On a rural stretch of highway north of Kabul, Marjan Sadeqi pumped her legs faster, putting even more distance between her road bike and the pack chasing her. It was only a training ride, but she was feeling strong and giddy at being so far in front. As a 21-year-old woman living in Afghanistan, Sadeqi relished the rare feeling of freedom. Exhilarated, she held on tight, put her head down and pedaled even harder.

Trucks whizzed past, pulling her into their slipstream, then letting her go. Some honked encouragement. She wished the drivers knew that she was a professional athlete. She wished they knew that she was training for the Asian Cycling Championships in New Delhi the next month. Then they would all honk, she thought. Sadeqi imagined that this was what it must feel like to be a man: open, confident, capable. She smiled. On the bike, she was unstoppable.

Cyclists in the Afghanistan National Cycling Federation are expected to furnish their own bike and equipment, and commit to twice-weekly training rides. Claudia Lopez

Then three men on motorbikes pulled up beside her. The man closest to her yelled at her to stop. He shouted that what she was doing was wrong. Smile gone, Sadeqi stared straight ahead. She kept pedaling. "Whore," the man snarled. The others hurled more taunts. Sadeqi held her line. Then one of them rammed her with his motorbike.

Sadeqi remembers being struck, tumbling off her bike and through the air, hitting the ground. Then black. Her teammates saw it all from behind -- the outraged men on motorbikes, the collision, the men speeding away. Sadeqi crumpled on the pavement, injured, her bike destroyed.

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The Afghan National Cycling Federation is the only one of Afghanistan's 11 bike-racing teams that permits women to train and race. The team is based in Kabul, the center of Western influence in Afghanistan, and where most of the country's progressive families live. Outside a handful of neighborhoods in Kabul, there is little tolerance for women on bikes anywhere in Afghanistan. Taliban influence says women are supposed to stay indoors, out of sight, except when absolutely necessary. Cultural taboos say it is obscene for a woman to straddle a saddle, and any woman who does is considered amoral.

"The fact that their families have allowed them to ride bikes makes these women, and their parents, very unique in Afghanistan," says Heather Barr, a researcher in Kabul with Human Rights Watch.

When Marjan Sadeqi was attacked on a training ride in February 2013, the Afghanistan National Cycling Federation wasn't trying to make a provocative statement about women's rights. The federation was just trying to let athletes who wanted to ride bikes ride bikes. It started several years ago, when the teenage daughter of coach Abdul Sediq asked her father if she could try cycling.

Coach Sediq didn't see why not. To him, riding a bike isn't about morals; it's about health and wellness and having fun. He started biking in Afghanistan as a kid and was racing before the war with the Soviet Union. He remembers better times, before the Taliban influence rose in response to the Russians. Back then, both male and female athletes pedaled through Afghanistan's bucolic countryside.

Marjan Sadeqi was attacked by men on motorbikes during a training ride. Claudia Lopez

Against the wishes of his wife, who thought it was potentially dangerous and a waste of time, Sediq taught their daughter to ride. She became the first female member of the Afghanistan National Cycling Federation. Word spread through her school, and across neighborhood beauty parlors, where liberal Afghan women gather to share news. Curious female athletes began to approach the coach. They wanted to try biking too.

Sediq developed a careful screening process. After gauging a young woman's sincerity and athletic aptitude, he meets with her family to explain the training program and requirements. Cyclists are expected to furnish their own bikes and equipment, and commit to twice-weekly training rides. After a two-year period, if they have not shown enough potential, they are released from the program. "Some parents refuse to let their daughter participate," Sediq says. "But they are still proud that she was chosen -- they know that I turn away many more girls than I accept."

Both the girls and their families understand the risks. Because it is dangerous for young women to be out in public without a male escort, Sediq drives a support vehicle during training rides. He saw the attack on Sadeqi from behind the wheel of the sag wagon. He chased down the offender and called the police. "This is the culture of 30 years of war," he says. "It is the reason why some people don't want to give women the right to play sports, to ride bikes. The narrow-mindedness, it is fear."

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Marjan Sadeqi, called Mariam by her friends and family, woke up in the hospital. A nurse administered glucose and fluids through an IV, and medication for the sharp pain in her lower back. Sadeqi was worried. Not because she had just been brutalized for riding a bike, but because she thought her back was broken and that she would no longer be able to compete in the Asian Cycling Championships. "I knew my attacker would be put in prison," she says. "That wasn't my problem. As a female cyclist in Afghanistan, you have already accepted the risks. What's important is that you don't get discouraged, that you don't stop riding."