TORONTO STAR: May 2002

(Beijing) A Flying Pigeon suddenly passes me, then a Phoenix.  I struggle to catch up even though the light is barely green. My own bike, a fading Forever, is part of the horde attempting to guo malu, or cross the horse path, in Beijing’s morning rush hour. Facing us is a menacing legion of cars, trucks and buses…

Cycling in Beijing requires nerve and resilience. The city’s three million bicycling commuters have plenty of both. In the wintertime hat-less, glove-less riders brave the biting cold. The sweltering summer heat is likewise endured. But there are newer foes. Springtime dust storms became part of the morning forecast less than twenty years ago. Strong winds pick up sand and dust from the creeping Gobi desert and from local construction sites to punish the capital’s 15 million residents. Luckily, today is a  “clear” day, although the dirty haze obscures the sky. 

The oncoming traffic is rushing to turn left in front of us. I whistle a tune to calm my nerves. My cycling comrades force a wedge into the attackers. We keep an eye out for cars travelling alongside who threaten to infringe our left flank to turn right. Roaming pedestrians stranded in the chaos expect no sympathy, receive none. Traffic attendants keep fit, futilely waving red flags.    

I shield my bicycle lee-side a vendor pedaling his sanlunche, a three-wheeled flatbed, heavily loaded with watermelons. Halfway through the intersection I lose my cover and see a car bearing down on me. I imitate the poker player’s face I have learned from fellow cyclists.

The driver knows I have the angle on him and that a foreigner on his hood will make him late for work. 

With the crossing conquered, I keep my distance fore and aft. Many Chinese clear their throats with an exuberance to make baseball players blush. And if I stop on a red I risk being rear-ended by less law-abiding riders. 

At the next intersection a cyclist speeds boldly through a red light and into eight lanes of heavy traffic. During the Cultural Revolution the Communist Party flirted with the idea of making a red light mean go. A popular slogan was Go against the tide. This citizen’s revolutionary zeal is obviously undiminished despite the growing tide and passing years.

A private mini-bus driver, who is threatening to rub me out against the curb, jerks me back to the present. These entrepreneurs drive like getting around is an extreme sport — a winner-take-all competition for customers waiting roadside. There are disadvantages to the new free enterprise.  

By the time I veer off onto a wide bike lane my eyes are burning from the pollution; I can taste the grit between my teeth. An island of stubborn shrubs shelters our lane from other traffic. But I have not gone far before a polished black Audi honks at me impatiently. I am in her way. This is the new reality of China’s vehicular hierarchy. The only safe places left for us are the narrow alleyways of the traditional hutongs, but those neighbourhoods are disappearing faster than genuine communists.

In the communist heyday, a bike, a watch, and a sewing machine were the most valued private possessions. Now the Auto Show is the city’s most popular exhibition. And although Beijing has almost as many bicycles as the whole country has cars, the balance is changing. By the year 2015, this bicycle kingdom may have as many as 100 million cars. The irony of Beijing’s stifling pollution, much of it from vehicle exhaust, is that the advantages of bicycles should be obvious. Instead, the government encourages people to buy cars and Beijing is working on its fourth massive ring road to accommodate them. Air pollution makes cars even more desirable and with a booming economy more people have one within reach. Clean air is more elusive.

Still, I don’t regret having chosen the freedom and stiff-backed dignity of cycling. Motorized traffic moves with the illusion of speed. Taxis are expensive and some drivers have a knack for making the meter say surprising things. Buses are crowded and you are packed so closely to other passengers you can guess what each had for dinner, the day before yesterday. The zixingche or go alone vehicle remains one of the best ways to get around.

Most bicycles are on the shabby side — a fashion I now understand. Five days after I bought my first bike, an upscale used one, I was buying my second. Theft is common. The result is a healthy market for used bikes.

My second bike, the Phoenix, cost $14 Canadian and lasted 21 days. I hoped in vain for it to return. Instead, bicycle shopping has become part of my social life. The Forever I ride today cost $16, slightly to the shallow end of average quality, but the brakes work, its single gear is all I need for a city as flat as Beijing, and the rear carrier is reliable enough to support at least one passenger.

If my bike does break down I don’t have to go far for repairs. An elderly man sets up shop in front of my building each morning. Inner tubes are patched while you wait, for less than a dollar. There is an economy to cycling not lost on people here, many of whom earn about $200 a month.

At the next corner, I pass a cyclist dwarfed by a teetering load of furniture on the flatbed of his sanlunche. His colleague precedes him with the fridge. For about $1.40 a kilometre they will deliver anything they can carry. Nonetheless I do a double take when another sanlunche loaded with the front end of a car, complete with steering wheel, labours by in the opposite direction. A smaller three-wheeler, the type preferred by the elderly, follows at a more leisurely pace. A grateful spouse and all the grandchildren of a planned family occupy the payload.

I park my bike at a supervised bicycle lot — a habit suggested to me by the disappearing bike experience. It costs two mao (four cents) for the day.

When it is time to go home, I find my bike squeezed into a long row. I manage to liberate it but half the row collapses in predictable fashion.

I survive the trip home and park my bike in the basement garage. There are no exhaust fumes to contend with … because there are virtually no cars in this working-class building. An elderly couple guards the lot from their windowless apartment that adjoins the area. They greet me with a friendly smile, as they do every day. Perhaps they are happy to live where they work.

(This is a longer version of the edited article in the Star.)