Bikes Live On in China, Despite Cars

AS CARS TAKE OVER IN BOOMING CHINA,
BICYCLES PROVE A HARDY PERENNIAL
Associated Press - 06 Jul 08
By ELAINE KURTENBACH
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SHANGHAI, China -For a vivid insight into the clash of old
and new in China, follow the bicycle.
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Morning rush hour in Beijing and Shanghai used to be
rivers of cyclists flowing in a majestic hush down broad bike
lanes. Today, many of those lanes have been taken over by cars
and buses, their roar and honk drowning out the tinkle of
bicycle bells.
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Yet despite China's leap into modernity, the bicycle is
far from dead _ its numbers are growing. For many Chinese, pedal
power remains a mainstay _ for commuting, sending children to
school or making a living.
.
And getting around the traffic jams.
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As the Chinese fall in love with cars, and Westerners fall
out of love with them, China is once again a winner. According
to the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington-based environmental
think tank, of the 130 million bikes manufactured worldwide last
year, China made 90 million, and exported two-thirds of them.
About nine in 10 bikes bought by Americans are made in China.
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In China, the bicycle's enduring role epitomizes the
country's wider transitions _ from countryside to city, from
planned economy to freewheeling capitalism. Multiplying cars may
be a sign of affluence, but the bike's staying power is a
reminder that most of China's 1.3 billion people have yet to
make it into the middle class.
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In the shadows of Shanghai's skyscrapers and towering
elevated highways, it is bicycle wheels that have enabled
migrants like Wang Chunliang to make the great leap from
countryside to the big city.
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Tan and sturdy, the 30-year-old hauls flowers and garden
supplies from an outdoor market to upscale Shanghai homes on a
three-wheeled bicycle cart called a "sanlunche." That and a
little gardening earn him about US$300 (2,000 yuan) a month _
enough to live on and support his family in rural Anhui,
hundreds of miles away.
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"Compared with some jobs, this isn't too bad. And it's a
decent living," says Wang, shrugging off the perils of traffic
and bad weather.
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In Shanghai and other cities, pedal-pushing rural migrants
can be seen everywhere, delivering goods, gathering waste for
recycling or peddling anything from popcorn and pirated DVDs to
books and baby rabbits.
.
The millennia-old Middle Kingdom can claim to have
invented many things _ fireworks, the umbrella, paper and the
compass among them _ but not the bicycle.
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According to Amir Moghaddass Esfehani, a historian at the
Technical Institute of Berlin, the Chinese first learned of
bicycles from a customs official named Binchun who visited Paris
in 1866 and wrote of Parisians riding vehicles made of "two
wheels with a pipe in the middle."
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Back then, well-heeled Chinese generally got around in
rickshaws or sedan chairs, both hauled by manpower. It was only
after expatriate Americans and Europeans began cycling around
Chinese cities that the fashion took off, Moghaddass writes in
"The Bicycle and the Chinese People."
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Through the three decades of Communist central planning,
bicycles were encouraged as transport; buses were crammed and
infrequent, taxis virtually unheard of.
.
Shanghai Forever, Flying Pigeon and Phoenix bicycles were
the Chevys and Buicks of those days.
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For the Beijing Olympics, the city is offering visitors
50,000 bicycles for rent, but many bike pathways in Beijing and
Shanghai have been taken over by right-turn and bus-only lanes.
Big offices and hotel buildings generally provide bicycle
parking onsite only for employees.
.
Shanghai's 10 million bikes are banned from many main
streets. A trip from Hongqiao, in the western suburbs, to the
busy Nanjing Road shopping district is an obstacle course around
no-go zones and subway construction projects. The riverside bike
paths so familiar in Western cities are nonexistent.
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"This is a question of government policy," laments Chen
Haiming, who is an engineer and general manager at Shanghai
Forever Co., China's biggest bicycle maker. "In Europe they are
building bicycle pathways and encouraging people to commute by
bicycle. But not here."
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All the same, Shanghai's more than 20 million people have
few options. The subways and buses can handle only one-quarter
of commuting volume. A modest family car in Shanghai costs
about 40,000 yuan (US$6,000) and licensing it 35,000 yuan
(US$5,000) _ adding up to more than most Shanghai workers make
in a year. A scooter sells for about 2,000 yuan (US$300).
.
So by bicycle or scooter they wind their way through rush
hour traffic, many wearing cotton masks to filter out exhaust
fumes. They weave on and off sidewalks, dismount to squeeze
between buses and curbs, slip haphazardly through gridlocked
intersections and, sometimes, glide triumphantly past traffic
jams.
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Later in the day comes a second set of cyclists. Clanging
cowbells to be heard above the din of the street, they roam the
city hunting for scrap metal or discarded appliances. Some
balance TV sets, computer terminals, even refrigerators and
mattresses, on the backs of two-wheelers..
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Life on wheels can be a cat-and-mouse struggle.
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"It's easy to park, and easy to escape when the police
come after us," says Wang Dali, a migrant from Anhui province
who sells pirated DVDs of movies such as "Kung Fu Panda" and
"Sex and the City" off the back of his old Phoenix.
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"We aren't allowed to sell in these areas, since it's said
to give the city a bad image," said Wang, looking a decade older
than his 33 years from a lifetime spent outdoors in the sun and
wind.
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"Only we poor rural people do this, but we have to, to
make a living," he said.
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Meanwhile, bike companies have been retooling.
.
Twenty-two years ago, when Chen was first assigned to work
at Shanghai Forever's rusting factory in downtown Shanghai, the
company was still only turning out 40-pound heavy-duty bikes
built to carry loads and entire families on the crossbar,
handlebars and rear carrier.
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Today, Forever's Web site displays dozens of models, from
high-tech mountain bikes to foldables that can squeeze into a
briefcase.
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Chen is confident that despite China's enchantment with
the automobile, bicycles are here to stay.
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"Bicycles can help protect the environment. People need
them for exercise," he says. "The bicycle will never be
obsolete. No matter how well developed the automobile and
aircraft market grows, the bicycle still has its purpose."
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Wu Liqiang, manager for the host of a Shanghai TV show,
agrees.
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He vividly remembers his first bicycle, in the 1970s, a
chic black Forever.
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"The feeling I had riding that bicycle was amazing. It was
just about as cool as driving a Porsche would be now," says Wu,
now 50. "Girls were very glad to go out with me because they
could sit on the back of my bicycle and enjoy the breeze and
sunshine."
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He owns a bright-blue VW Polo but hardly ever drives it.
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"The traffic's getting worse and worse and you end up
wasting hours on the road," Wu says, adding, "The bicycle is
still the best vehicle for China."
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He commutes to work by bicycle.

In Shihezi another city undergoing massive development it is good to see they are still putting in still wide walkways/bike paths.The bike is still the main form of transport up there.Although the car is catching up.In 2001 there where no mtb's in this city they where still using the good old faithfull Chinese singlespeed.Now this year 95% of the kids have mtb's all be it cheap(well cheap for me)one's.

Yes, lots of mountain bikes, other than a few bottom of the range Meridas and Giants, ar what I call 'mountain bike simulations', they look like mountain bikes, but if you tried to use one like a mountain bike you might quickly discover why it cost 500RMB :icon10:.