes, perfectly manicured for the day trippers and overnight campers who seek to escape urban chaos and assimilate with desert nature. One method for immersion into the relaxed, sand-filled setting is desert cycling; Al Qudra is home to a trail network of over 157 km (97.5 mi) paved trails and 11.6 km (7.2 mi) off-road trails, developed under the royal family to fulfill the expanding desires of the cycling community.

It’s easy to rent a bike upon arrival at Al Qudra; there’s an obvious Trek bike shop on the main road in town with plenty of rental bikes of different configurations. It was there that I picked up a girthy, albeit versatile, fat bike to handle the varied terrain of paved paths, gravel and packed sand. 

With a desert cycling group led by fitness coach and British expat Marcus Smith, I started on a section of the main paved bike path, but then ventured off-road to follow the gravel and sandy trails which hug and connect Al Qudra’s man-made lakes and irrigated orchards of Ghaf trees — the resilient, national tree of the U.A.E which symbolically thrives in the desert. Being out in nature, encounters with fauna were inevitable — this is desert antelope and sandfish skink territory — and we paused for the occasional wildlife sighting of desert gazelles crossing the trail before scurrying away in the brush. Flocks of ducks and flamingos were also plentiful, congregating at the artificial lakes, unaware that their formations were fabricated and intended to attract birds. 

At the midpoint of our desert cycling excursion, we arrived at one of Al Qudra’s highlights: Love Lake Dubai, the showcase man-made body of water, dug in the shape of two drawn, intersecting hearts when seen from above. It was there we made a pit stop for coffees and conversations with our fellow desert riders before backtracking towards town. Our total distance was only about 16 km (10 miles) over the course of a couple of morning hours, but that was long enough to be immersed in the desert landscape and feel completely removed from the city before it got too hot. 

The Mountains Are a-Callin’

With Dubai having the money and resources to fabricate lakes in the middle of the desert, one might assume they could also build mountains for mountain biking. However, in the eastern part of the emirate lies the nature-made Hatta Mountains, which not only spans the border between the U.A.E and Oman, but has been developed, at least on the U.A.E side, to be a mountain getaway for hiking, kayaking, climbing, paragliding, ziplining, glamping and other forms of outdoor fun. Like Al Qudra, the Hatta Mountains have been developed under the royal family to make outdoor activities easy and accessible, and mountain biking is no exception.

It’s about a 90-minute drive from Dubai city to Sufayri, the staging ground for adventures at the base of the mountains denoted by the big “HATTA” letters standing high like California’s Hollywood sign. There, at the Hatta Wadi Hub activity center, I rented a dual-suspension mountain bike at Hubbers, a full-service bike shop where I also arranged to ride with a guide, Oyelakin “Rex” Riliwan, an expat from Nigeria. 

Rex was great company as we biked sections of Hatta’s continually-expanding network of over 50 km (31 miles) of MTB trails for varied skill levels. He started me on green beginner trails in the foothills, but eventually increased the difficulty on blue and red ones in higher terrain, sometimes on harrowing ridges. The dusty, auburn trails took me left, right, up and down the undulating, rugged landscape where brown rocks were constantly in my peripheral vision, with the occasional dab of green desert shrubbery. At one intersection at an elevation of about 304 m (1,000 feet), we took a break at the oryx paddock so I could say hi to the indigenous mountain antelopes. 

While the single-track trails were well-maintained and clearly defined with good signage, I still managed to lose my bearings every now and then since I was distracted — and perhaps a little winded — by the breathtaking desert mountains. However, all the collective pedaling uphill was not only worth it for the spectacular view of the valley, but the adrenaline rush downhill, controlled by banking on the wooden planks of constructed berms.

As I sat under the shade, eating a post-ride shakshuka at a picnic table near Hatta Wadi Hub’s food truck park, I had completely forgotten that I was in Dubai — far removed from its usual glossy magazine image. Dubai, like any destination, is what you make of it, and if you seek to immerse yourself in cycling — its community and its beautiful natural scenery outside the city — the emirate becomes an entirely different destination. You don’t necessarily need to be good at cycling to embrace it; as a saying written on the wall back at the city’s Nad Al Sheba Cycle Park goes, “It’s not a race, it’s a journey, enjoy the moment!”

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