But that of course by itself would not be too much of a coincidence.

They actually decided that they would have a look at Wudaoying Hutong as their friends told them it is becoming a really nice street to go. When they were walking past my shop he stopped and he remembered that he had read somewhere about 6 months ago that I have a bike shop, but he was not sure if I actually live in Beijing. Of course he also had no idea about the name or what kind of bike shop it is or where it is. They had the feeling it could be mine as we have a huge German flag hanging on the outside of Natooke. So they decided to come in and ask. So great!

We went and had a nice hotpot dinner together and talked about the old times and some of the people we are still in contact with. Unfortunately Volker is already flying back to Germany tomorrow.

I also stumbled across another video of our Natooke team dancing away and trying to get others to join in. it is hilarious. It is always fun with the Natooke guys! Here’s the link

My pictures from the bike polo cup are all on the Natooke website in this gallery.

It has been many months since I last regularly wrote blog entries. Because some friends and some fans complained about that I decided for the year 2012 I will try to update my blog.

Natooke shop has been very amazing last year and I hope we can continue the same way in 2012. I am happy to have met so many interesting people that just walked in either by coincidence or because they had read about us or seen us on TV. Let us have lots of fixed gear riding fun together in this year.

New Year’s Eve we had a Natooke fixed gear bicycle ride to end off the year 2011 and greet the New Year while cycling along Beijing’s streets. We waited for the countdown on a huge clock near Xidan.

Recently we have some really enthusiastic girls come to rides and events. Keep up the hard riding!

Beijing is getting colder and there are not many people on the streets at night. That made for a huge space for us cycling especially on the extremely wide bicycle lane of Chang’An Boulevard that goes right through the center of Beijing.

The remaining group did a very brief stop on Tiananmen Square before the guard came to tell us to keep moving on.

Then we went to get some early morning food at a small Chinese restaurant. We just stacked our bikes outside of the restaurant. Unfortunately a drunk driver in a SUV drove past and drove too close to our bikes so his car must have touched the most outside bike and the drove over that bikes’ back wheel.

But we figured a bent wheel in the first hours of the year brings good luck. More pictures are all in this gallery.

I also saw the printed article in the Spanish version of the magazine called “China Hoy”.

But that is just a nomination. Now I need your help to vote for me! Please follow this link and scroll to the bottom of the page, then select my name (Ines BRUNN) and please submit your vote.

Next time I see you I will give you a hug for that. Thanks!

Remember I am the cool girl that loves bikes.

I really like this picture that Oren Ziv took in the most perfect moment of me doing my special jump off the bike.

I have my own pictures of the group of international performers after the show. We were Florent Lestage (who had performed with me at the European Juggling Convention in Vittoria), Eric, Hans van Wynsberghe, Joris Verbeeren, Stefan and Cristiana Sing, Matt Hall and me.

The first video is done by Shannon who had his camera mounted on the fork of his bicycle and got some amazing shots.

The second video is done by “Niurenku”. There team had come to film during the event. I like that they went to 4 of the 5 stations and filmed there too as well as of course the beginning of the race. But I need to improve my Chinese.

After a while Mitchell and I started to get bored and started track standing:

Then was our moment where we were given 60 sec to show some tricks on the tiny stage. Mitchell and I did synchronized backward circles.

The fixed gear party included the fun STC JisuPK. It was setup on stage and Sara and me from Team Natooke raced against the guy from Japanese T19. It was a long 500m race and I actually won!

We took some pictures with the different crews. Here is me and the American FTC team with the famous skateboarder John Cardiel.

Here are Mitchel and me with the Taiwan Nabiis guys.

And here is me and a guy from the Japanese T19 team

Here are more pictures of the Lining Bikeboy Party.

Our fixed gear bike friend Peter Carney had set up lights and taken shots of the various fixed gear rides during the event. At the end when he and his partner were starting to pack up the Natooke staff started goofing around in front of the camera. That was so much fun!

More goofy pictures here.

It would be nice to see a longer version of this…