New Beijing Fixed Gear Rider & Ines Fixie Tricks

15.6.2008 von Ines.

What a coincidence. I was riding past my favorite bike shop when I saw a fixed gear bike standing outside with almost all the staff looking at it. This is the second time a meet a fixed gear rider at my favorite bike shop. But the staff say they only know the two that I had met.

This cool fixie is called Jason. He has a shop called CHEESE with clothes, shoes and cool accessories at Jianwai SOHO. So I rode there to have a look.

Here is his shop with his two vintage fixed gear bikes. He was studying design in the England, so he was riding with the London Fixed Gear Group. He bought these beautiful bikes in the UK.

And here is Jason who just came back to Beijing. His shop has been open for more about 2 years and he will be getting more and more fixed gear accessories. He already sells messenger bags, pink, green and white 700c outer tubes and saddles. He wants to also sell vintage fixed gear bikes in China.

Jason and his friend had to ride to the west of the city so a rode a bit with them all of us on fixed gear. Here are more pictures. I took a picture of my bike wheels with my wide angle lens while riding. I find the distortion funny, almost looks like some funny glasses…

In the evening I was playing around on my pink fixed gear and we took some short video clips. As I have problems with the formatting of this blog when I embed the the videos, so I will have to request you to click on the following links to see the video clips I uploaded to youtube:

1. Video: Riding on a Fixie in Beijing’s Traffic

2. Video: Doing Tricks on a Track Bike at Night

3. Video: Trying some Reverse Seated Tricks on a Track Bike

4. Video: Riding Around Beijing doing a Catwalk Wheely for more than 1:40 min

伊泉的自行车特技表演

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Bike Festival in Yanqing 自行车市民骑行活动在八达岭

14.6.2008 von Ines.

I was requested to perform at a “bicycle city resident bike ride activity” North of Beijing near the Badaling Great Wall in a small town called Yanqing. This event was a GREEN event to promote bike riding as good for health and to emphasize Green Olympics (environmentally friendly Beijing Olympic Games 2008). As the bike festival started early we had to get there already on Friday and stay at a farmer’s place.

There was a nice map of all the farmers places (note the English translation on the left side: “The view area flat surface indicates diagram”. Not sure what that means.)

Foreigners have to be registered at the local police station for every night they stay in China. So the local police man came to the farmer’s house to check our passport and visa. I really liked the posters on the door of our room as well as on the walls:

The ceremony for the green bike event was the next morning. There were some speeches, flatland BMX guys did a short show and then I did a trick bike performance on the wet ground. But at least there was no rain when I was performing. After my performance it started to drizzle again and the bike ride with about 400 riders from Beijing and Yanqing started. Here is a link to all the pictures.

The big wall for the ceremony had a nice picture of four cyclists. And all four look the same and are in the same position and wear identical clothes (well except the helmet color). And the words “Giant” on the pants are written in reverse. As well as the number which is on the handlebar which again is the same (and in reverse) for all cyclists. And the street looks so real.

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Beijing Duck Dinner and Chinese Rock Music

11.6.2008 von Ines.

One of the most famous food in Beijing is the Roast Duck. It is always served like this:

If you are having the dinner with friends or customers or colleagues you will probably have to drink some high percentage white rice alcohol - called baijiu. If your friends like you then they will get high class one in nice bottles and not the cheap Erguotou.

After dinner we went for some drinks in Houhai. I could not walk past a shop - I had to go in - I had to buy some more Chinese Rock music. Especially as my favorite band Second Hand Rose finally have their 2nd CD out.

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Unicycle Article in Outdoor Magazine

10.6.2008 von Ines.

Before I finally got my track bikes I rode around Beijing on another type of fixed gear: The unicycle 独轮车. Especially the long distance unicycle with a 36 inch diameter wheel is quite fast.

In the Outdoor magazine they had a special section about environmentally friendly ways of getting to work and other “green” things. This was already in January, but I just got to know of it now.

Julien is working on various green projects as well as finding ways how to protect oneself from pollution. And he has a blog about pollution in China. He is convinced about alternative transportation methods, e.g. roller blades, bike and also using unicycle to get to work. So they published pictures of him on his unicycle and me on my 36″ huge coker style unicycle. 绿色的伊泉骑一个轮子

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Hutong Cycle Ralley

8.6.2008 von Ines.

“Hutong” actually comes from fire alley. It stands for the traditional housing of Beijing. Unfortunately more and more are torn down in order to modernize the city. I love the hutongs. Life seems still laid back and quiet. You can even cycle around wearing your pyjama and smoking

Here is a bike repair shop having his laundry hanging in his street side shop

We were participating in a bicycle ralley (Schnitzeljagd) through the hutongs. Click here to see more pictures of the hutongs we passed. I was riding my pink fixed gear bike. We did see many other cyclists wearing the cap with wind shield to protect the face from the sun so that it stays nice and white

Our bike ralley team wearing the nice t-shirts (great to have car companies sponsor bike events… The last one I did was sponsored by Skoda)

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Charity Gala Dinner for the Earthquake Victims

7.6.2008 von Ines.

In the past few weeks there have been a lot of charity and fund raising events for supporting the victims of the Sichuan May 12th earthquake. We joined a Gala Dinner in a very beautiful courtyard style Palace Hotel.

Everybody received a candle and placed it in front of a wall with some pictures of the earthquake.

And there was a kung fu performance by Chinese boys not by a Panda

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Green Cycling TV Show with Bike Performance 伊泉 室内自行车表演

5.6.2008 von Ines.

The cycling event of Radio Beijing (RBC) ended with a recording of a 90 min TV show. Each cycling group came on stage and had somebody do something special, like sing or play an instrument. In between they had various singers and a Kungfu group.

For our group I performed with my trick bike. It was a little bit tricky on the glass floor. 绿色的伊泉的自行车特技表演

The show will be broadcasted in China on CCTV6 in about 3 to 4 weeks. For more pictures of my bicycle performance click here. After the recording we took some pictures again:

Then we again had a dinner and took more pictures. And again I had to drink more baijiu than expected - but at least much better one than the common Erguotou.

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Cycling 170km on Fixed Gear from Fengrun to Beijing

3.6.2008 von Ines.

We knew this is going to be tough day with long cycling (170km) and very high chance of rain. So we started very early to get as far as possible before the rain started. There was quite some air pollution and I was very happy that I was cycling with my anti-pollution mask.

The road quality of this national road connecting the two Olympic cities – Beijing and Qinghuangdao – was a bit worse than the first day. And that was just about 150km away from Beijiing. Click here to see all the pictures.

We took some pictures to show the “motion”:

There was always enough time for some posing for pictures during the breaks just on the road.

When we got to the suburbs of Beijing and traffic lights turned red we all tried track stands. One of the Chinese girls on her mountain bike had really good balance despite the fact that (like most of the others) she just started cycling as a hobby less than a year ago.

Our oldest cycling team members were over 60 years old. They were really fit, had nice bikes and were always joking around. One had really cool stylish bike shoes.

The whole group was really nice. Especailly with our bike coach who was guiding us. We actually did not encounter any rain. We were all very happy to arrive at the hotel in Beijing after 170km.

The complete event had groups riding from 4 other Olympic cities: Shanghai, Shenyang, Qingdao and Tianjin. Each group consisted of 2 people from Beijing and 10 people from that city. After we arrived Beijing we had dinner all together with baijiu (Schnapps) and beer and many many pictures taken. See here for more pictures.

There were about 5 other women participating in the event as well as one other foreigner: An American living in Qingdao.

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Cycling 142km on Fixed Gear from Qinhuangdao to Fengrun

2.6.2008 von Ines.

Before starting cycling we had to visit a local elementary school. That was “to have a look”. It felt like we were going to the zoo. The kids posed for us and then we attended a class. As time was not enough we did not ride the bikes there – we drove there in brand new cars…

It was beautiful weather with blue sky and sunshine. We cycled 142km from Qinhuangdao to Fengrun. At the end of the day almost all of us had a slight sun burn on the left arm and left leg (because we were cycling towards the west all day). Click here to see all the pictures.

They were a bit astonished to see that I had no gears and had to constantly pedal on my track bike. Most of them have never seen such a fixed gear bike before. It was so much fun to ride my fixie! Four guys had race bikes - seven others mountain bikes.

 

Along the way Qinghuangdao team leader stopped to repair a motorbike of a farmer.

And also – because this green bike event is arranged by the Radio Beijing and Radio Qinghuangdao – we got interviewed during breaks:

 

and filmed along the ride.

 

And sometimes we could listen what was broadcast about us and this bicycling event on the car radio:

 

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Radio Qinhuangdao Ceremony

1.6.2008 von Ines.

For this “green” bike event we had a ceremony in Qinhuangdao. It was early morning on the People’s Square. The executives of Radio Beijing as well as Radio Qinhuangdao were present and also people from Moen Milk. The Moen Milk is one of the main sponsors of this “ride bicycle for environment” event (as well as Skoda ironically).

There were less bicycle enthusiasts attending than in Beijing, but again I performed with my fixed gear trick bike in front of the stage. The Qinhuangdao cyclists (all Chinese) that were selected to ride bike with me to Beijing posed for pictures with the organizers. All the pictures to be seen here.

In the evening there was a beautiful sunset. It was nice to see that most houses had the solar water heaters on the roofs. And you could see the mountain range in the west - the direction that we will be heading tomorrow by bicycle.

 

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