China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

This was a busy first day off for the National holiday week. I started early morning (6:30am) cycling with the Beijing Road Cyclist Group heading out North to Mang Shan. Of course I was riding my fixed gear – my blue Corima. We started out with at least 12 riders riding from the city meeting point. We were only 2 female riders. Unfortunately the other woman crashed into a motorized transportation tricycle coming fast in the wrong direction on our cycling path after about 15km when we were still cycling through urban traffic chaos.

At a certain point there was only 7 of of us left. Our group leader Tom had to turn back early and we all agreed not going all the way to Mang Shan. So we only did a small climb and turned back.

On the way back we saw the corn being dried on the side of streets as well as some road side vendors.

The corn lying around everywhere to dry is very typical for villages. But I seldom see people lying on the corn on the side of a 4 lane road.

Even on the way back we lost another 2 riders: One got a flat tire, the other was just out of sight behind us. It was a short 77km round trip ride from Upper East Side, which means it was about a 90km ride for me. It was a lot of fun. Click here for more pictures.

But that was not all that day. In the early evening I went climbing in the Ritan Park. Many of our friends were there and I climbed about 3 routes. After that I went for about 3.5 hours of Juggling Group. Even though I did not juggle that much. I rather balanced on the rola bola and did some acrobatics. Laura brought her parents whos birthday it was the next and following day. So Laura also brough us her self made vegan chocolate cake. Wow, that was delicious! That made it even harder for me to cycle all the way back home from Club Obiwan on the west shore of Xihai lake.

Where do you put your bike without the fear of having it stolen? Best is in a bicycle parking lot with a guard or owner. Some places in Beijing have outdoor bicycle parking for 0.2RMB for a normal single speed (and also fixed gear) bike and 0.3RMB for mountain bikes, race bikes or anything with gears per day. Here is one owner of a bike parking lot conveniently located near the Yonganli subway station. He is only open from 9:00am till 9:00pm.

I am very happy to see that in some cases even in fancy new building complexes they provide bike parking facilities. In Jianwai SOHO they do not like having bikes standing around so they designated a part of the underground car park for bicycles. And this parking is free of charge!

While cycling around today I discovered a new building that I had not seen before. Well actually the left part is an old building just covered with new glass (I heard the people renting the offices were able to stay inside during the construction, but had to pay more after the construction was finished). The right side is a new building. And the bridge had to be built that it holds by itself (connected to the right building). It is quite impressive with all that red/pink glass:

This is a picture of the Beijing „Twin Towers“ which are not so high:

We were just 2 fixies but we had fun. The weather was quite okay. Only problem is that you get more air pollution at night in Beijing than in the day time. So I was riding with my mask.
Here is the link to the webalbum.

Tianjin TV crew came to Beijing and filmed me riding from office to home on this rainy day. They wanted to film my face while riding and tried to mount the camera on the front of the bike. Unfortunately the camera was too heavy for the mounting arm and it always went down till it touched the front wheel.

Yes! We finally had our first fixie night ride. 5 riders and 4 beautiful bikes. I would now official call this the Beijing Fixed Gear Group. We started in Jianwai SOHO and went up to the Olympic park. The Watercube was nicely lit up in blue color and the Birds Nest looked great next to it.

We found a great place to skid and play around on our single speed bikes. I hope that we can go there again after the Olympic Games. You can find more pictures here

There was a huge thunderstorm that night, but we seemed to have been in the right location not to get wet, even though we saw the lightening and heard the thunder for a very long time.

What a coincidence. I was riding past my favorite bike shop when I saw a fixed gear bike standing outside with almost all the staff looking at it. This is the second time a meet a fixed gear rider at my favorite bike shop. But the staff say they only know the two that I had met.

This cool fixie is called Jason. He has a shop called CHEESE with clothes, shoes and cool accessories at Jianwai SOHO. So I rode there to have a look.

Here is his shop with his two vintage fixed gear bikes. He was studying design in the England, so he was riding with the London Fixed Gear Group. He bought these beautiful bikes in the UK.

And here is Jason who just came back to Beijing. His shop has been open for more about 2 years and he will be getting more and more fixed gear accessories. He already sells messenger bags, pink, green and white 700c outer tubes and saddles. He wants to also sell vintage fixed gear bikes in China.

Jason and his friend had to ride to the west of the city so a rode a bit with them all of us on fixed gear. Here are more pictures. I took a picture of my bike wheels with my wide angle lens while riding. I find the distortion funny, almost looks like some funny glasses…

In the evening I was playing around on my pink fixed gear and we took some short video clips. As I have problems with the formatting of this blog when I embed the the videos, so I will have to request you to click on the following links to see the video clips I uploaded to youtube:

1. Video: Riding on a Fixie in Beijing’s Traffic

2. Video: Doing Tricks on a Track Bike at Night

3. Video: Trying some Reverse Seated Tricks on a Track Bike

4. Video: Riding Around Beijing doing a Catwalk Wheely for more than 1:40 min

伊泉的自行车特技表演