Discovering Beijing through bicycling

By Tracie Barrett ( China Daily ) Updated: 2014-05-08 10:08:16

My next purchase was a loud bell to warn others I was coming up behind them. My need for speed, even on a bicycle, means I'm

Running through the haze becomes first Chinese lesson

Am I addicted to smartphone?

constantly passing other cyclists, carts, electric bicycles and the occasional horse-drawn cart, and I've learned to also be on constant alert for pedestrians stepping into my path and "parked" cars pulling out in front of me. It's a good thing I enjoy ringing the bell as I come up behind other road users, as its sound has little or no effect on their behavior whatsoever. I think of it as my placebo bell-it has no quantifiable effect but it makes me feel better anyway.

Beijing being the huge city it is, I also upgraded my disposable air masks for something that looks like it belongs in a splatter movie-a tangible reminder of the attitude adjustment I make before mounting the cycle and heading out.

As a motorcyclist, I have always pretended there's a price on my head that everyone else on the road is trying to collect, so I'm constantly on the lookout for those trying to kill me.

Here, in Beijing, it's not so much the active road users that are the biggest danger, as there's a certain chaotic choreography in how the larger and smaller vehicles weave and interlace with each other. It's those on the side of the road I find myself watching most. The car door that opens directly in your path, the pedestrian engrossed in his digital device who steps into traffic without a thought or a look, the car whose driver is more focused on finding a park than on anyone else on the street.

Despite all that, or probably because of it, I am hooked on cycling in this city. I relish the excitement of coming up on a bus stop where four or five buses are loading and unloading and pulling out to pass them all before the front one pulls back into traffic. I enjoy slow, sleepy mornings when I can explore the hutong and side streets as the city wakes, and the madness of the evening peak hours when it seems as if most of the city's inhabitants are fighting their way home.

Most of all, I love the sense I have while bicycling in Beijing of being part of the constantly moving, always throbbing, sometimes racing pulse of the vast, vibrant lifeblood that makes up this city.

For more Hotpot Column, please click here.