The Bike

Walking back out of Building 23 after I had unloaded my things in my new apartment, I asked Xia if there was somewhere around campus where I might be able to find a cheap bike. I asked her this question just as we walked by the no less than 500 bicycles parked and locked up outside the building lobby. She said that there was, and we began walking west across campus and out the West Gate, then made a right. All along the street to our right was store upon store of bicycle shops—nothing but bicycles and bike parts, maybe 25 small storefronts in total. We walked slowly along the sidewalk, with me looking at Xia and Xia presumably looking for a fairly clean, appealing shop, and, after stopping at a few, we arrived at one that looked like all the others. She jumped through the front door and came out a moment later with a somewhat overweight, young-looking Chinese man with sweat beading on his forehead and soaking through his red polo shirt below his collar on his back and underneath his armpits. He kicked a stone out of his sandals before sauntering out onto the sidewalk to the row of bikes, both new and old, that were his. They were indistinguishable from the thousand other bikes standing on the sidewalk in one giant row stretching almost continuously for several hundred yards.

Although I wasn’t looking for anything flashy, I didn’t want the bike to fall apart as soon as I passed back through West Gate. I figured that it was reasonable to see what 100 yuan (maybe $14) would get me, and the young shop owner took us over to a new bike that looked decent enough. Xia said that the owner would like for me to try the bike out. As I was pedaling down the sidewalk, one of the pedal arms nearly unscrewed off the bike, and I noticed that the tire was slightly lopsided. I took it back, and was informed that for 200 yuan I could get a bike with straight tires and pedals that stayed put. I jumped on the next bike, pedaled down the sidewalk for a bit, and grimaced as the pedal arms knocked against my ankles as I pushed the bike forward.

I pedaled the bike back slowly to the storefront, shook my head, “no,” and asked what else there was lying around. At this point, I noticed that about a half dozen Chinese people had stopped to watch the proceedings. This is not uncommon in China. It is not rude in Chinese culture to stare or to conspicuously point at people you don’t know if you find something striking about them. As it is, just about every purchase outside of a supermarket in China is a negotiation, and these negotiations are usually friendly and frequently public, like the negotiation for my bike. Apparently, bystanders will sometimes even chime in with their opinion on the deal they’re observing, but these bystanders remained quiet. I was white, I was buying something in China, and we were having a bit of a back and forth about the bike I wanted to buy—that was enough to draw a small crowd, even in Bejing, where there are tons of white people and such purchases happen thousands of times a day, every day. The people are simply curious, I guess, and I didn’t mind having people look on—especially considering that it was Xia doing the negotiating.

Scratching his crew-cutted, wiry black hair, the shop owner tossed the wrench in his hand easily to the curb and retreated into the store, appearing a minute later with a bike that still had the plastic wrapping rubber-banded to the frame. He adjusted the seat and I jumped on, took it for another spin, and this time everything seemed like it was working in unison to create a decent biking experience. As I cruised back up to the storefront with a smile on my face, the shop owner didn’t miss a beat as he mentioned to Xia, “300.” I was not expecting to pay this much for a bike, and would have been completely fine with a used bike had it been semi-functional. I tried to speak to Xia about playing a little hardball, and it was finally decided that, for 300 yuan, I could also get a basket and a so-so quality bike lock thrown in “for free.” I was of course already paying a premium for the padding hastily rubber-banded to the frame of the bike to make it appear brand new, and it was obvious that the bike was nothing more than a cheap knock-off of some other legitimate brand, but I figured that I would be paying more like 500 yuan if I didn’t have Xia there with me to save the day. I was also told that, “if it stays together for the school year,” I’d be able to re-sell it in 10 months for at least 100 yuan—probably the biggest indicator that I was buying a bike that was a bit too nice. So we acquiesced to a price of 300 yuan, and we drove with the shop owner’s wife (who looked like she was about 15 at first glance, but the crow’s feet around her eyes said otherwise) to the ATM on the Tsinghua campus, where I paid for my new bike.

(My bike is black with white lettering and has “WOLFS” in big letters written across the cross-beam on the frame—“perfect for a male,” Xia said when we were buying it, and I laughingly agreed. I’ve since seen parked out front of my apartment building an elaborate-looking mountain bike with “WOLF” written across the frame, affirming my suspicion that my bike was simply a cheap-o, knock-off brand designed to woo male bikers by having the name of a vicious animal plastered across its sides.)

I was and remain extremely pleased with the purchase. Three days later, the pedals haven’t fallen off and the lock hasn’t been broken and the bike stolen, so I couldn’t be happier. I’m planning on taking a ride either today or tomorrow around the greater Haidian district, and perhaps all the way into downtown Beijing.

Xia asked me on the way back to my apartment that night if I had ever biked before, and I replied that I had—how would I know how to bike right now if I hadn’t? She laughed, and replied that she meant, “have you ever biked in a place like Beijing before?” I asked her why she thought Beijing was different than any place else, and, as she had done several times already, Xia laughed a bit and we kept biking home.

In the past several days, at least 3 cab side-view mirrors have come within six inches of my elbows, and I’ve almost had at least 2 or 3 collisions with other bikers just biking around campus. The students are all arriving back at school from summer break, and in the past 48 hours, campus traffic—bike and car alike—has exploded. I’ve learned that it’s critical to use your hands like they’re blinkers on a car when making turns on crowded streets if you don’t want to be run down. I never realized how car-like bike traffic could get. The only other time I’ve seen such aggressive biking on such a scale was in Amsterdam, but even that was nothing like the bike culture here in Beijing. I’m looking forward to learning how to manage the traffic patterns here a bit more in the coming weeks and months, but until then, I’m just hoping to stay out of bandages.