China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

As I cyclist I really do not like cars that drive or park in the bicycle lanes. Today I did have to laugh on how this car was parked.

I like these bicycle lanes that have a fence to avoid cars just pulling over into them, but with this car parked so tightly no bike could pass. Well, the car is not from Beijing, so maybe the driver had never seen the street sign with the bicycle and therefore just thought that the lane was actually a parking lot.

I thought that Beijing was collecting all the snow on the roads of Beijing. But that seems to have been mainly inside the former city walls. Today I cycled outside of the 2nd ring road and was shocked to see that many roads were covered with snow. And unfortunately most of the bicycle lanes were still completely covered with compressed snow. That was very horrible to ride on with my fixed gear road tires. And I had to go out to the 798 art district outside of the 4th ring road. There drivers obey the traffic rules even less. But I know that so I did not panic when I had a car driving around a corner on the wrong side of the snow covered road heading right at me.

I then went to the spinning class held by my fellow cyclist Patrick Dean. I like it because it is held by a cyclist so it is a real cycling kind of spinning rather than just an aerobic workout. And it is free for members of teh Beijing Peloton and MOB bike groups. This was the first class of the year and it was packed. it was nice to see other cycling friends that have not been there for a long time.

But after I cycled home my bike was really looking bad. With the dried up salt everywhere and black slush sticking to it which started slowly to drip off.

I am still amazed how black the colors of the snow is.

And here is a close up of some of the melting slush.

Because of the amount of dirt and salt a shower was the only option. After a long scrub I could actually see the shiny bright yellow color of the rims again as well as the frame color. I hope it does not snow again soon.

Today Zheng Xiao Hai and his girlfriend dropped by my Natooke bike shop. He used to be a China National Cycling Team member. And he was a 180km road cycling winner in 2005 and was also number 7 in track cycling. We had just met at the bike trainer race a few days ago. Great to have athletes come to my shop, so we took some pictures.

This morning I found a some articles about the recent heavy snowfall in Beijing. And especially how Beijing does not have many snowplows. Chinese soldiers geared up with shovels and brooms to clear away snow drifts on Tianmen Square during a heavy snow storm in Beijing on January 3, 2010. Most of the snow in Beijing got hand shoveled. Yesterday on many streets in the city center had snow piles on the side. Today was the day where those snow piles got picked up by the garbage collection trucks. And of course the snow was again hand shoveled into the garbage truck.

Just an anecdote from hutong life: Today when Samantha and I were shoveling (we also use the common normal Chinese shovel not the snow shovel) away the snow in front of the shop 2 ladies came to us and asked us if we knew the man that came and took my bike yesterday. I said no and asked them if they knew him. They said no. They said that he was not from this hutong. They said they watched him look at my bike and then take it. After some thought the one lady said to the other „I think that man was a bike thief“. …I hope that next time they see a man take a bike from in front of my shop they will realize immediately that it is a thief…

Today it stopped snowing. But it seems that the city was overwhelmed with the amount of snow and was not able to clean all the streets.

Even on the huge avenues there was snow everywhere. Especially on the bike lane. So the few people that were riding bikes had to ride on the street. But that was okay as there were hardly any cars.

Due to the weather conditions the public schools were closed today. It was around -26 degrees with the strong wind that was blowing. I was astonished to see this governmental office have all employees stand outside. I am not sure what kind of ceremony it was as I arrived when they were playing teh Chinese anthem just before they all ran inside.

My bike shop looked really nice with all the snow outside. Unfortunately it was really cold inside as we have no proper heating, just electric heaters that suck a lot of electricity.

Today my good friend Gil dropped by the shop just before lunch. We were sitting in my office chatting. He asked me which bike I had ridden to come today. I told him it is the blue Corima fixed gear bike outside the shop near the entrance. In that moment I remembered that I had not locked it this morning as Samantha and I first shoveled all the snow away from the shop front and after 30 minutes had frozen hands. But as we were soon going to go for lunch with Gil I decided not to lock it. About 10 min later Gil says „Hey look, is that one of your friends? Oh look, he is taking your bike.“ So I ran down and out and saw some guy with a huge coat and a hood pushing my fixed gear bike as if it were his down along teh hutong. Even though it was very obvious that he would not have such a bike. So I run up to him knowing that if he would decide to jump on the bike and try to ride it he would be so surprised that it cannot coast that he would not be able to go away especially as the hutong was all covered by snow. When I reached him I asked him „What are you doing?!? This is my bike.“ He just gave me the bike, said the typical „mei shir“ (=in the sense of „whatever“) and continued on walking down the hutong as if nothing ever happened. I did not expect that. It was so strange but on the other hand so Beijing style. Wow, so I hadmy bike back but only because Gil had looked outside in the right moment. Thank you Gil!!!

My cycling friends Shannon and Ricky decided to go to the indoor bike roller race with me. We were not so happy about the 8:30am registration and start but last night we said let us do it. When I looked out of the window this morning I was astonished to see it had snowed. I had not expected that.

There were still quite some people on their bikes cycling through the city.

But it is amazing to see how fast the nice white snow turns black due to the Beijing dust.

Whenever there was still some white snow left we cycled on it as the black slush was splashing up our butt and backs.

My bike got covered with black slush and covered with snow.

My messenger bag got slashed by the Beijing street dirt.

When we arrived at the BJ Golden bike shop there were only 3 cyclists: Shannon, Ricky and me. And the guy with the software for controlling the bike trainer had not arrived yet. The Shimano guys started setting up the indoor bike race system. The competition was on an ELITE RealAXIOM roller with a virtual route of 2 km with an uphill slope.

Within the next few hours a few other cyclists showed up. Most of them were China cycling champions and China ex-National Team members. So we did the competition. One person at a time on the bike that was mounted on the bike roller that was connected to a computer running a virtual bike race course. The computer would adjust the resistance of the bike roller to simulate the steepness of the uphill. You could watch the 2km route on the computer as well as your current time and speed and how much distance was still left. Someone had to hold the bike handlebars to avoid too much rocking.

That was the most exhausting thing I have ever done. After that 2 minute uphill sprint at an average speed of 54.1km/hour my throat, airway and top part of my lungs were burning! And my legs had no more strength left. I could hardly stand. And the burning in my throat and airway as well as a resulting cough stayed till later in the afternoon. Wow I wish I could do a 2:19 minute long uphill sprint at that speed in a real bicycle race…

Taking not only the time but also the average power into account it seems I finished 4th. What a surprise!

I uploaded many more pictures of this event to a new webalbum. After the race the BJ Golden shop owner Yang Yang invited us for a lunch. We went to a nearby hot pot restaurant. We had delicious food and cool Yang Yang was happy to drink many bottles of beer with Shannon and Ricky.

It was a great Saturday activity and I finally arrived home at 5pm still feeling the effects of the short but extremely intense race