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On losing a bicycle and finding a city

By Erik Nilsson (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-30 10:51

Beijing has been getting smaller while the neighborhood has been growing bigger since my wife and I switched gears and swapped four wheels for two.

I hadn't expected how different - and more interesting - the city looks from the bike lane.

All sorts of places of interest that once seemed far away now take mere minutes to reach. And many new spots unlikely to be discovered on foot or from the seats of buses, cabs or subway cars are emerging from new corners and folds of the area surrounding our apartment.

Just minutes by bike from home - a quiet community between the Third and Fourth ring roads in the capital's northeast - are vast stretches of amazing techni-colored graffiti, cheap dumpling shops and a pricey traditional restaurant. For three years, we had no idea these were just around the corner.

Last weekend, we discovered Yonghegong's elusive "deep hutong" tucked behind the commercial frontage of cafs, restaurants and tourism shops. We'd staged several on-foot hunting expeditions over the years but always gave up when we couldn't find them within half an hour - not enough time to cover much ground by walking but enough for us to lose interest.

We zipped through the zigzagging alleys lined by ivy-draped residences, trying to peak into windows that were too high to see into.

Outside these homes we saw birds flitting about in dangling cages, residents hanging laundry to dry and elderly women hauling bulging sacks of fresh vegetables - all glimpses of authentic hutong life hidden behind the commercial facade of renovated siheyuan (traditional courtyard homes).

As cycling enthusiasts in the US, we were excited upon our arrival to hop back in the saddle in Beijing - a city in which the bike is an icon, and our hobby is a way of life and major means of getting around.

But the 150-yuan model I purchased in my first few weeks in the city quickly fell apart.

The kickstand didn't stand being kicked and flew off the first day. The chain started coming off repeatedly on the second, and I blew a pedal on the third. It seemed like the bike was preprogrammed for a day-by-day countdown to self-destruction.

Before I could get the confounded contraption to a repair shop, it was stolen. So we decided to buy a nicer electric bike.

But we became nervous about the idea after getting into a motorcycle accident in Thailand.

While I made it out of the crash with a few scrapes and some sore joints, my wife sprained her ankle. Her foot became so swollen and painful that she had to cut the top of her socks so they fit.

Airport security on both the Chinese and Thai sides asked why she was going through the lines wearing only one shoe and guffawed with us when we recounted the story.

But my wife recently decided we should get over our hang-ups about possible bang-ups, and I agreed.

So we walked to Wu Mei and rode back home on a flash red model that was on sale.

Since then, we've discovered perks beyond a better seat for discovering Beijing's best-kept secrets.

Perhaps the greatest change is that vehicular congestion has become virtually irrelevant to us. Zooming down the bike lanes, we often blast past the transportation doldrums created by traffic jams choking the main roads until they resemble parking lots.

As we discover new inroads to understanding the capital by biking its back roads, we're realizing why the Beijing bicycle ranks among Chinese icons - and does so deservedly.