The trend of cycling is coming, but are you really willing to ride on the road?
Source: in 2021, the proportion of slow traffic trips in central Beijing hit a new high in recent 10 years, reaching 47.8%, an increase of 6.9% over 2017.
The annual number of shared bicycles in the city reached 950million.
In 2022, although there is no exact statistics on the number of cycling, the crowded bicycle lanes, all kinds of bicycles passing by and increasingly expensive bicycle equipment under the epidemic give us reason to believe that cycling is becoming more popular.
When cycling is becoming a popular activity, there is a fundamental question yet to be answered – is our city friendly enough to bicycles? Author | Mizi editor | Qiu Lian cycling, what does it mean today? If shared bicycles, which began to appear around 2016, have brought bicycles back to the public eye, then after the normalization of the epidemic, the traffic conditions of cars, electric vehicles and public transport are often limited, which once again prompted more people to return to bicycles.
In this way, Xiao Song got back on his dusty bike.
Due to her work in the media, she reported on the retro Cycling Group as early as 2014, so she bought a retro style bike.
But this impulse didn’t give her a reason to ride on the road.
Until May this year, public transportation and taxis in Shuangjing District, where she lives, were suspended due to the epidemic, and she didn’t think of cycling on the road again without a private car.
The whole process made her feel very interesting from the beginning of repairing the car.
At the car repair stall near her home, while waiting for the old man to replace the aging parts, she was surprised to see that there were still many people who came to repair the car, “some of them knew the old man at first sight and came to ask for small parts for a child’s handcraft class.
In short, it would make people feel like a child, full of life.” in 1998, the bicycle repair stall on the streets of Beijing © Kester’s cycling gave her a new perspective to observe and understand the city.
When cycling, the breeze blowing in the face will make her particularly sensitive to the smell of each street.
Riding a road with many barbecue shops in the evening, she will bind the smell of barbecue with that road in her memory, similar to “the street with barbecue flavor”; In Beijing, you can feel the flavor of watermelon and mosquito when you walk through the Hutong of Gulou after summer; Passing the streets with lush trees, she will enjoy the fragrance of plants.
The speed of riding is between car and walking, which also gives Xiao Song the opportunity to pay attention to the details of the street: there is an old building with Parthenocissus on the road from Dongzhimen to dongsishitao.
When she passes by again in a week, she sees that after the rain, Parthenocissus climbs up one floor.
Even after the closure of the epidemic, she continued to maintain the habit of cycling.
Sometimes she didn’t want to go to a destination, but just rode out aimlessly to find new things in the street.
“Wake up riding” cycling activity in Suzhou © Xingqi community takes cycling as a way of life, which was advocated by Jim when he founded the bicycle brand wkup in Shanghai in 2015.
When the brand launched its first bicycle product in 2016, he began to organize a cycling activity called “wake up riding” – each time there will be different themes and routes, sometimes riding together to explore stores, sometimes watching exhibitions, and sometimes riding to the suburbs to do yoga, play frisbee and camping, etc.
by combining cycling with other activities, the riding experience will become richer and richer.
“Buying a bike that meets your own aesthetics, adding personalized accessories to it, and riding it to do all kinds of things are the real ways to integrate the bike into your life.” With a professional background in architectural design, Jim has a natural interest in urban planning.
The route of Xingqi almost includes different urban styles, including fireworks, bustling, and even some dilapidated urban landscapes, as well as the natural villages near the wheat fields, which become fresh during the ride.
If the initial participants in cycling activities are friends with similar backgrounds, Jim has obviously seen the changes in the structure of the participating groups in the past oneortwo years.
“People from all walks of life have it.
Every time the event is released, it will be able to register full names in almost an hour.” Toby will go cycling in the suburbs of Shanghai on weekends or holidays © Toby takes cycling as a way of exercise and fitness, which is also the choice of some people.
“The most obvious way to distinguish from ordinary riding is that the handle of the bicycle used in this kind of sports riding is bent, and the riding posture is prone.” Toby, who is engaged in professional sports cycling in Shanghai, told us.
This is also an increasingly large team, from the first professional riders with sports training and event experience like him to more and more ordinary people.
Toby and his companions will choose to ride at 5 or 6 a.m.
when there are few cars and pedestrians.
Many people take this as their daily exercise before work, and sometimes they can watch the sunrise together to welcome the new day.
On weekends or holidays, they will choose a longer route and ride about 100 kilometers in the suburbs of Shanghai to achieve a more intense exercise effect.
The fresh air, the changing scenery and the excitement of attracting friends are far more interesting than exercising in a closed gym.
Are our city roads ready? When riding in Beijing, Xiao Song mentioned that on the route she often rode from Shuangjing to Sanlitun via Guomao, there will be many irregular well covers on the bicycle lane, which will bring some inconvenience to riding, especially for people who ride bicycles without shock absorption system..
