Chinese Still Bike for Life, Not Sport

BEIJING -- In a country chock-full of bicycles -- and a contingent of top athletes – some are asking: where are China's cyclists?

Tong Chai earns a living transporting shoes in Beijing.

Hiroko Tabuchi

China's road and track bike athletes have gone nowhere at the Beijing Games. The country's sole cyclist in the road race didn't finish. China's Guo Suang eked out a bronze in the women's point race Tuesday. But the BMX and mountain bike events yielded no medals for China.

"It seems China is a big country of cyclists, but not sports cyclists," wrote Chen Lidan in a post on Sina.com, a major Web portal.

That's in part because a lack of grassroots cycling events means amateur enthusiasts have nowhere to hone their skills.

"Look at the top cyclists in the world, and they started out as kids who just loved to cycle" and launched their careers with local races, says Todd McKean, head of Trek Bicycle Corp. in China. "That doesn't happen here."

China's dismal standing also underscores the fact that for most Chinese, bicycles are still a way of life, not a sport. Despite a rapid rise in car ownership in the past decade, most people here still get around on two wheels. And with recent efforts by authorities to curb traffic, bicycles are here to stay.

Take Yuan Li, for example. Since Beijing introduced strict traffic controls for the Olympic Games, the bank clerk has ditched his car and cycled to work from his home in the suburbs. It's an arduous 60-minute journey each way with many obstacles to dodge: speeding trucks, taxis in bicycle lanes. Mr. Yuan recently went to a repair center to get his bicycle retooled. "I'm getting wheels that are faster and easier to maneuver," he says. Even after the Games end, Mr. Yuan says he is considering to continue to cycle to work, in part because of rising gas prices.

Tong Chai earns a living transporting export-bound shoes. Mr. Tong, who migrated to Bejing from the northeastern part of the country over 10 years ago, makes two to three round trips across Beijing each day with sometimes close to 700 pounds of shoes on the back of his rusty "Holy Cow" brand three-wheeled bicycle. He says he's used to maneuvering through the Beijing traffic, despite the sharp increase in cars over several years.

Still, for richer Chinese, cycling is going beyond simply getting around, and the Olympics are playing a big role in bringing recreational cycling to this cycling nation. Trek and other companies here are trying to push hobby cycling by organizing bike rides around Beijing – though authorities have banned such events during the Olympics. One positive effect of the Beijing Games has been a flurry in road construction around the capital, which means more track for amateur cyclists to race on.

And the Olympics' BMX cyclists have more than a few Chinese enthralled. Xu Pan, 24, one of a cheering crowd of local fans at the BMX preliminary races on Wednesday, later dropped by at a Trek shop to shop for BMX shoes.

"It looks so difficult, but I want to try it," says Mr. Xu, a shipping company worker who says he likes watching basketball and soccer. "BMX could be my new favorite," he says.

The shop didn't have any shoes in Mr. Xu's size; but he says he'll look again downtown and has no qualms about blowing 400 yuan (about $60) on a pair. Then he hopes to get a BMX bike, which could cost thousands of yuan.

Mr. Xu says he is patient with China's national team. "We're just starting out," he says. "But we will learn quickly."

by Kersten Zhang and Gao Sen contributed to this article