When in Rome...

The day before yesterday I finally bought a bike. I had been putting it off... I am not sure exactly why... but I walked up the street a little bit and bargained for a bike. It was a cheap bike and after biking a little ways it broke. One of the pedals broke off. I found a place that fixes bikes, and had both pedals replaced.

Then yesterday I biked forty five minutes up to where Helen is studying at Beijing Normal University. It was a great ride. The easiest thing was there was only one turn. I biked past the man made lakes Beihai and Qianhai, biked along the back of the Forbidden City and biked down this one road I have always really liked.

It's great living near the center of the city. When I was a student at Beida, it would have been a really long ride to bike down to the Forbidden City. Here I can bike 15 minutes and ride past the picture of Chairman Mao hanging on Tiananmen.

I love biking in Beijing, because it really is a biking city. Though now, most people have electric bikes that are like a cross between a motorcycle and bike. I prefer the original though. It's a great way to exercise, get around quickly, and protect a form of Beijing culture. 

I have read some articles saying how Beijing is losing it's massive bicycle population; they are being replaced by cars. With the roads so clogged with traffic, I can't help but realize how nice it is to bike. And with Beijing being an incredibly flat city, it's really not a painful commute. So I can't help but do as the locals do--or at least as most people did five or ten years ago and use a bike as my primary form of transportation.