What a fascinating post... I will try to respond as well as I can.. sorry if this is a bit rambling...

I would love to know more about the Egyptian bike advocacy group, and especially to see any photos you might have of the tricked-out desert Oasis bikes!  

I too, have a bike that is unusual, by local standards, an orange and black Tiger-striped Bernie Mikkelsen frame with a Sturmey 3-speed hub and an old Super Record derailleur as a chain tensioner.  It reminds me of 'home,' Berkeley, California.

In contrast to the reactions of kids in Cairo, Dutch people are horrified by this bike, and find it very ugly.  They think it has too many colors!  ( ie it should be all black!)  

It is true, getting a drivers' license in Holland is an expensive proposition... €1900 euros for mandatory driving instruction, and the traffic theory book one must study is hundreds of pages long... ( and in Dutch)  I have been pondering whether it would be worth it to try, myself.

About the Fatwa... I am a little nervous about even discussing this with my friend Mina.. for fear of sounding insensitive.. I grew up in Berkeley in the 60's where ALL religions were treated as fairy tales...  except ones such as EST... I will approach this subject very delicately... for fear of making a faux pas.  

Before reading the link Christine posted, I had no idea there was serious discussion of sexuality vis a vis bike saddles, , let alone different factions in this debate!  

Any woman knows that in fact the 'sit-bones' of the back of one's pelvis are what contacts the saddle, but apparently, no one is asking US.

Also, you may be well aware of the relationship in the U.S. between Amelia Bloomers' invention of pants that women could wear based on a Turkish Design, I might add...

and women's being able to politically organize by bicycle and getting the right to vote in 1927.  It may not have been possible, if women had not been riding bicycles...

Yes, there is a long history of women's gaining increased mobility and freedom via bike riding...

( Google translate does get a little vague when translating from Arabic....)  

I have a question:  Is there any person who claims, or will admit,  that riding on a bike saddle is personally sexually exciting for him or her ?      

ie: Is this a figment of a cleric's imagination, or is this actually true for some people??

(Or, am I missing out on something?!)

There is a Dutch-made saddle, that I now have an entirely different understanding about...  I had thought this was designed for riding over cobblestones!