8:55 AM - Walk to the first floor of my building. The first floor consists of a lobby and parking for bicycles, hundreds of them. Though Beijing is rapidly converting from bikes to cars, 30% of trips in this city are still by bike and it is still the most common mode for travel.
8:56 AM - Find my bike and unlock it. The locks people use here are really flimsy. Everyone operates by statistical principle rather than the laws of physics. In other words, someone's bike is going to get stolen, but it probably won't be mine.
8:57 AM - Roll my bike down the ramp to the street and start riding. I am not wearing a helmet. I have yet to see a single person in China wearing a helmet.
9:06 AM - Ride to Starbucks, weaving in and out of pedestrians, fruit carts, other bikers, pedicabs, mopeds, e-bikes, some waiguoren on rollerblades, and a taxi that is in the bike lane. Plenty of room, because the bike lane is wide enough for 2 cars. Some places in downtown Beijing used to have bike lanes that were seven car-lengths wide!
9:08 AM - See a red light ahead. Ride straight through it without pausing, looking left to confirm that all the oncoming traffic is turning. Three other bikers do the same.
9:12 AM - Park my bike at Starbucks. The bike parking facility is fenced in, covered, and guarded at all times. The guard's main job is to keep the bikes tidy and stacked so that there is a lot of room for more bikes. It's like valet parking, for bikes, and it's free.
11:52 AM - Lunchtime! Get bike from guard, and ride down the street on the wrong side, into oncoming traffic. Much swerving required, still easier than trying to cross the huge road full of death-taxis. All bike lanes carry two-way traffic like this, even though there is no agreement about which side each direction should be riding on.
12:03 PM - Lock my bike in front of the canteen in a row with other bikes. Sometimes when someone is getting their bike, they knock over the bike next to them and they start going down like dominoes. I once saw six bikes fall down at once.
12:40 PM - Done eating. It's starting to rain. It's OK, the bike has fenders. I open my umbrella and ride to my lab by steering with one hand and holding the umbrella above me with the other. Everyone else is doing this too, except the people who have special bike-ponchos.
12:52 PM - Park at the lab. One of my lab mates pulls up, carrying another lab mate as a passenger on the back of his bicycle rack. She hops off as he pulls to a halt, effortlessly.
5:55 PM - Want to go home. On the way I pass a woman who is riding a contraption that is half-bike, half kitchen for cooking street food. There is a man sleeping in the back on the 'counter'!
6:15 PM - Lock back up under my building. If by lock up I mean just leave my bike down there. It probably won't get stolen.
Monday, July 2, 2007
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