Posts tagged “beijing”  

The City Fix, a blog about urban mobility is reporting that the leaders of the government in Beijing are finally realizing that their recent group-hug of the auto culture is seriously screwing up their city.

That’s great because even by casual observation, the city is, vehicularly-speaking, going to hell in a handbasket. When I was out in Beijing for the Olympics in 2008, it was obvious that cars had really replaced bikes. In many areas of the city I was the only person on a bike in sight. That’s a big change from a culture where the car was a foreign and very expensive novelty.

So the government is putting bike lanes back in, restoring bike rental facilities and trying to crack down on bike theft issues. That’s a trend we hope more cities will follow.

Someone once said, (might have been me at a blog conference) that there’s a blog for everything, now including the Flying Pigeon.

The Chinese keep those bikes working at bike stops like this.

Vegas isn't really known as a bike town. Well it is. We've ridden all over and it's tame compared to riding in Beijing or LA. Just like any other city, Vegas has bike shops, a scene, fixed, and Critical Mass too.

Just down the street from our hotel last year was Sexxpresso where we'd ride on up each morning last year during Mix 08.

Seeing this striking photo from the AP, I thought, “Beijing!” Not the Olympic controversy, but the air we breathed when we were there. I bet it’s back to that level of pollution after the Olympics.

The photo is from Hungary and the cyclist is reacting to Hungary’s first smog alert.

Photo credit: AP/ Bela Szandelszky

So want one of these! Rolling along the Mobile Social, all lit up … also noted that’s the first Chinese cyclist I’ve seen wearing a helmet and the Boing Boing blogger who was fascinated by the MonkeyLectric wheel light system, prolly just went, “whoa!”

Photo credit: Jeff Gross/Getty Images

Maybe this will run on TV, or I have to find it online somewhere, or something. But anyway, cool BMX is in the Olympics, let’s see CycloCross in the Winter Olympics next.

Uploaded by mpmcgaughey | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Every 4 years, I’m reminded why I don’t watch much of NBC’s Olympic Coverage and that’s because they mostly just cover swimming, for some reason synchronized diving, more swimming, gymnastics, and this year 24 hours of Phelps. That being said, it was cool to see Tom Brokaw riding around Beijing on a Flying Pigeon earlier this week and today the NYT reports on a ride with Olympian Jason McCartney.

As our readers know, we rode all over Beijing, and for us it wasn’t scary at all. Millions of people do it everyday. But it ain’t no lazy bike path and you’ve really got to just go with the flow. Also, with the pollution controls in place and traffic limited, Olympic visitors are riding in less than 1/2 the traffic we did.

Coincidentally, Jason is riding the same bike our colleague Bryan bought and rode during our stay.

USA Cycling Athletes arrived in Beijing wearing facemasks and causing controversy. Yes, they could’ve took those off for the greeting line and then back on, but there’s irony that a country obsessed with “face” (I wrote about that yesterday), has athletes covering theirs. I expect long commentary about the masks. One upside of the Beijing Olympics and air quality is the anticipation of new, breakthrough asthma medications for people like myself.

Photo Credit: Yves Herman/Reuters

When visting a place that changes your worldview and resets how you think of life in general, it takes a while to process that and then even more time to best explain it with words that are more insightful than, “amazing, fascinating, interesting.” Bike Hugger has been to China 3 times and with the Olympics approaching, I wanted to share our previous coverage and some thoughts.

China is getting hammered by the worst weather in 50 years and with millions of people riding bikes, that’s creating lots of chaos. Sure, in Seattle we’re weather wusses compared to Canada or other really cold places, but I don’t think any of us have it this bad …

AP Photo by Eugene Hoshiko.

When Bryan and I were riding around Beijing (inhaling various flavors of fuel), I fretted about locking the bikes, making sure we picked a good spot to lock them, and was wary of bike thieves. We debated the likelihood of theft and thought with hundreds of millions of bikes on the street, who would need to steal one? Well, according to a China Daily report, 4 million bikes get stolen a year and they just halved that and consider it a success. Wow that’s a lot of bikes!

Interestingly, the bikes we did see locked, were more like a cursory lock, not NYC style at all.

In April, Bike Hugger will blog Shanghai by bike and expect to see cargo just like this shot from a Reuters photographer. When we were in Beijing, I saw meat bucket bike, bubble-wrap bike, and more. Jason shot this old women and her market bike in Taipei.

Uploaded by jctdesign, this photo, reminded me of my rides in Beijing

More from the Bike Hugger Photostream.

Much like Beijing, there’s a flow in Taipei, and we just rode in it. We were surrounded nearly at all times by scooters. I’ve never seen so many scooters. The don’t have specific bike lanes, except around the business district, but relatively wide lanes, and cars give you room. There’s a roadie scene and even a Tour de Taiwan.

Next week Jason and I arrive in Taipei. We’re there consulting with a client and attending the IDF.

We’re also meeting and riding with Dahon, and I’m bringing the Flyby. Considering that Taiwan is a leading manufacture of bikes, I thought that many of our readers have probably been there before.

So tell us: what must we do? What’s to see? And where to ride?

Like the trip to Beijing, we’ll blog Taipei by bike.

While Beijing announced it was selectively banning cars (odd/even days) to clean up the air for the Olympics, Cadel Evans was there riding the road race course and said, “my lungs hurt to breathe … .”

Taking a claimed 1.3 million cars off the road is impressive and they’ll also blast the sky with rain cannons, encourage more mass transit, and of course just ride their bikes. Don’t know if that’s going to make it any easier to breathe, but at least they’re trying.

I saw valet bike parking in Beijing at nearly everyplace cars would park. I’ve heard about the very particular bike parking in Japan and now from Streetfilms, we’ve got parking at Giants Stadium …

Erck.org is a a blog about how James and Sara Welle, “got married, quit our jobs, and bicycled around the world.” Sounds good to me! Well, we’re already married, but have cycled parts of the world and have lots more to ride.

Erck.org was outfitted by Elliott Bay Bicycles, one of our sponsors, and started their journey earlier this year. Inspired by the book, Miles from Nowhere they’re riding New Zealand, Australia, Southeast Asia, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, and South America.

They’re somewhere in Cambodia now, are not divorced, and like our trip to Beijing, are seeing a totally different world.

In another clip from our Blogging Beijing by Bike videos, we ride during rush hour. In a city with 13 million people, 3 million cars and millions of bikes, riding is a chaotic experience. We just rode, found a way through it, and joined the flow in Beijing.

The blue sky in the background of this photo was a rare site in Beijing. We were lucky to see it and the next day the pollution returned to normal oppressive levels. What I mistakenly thought was morning fog for a few moments, when I first arrived, was instead a gray smog that envelopes the city usually every day.