Can you ride a bike on Shabbat?
Answer:
It is not permitted to ride a bicycle on Shabbos.
Please see sources for more details.
Best wishes.
Sources:
A variety of reasons is suggested by the great majority of authorities who prohibit the practice of riding a bicycle on Shabbos. These reasons reflect the complexity of the case.
One potential problem with bicycle riding stems from the grooves that the wheels create in dirt, a violation of plowing (harisha) on Shabbat. Although Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer (Orach Chaim 49) forbade bike riding for this reason, most authorities rejected this explanation, arguing that this unintentional and undesired consequence occurs too infrequently to be considered a problem. Just as it is permitted to push strollers and wheelchairs, so too, riding a bicycle will not involve a problem on this account.
Many poskim, however, ruled stringently because bikes frequently break and require immediate fixing. Fixing a chain, for instance, violates Shabbos restrictions, and the frequency of these problems is a reason to prohibit the practice, just as the Sages prohibited horse riding lest someone pull off a tree branch to strike the animal, or playing musical instruments for fear of fixing them.
Other rabbis, however, contended that we do not make new decrees today to prevent future mishaps, and therefore rejected this reasoning.
An additional line of argumentation forbade bike riding because it violates the spirit of Shabbos. We find that one must honor Shabbos by designating special clothing, by designating our speech as special for Shabbos, and by walking at a different pace (Shabbos 113a). Similarly, many actions are forbidden on account of their constituting weekday-like activities – uvdin de-chol. Regarding bike riding, many argue that the strain of the activity as well as its recreational purpose make it unworthy for Shabbos.
A notable exception is the Ben Ish Chai – Rabbi Yosef Chayim of Bagdad – who writes in Rav Pealim (Vol. 1, no. 25) that it is permitted to ride a bicycle in an area where there is an eiruv for the purpose of fulfilling an “important mitzvah.” There is room to argue that this referred to very simple bicycles, for which there is little chance of having to fix them.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Chazon Ovadia, Shabbos Part 4 p. 43 and Yabia Omer Vol. 10, in comments on Rav Pe’alim) writes that the practice is forbidden based on the above directive whereby one’s walking on Shabbos must be distinct from weedkays. Since bicycle-riding is meant for traveling a long distance, which is not the usual way of walking on Shabbos, it is forbidden to ride bicycles on Shabbos.
Thus, though it is not permitted to ride a bicycle on Shabbos, it is important to realize that it remains qualitatively very different from driving a car, for instance, which constitutes a full violation of the Shabbos.
