Cubans get back on their bikes

Cárdenas, Cuba

THE humble bicycle is gradually shedding its grim association with Cuba's economic crisis that followed the fall of the Soviet Union, and making a comeback buoyed by demand from tourists and Cubans frustrated by poor public transportation.

Bicycles rattle by everywhere on the flat cobblestone streets of Cardenas, an industrial city on the north coast where a giant iron bicycle monument greets visitors.