7.5.2010 von Ines.

We usually have a bike ride on the last Friday of the month. But because last week was not possible. Shannon and I organized the monthly STC ride on this Friday night. It is called Friday Light Ride because it A, is an easy ride for any person on whatever kind of bike and B, we encourage people to use lights which makes the group stand out from any other cyclist or electric bike person.

The weather tonight was perfect for an evening bicycle ride through the city. We met up at the drum and bell tower with the other cyclists.

Then we rode towards the West and along the shore of the West lake and then towards the South to the Financial district.

Most people said they did not know about the Financial street called Jinrong Jie. It has extended in the past years with more and more glass/metal high rises. It is a nice place to ride along during the evening. Then we headed down the Chang’an Jie. And took some pictures.

We had quite a big group and except for one flat tire we all had a great ride.We organize these Friday Light Rides to show people how easy it is to get around town even at the 7pm rush hour time. We hope that more people chose the bike rather than taking a car or taxi.

We then went to a small courtyard restaurant called Hao Di in Huangchenggenbei hutong having barbecued things like lamb skewers, chicken wings, mushrooms, seafood and others. It was great fun for those cyclists who came to have dinner with us.

After the dinner a smaller group went to have ice cream, mainly the foreigners. The Chinese find it funny that foreigners like to have something sweet after dinner. And then I went to meet some friends in Nanluoguxiang hutong in the Salud bar where we got discounted drinks. What a perfect day (it had started with the 5:30 am 130 km bike ride).

Geschrieben in Green, Cycling, China, Beijing | 1 Kommentar »

7.5.2010 von Ines.

Shannon Ricky and I said we meet for an early morning road bike ride all the way up North-West to Miaofeng Mountain. We had a 5:30 am meeting point just at the famous Beijing Hotel. I had luck because I found an electric bike rider that was riding at 30 km/h that I could draft behind all the way to the meeting point. Shortly before our meeting point I noticed a road cyclist standing on the sidewalk. My first thought was “great to see Chinese people in lycra this early on a weekday”. My second thought was “was that maybe Shannon? Maybe he does not know where the Beijing Hotel is”. And then by the time I thought my 3rd thought I was almost at the meeting point. Shannon came after a while and was unhappy that I passed him without stopping to help with his flat tire. Both me and Ricky gave him our pumps. Mine is the kind where you need to turn the inside of the head around if you switch from American to French valves. Well it is probably not the best thing to do early in the morning standing right over a sewage grid. Well the obvious happened, I dropped the pump head and it nicely rolled into the slits and dropped into the sewage water.

After a long flat ride as a peloton I suddenly hit a rock a got a pinch flat. Now that my pump had no head anymore and Ricky’s wasn’t working Shannon helped me pump up the new inner tube. But with his pump he broke my inner tube valve. So I took off the new now broken tube and patched the original inner tube and put it back. Then it was not far to the foot of the Miaofengshan where we split up so that each of us could try to beat their own best time. I was already feeling quite tired so I only did the 13km uphill ride from the gate to the village.

Shannon and Richy continued the additional 6 km continuous uphill to the temple at the top. It was quite windy on the mountain and I was happy when they both came back.

As we approached Beijing city the traffic started getting worse and worse. And what I find annoying is all the cars parked and driving in the bike lane. Like here, this picture shows a pure bike lane, but it has people parked on the left and right side plus cars riding in the center. Where should the cyclists ride their bike?

Or here in this picture the white line on the left divides the car lane from the bike lane. But the cars are all jammed up and standing in the bicycle path. No cyclist can ride through this mess. So it was even worse that after today’s 130km bike ride that Shannon insisted that we try out the route for tonight’s STC ride and we had to squeeze ourselves through the city traffic jams.

Geschrieben in Cycling, Outdoors, China, Beijing | Keine Kommentare »