China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

Today we had again snow in Beijing, but the temperature was just above zero so the snow was slightly melting.

But it was nice to cycle both on the big avenues as well as in the smaller streets.

Today is the Chinese National Day October 1st. The People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, which is 60 years ago. We were hoping to be able to catch a glimpse of the Anniversary Parade so we headed out by bike. Wangfujing shopping street was closed off for the public.

But the school children that are part of the parade were just arriving in buses and heading to their starting points on Changan Jie.

We were riding around the hutongs that were still very relaxed. Not so many people were out in the hutong. I think most people were staying at home to watch the 60 Year festivities on TV.

Also near the Forbidden City it was not possible to have a look at Changan Jie where the parade would be marching along later.

We did get to see a glimpse of the end of the parade before they started.

It was very nice to cycle on the empty Beijing roads that are usually heavily congested.

From one of the tall buildings we were able to have a nice view of Beijing city on this sunny and clear day. We could even we the West mountains very clearly. I love Beijing on blue sky days!

Unfortunately I had not brought my camera so I could only take pictures with my mobile phone. In the distance there was the line-up ready for the parade on the huge Beijing Changan Boulevard.

This is the last day before the big celebration of the founding of the People’s Republic of China 60 years ago. And this is an especially round number as it means that the year of the foundation was also a Chinese Earth-Ox year just like this year. Each element-animal combination only re-occurs every 60 years.

Beijing is covered with volunteers in yellow sweat shirts to make sure the city is secure. It is mainly the elderly population. And they are always on the watch out during their shifts.

For the last rehearsal before the big event some roads and public transport was shut down from 3pm onwards. 87 of Beijing’s metropolitan bus lines were affected by that. Everybody had been informed that there might be problems to move around and you are definitely required to carry your passport with you as a foreigner at all times. Some other preparation measures were described in this article. And some really great pictures of preparations in different places in China is found here. Especially the pictures at the end are great.

Actually I had no issue getting to the spinning class by bike as I was not crossing the Changan Boulevard. The streets were much emptier than usual. I am looking forward to the celebrations tomorrow.

The original article is found on China Daily. But I like it so much that I copied it to be read straight in this blog:

With rainfalls predicted in Beijing on the eve of National Day, ensuring a sunny day for the coming parade is becoming a challenge for the capital.

The Beijing Meteorological Bureau has predicted that rainfalls will hit the capital tomorrow, but may stop on Thursday, Oct 1.

Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration, said yesterday that the weather for the National Day parade is a challenge with the complicated weather situation.

Meanwhile, China Air Force is preparing to manipulate the weather to ensure a sunny day for the coming Oct 1.

In order to keep clouds, rain and fog away from the sky, the air force has prepared 18 converted transport planes and 48 fog-clearing vehicles with more than 260 soldiers to attend to weather-control measures, Xinhua reported.

So far 10 of the 18 planes have arrived at the Shanxi airbase for preparation for rain reduction on National Day, while the rest are at Zhangjiakou waiting for a commander from Beijing Municipal Meteorological Bureau, it reported.

„The Air Force pays high attention to the artificial weather manipulation and we believe that the more equipment applied, the larger the area we can manipulate and the better weather we can have,“ Cui Lianqing, deputy director of meteorological department in China Air Force told Xinhua.

Transport planes will sprinkle environment-friendly catalysts to eliminate clouds and reduce rainfall, Cui said.

According to statistics from the Air Force for the past four decades, there is a 36 percent chance of low clouds and a less than 20 percent chance of rainfall on Oct 1 in the capital.

The plan said that if low clouds and mild or moderate rains are a possibility on Oct 1, the air force will cooperate with the municipal metrological bureau to spray the catalyst in the sky before daybreak, Xinhua reported.If there is heavy fog near the training airbase for the National Day air parade, fog-clearing vehicles will blow it off. This is a widely-accepted practice at some foreign airports, the plan said.

Since September, the air force has carried out six weather-control experiments and gained good results with 10 fog-clearing vehicles, Xinhua reported.