China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

After quite a few weeks I am finally arranging fixed gear rides in Beijing again. Yeah! And that despite the cold weather. I was happy to see new people come out and ride with us even though none of our Chinese riders showed up. So our small group of winter cyclists headed out through the hutongs towards Changan Boulevard and then westwards.

I am always amazed by the size of the bicycle lanes here in Beijing, especially on the streets heading East-West. And of course the most impressive bicycle lane is near Tiananmen Square on the Changan Boulevard. It seems like 5 car lanes wide only for cyclists. Are there are hardly any!

We had lunch near the Laoshan velodrome and had a huge variety of food. The whole meal cost 15.-RMB per person.

On our ride further West I stopped to look at the birds in the trees and take a picture of them.

Well it was actually workers cutting the branches of the trees along the bike path. They just climbed up into the trees and without any secruity device were leaning out one branch and cutting the one next to it.

And as it is winter the farmers from outside of Beijing province are selling radish and cabbage.

Then we continued on till we arrived at the huge steel factory. Everybody was cycling in so we also cycled in. They did not mind the first people of our group, but maybe I should have put my golden floating hair inside my jacket because once I crossed the gate they started screaming at us and soon we were surrounded by guards saying they we are not allowed to be inside.We did not understand why everybody else was allowed just us not but that was probably because the others were all Chinese. So we cycled back out and were looking for a different way in as we just wanted to take some cool urban bike pictures.

From where we were trying we could not find another entrance. Even outside Beijing in this area there are still the street bike repair guys with all the tools. Nico was still having problems with his cheap Chinese open bearing bottom bracket. He asked if he could use the hammer of the bike repair guy and did it himself with the Chinese watching.

By then it was getting even colder and already getting darker so we decided just to head back to the city center.It was a great ride despite my cold feet and fingers. I uploaded my pictures to a webalbum. And Nico and Katiushka uploaded their pictures to flickr.