China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

This is becoming a regular event: The Tuesday night „Meet in the Tunnel“ night fixed gear tricks and ride. But maybe because it is summer there are so many more cyclists on the streets of Beijing. And even late night in this bike tunnel it was very busy. Today the amount of electric bikes and motorized tricycles was unbelieveabe and some of them were riding at very high speeds. It was hard to do tricks on our bikes. And yes, one guy did hit one of our guys doing his tricks. It was Xiao Shu. But he did not get hurt, just dirty from falling onto the ground. But he got washed off by his girlfriend. I only took some pictures and uploaded them to a webalbum.

The BJ fixed gear guys had set up a ride for today. I met with them, but did not ride with them as I had fallen off my bike just a few hours earlier.

The bikes of our ever growing Beijing fixed gear group are really pretty. Here is the link to more pictures

Later we met Matthieu and Yanny for dinner in a quiet Beijing hutong alley.

NIKE has a space in the Beijing 798 Art District. I went there to have a look today. It is the energy hall.

Currently it is used as an exhibition hall and for playing basketball. It could be a cool place to do some trick cycling. Maybe I can find some guys to train there with me. Or maybe we could even play bike polo there if any of the Beijing fixed gear guys are interested.

On my way back home I flew over the handlebars of my blue track bike for the first time. I was riding on the bike lane and had a green light when a cyclist (riding over the red light) came from the right. I thought he wanted to fully cross the street so I kept my line of riding and wanted to let him pass in front of me. He unexpectedly did a full stop right in front of me. So I tried to brake and just went flying right over the handlebars as well as flying over his back wheel and then landing with a nice roll. I started scolding him that if he wants to run over a red light he should just do it. If not, then he should just stop like all the civilized people at the bike stopping line and wait for the lights to turn green. He said he was so sorry and said he will never do that again. The whole bunch of cyclists waiting at that stopping line were all staring at me with their eyes wide open. I afterwards realized that my flight and stunt roll must have looked really impressive.

That reminded me of my friend who had a tricycle guy (that was riding in the wrong direction) almost crash into him. In the process of trying to brake the whole tricycle fell over. Unfortunately his load was beer, so that meant then that around 200 glass bottles with beer were spilled over the whole street. What a mess! Some people think riding in San Francisco with the steep hills is dangerous. But riding in flat Beijing has other sources of danger. And they are usually very unexpected.