Interview on Colombia National Public Radio

A couple days back, I did an interview with the good people from Colombian National Public Radio.  Among other things, we talked about bicycle use in China and the emergence of the Electric Bike.   Have a listen and enjoy! 


Stream it here



Download the Audio

Or, read some Text en espanol.

The Reason We Didn't Play Bike Polo in Beijing

A Journey through Hutong

For the Love of Bicycle Polo

This year I've developed a sort of un-healthy passion for Hardcourt Bicycle Polo.  Unhealthy in the sense that it's possible I might have ignored the advice of doctors, surgeons, physios and osteos warning that continued competition might not bode well for my torn hip cartilage.  

Living in Melbourne for four months provided me with an amazing opportunity to improve my game while building a community of life long friends.  But perhaps more than any thing else, my time in Melbourne distilled within me a passion for sharing this game with others. 

And so I arrived in Beijing 11 days ago with 3 pre-crafted polo mallets in a narrow cardboard box and 2 hockey balls stuffed into the bottom of my bag, armed with the intention of organizing a few polo games while in Beijing-town.  

But starting up bike polo seems easier said than done in Beijing.  For one, there are few public courts suitable for polo within the inner ring roads; there are some, sure, but it's hard to say whether the neighbors or police will tolerate regular games.  In Shanghai, they rent out an athletic space.

Secondly, finding HDPE and ABS gas piping to create mallet heads has been near impossible.  While most of the piping found on polo courts across the world is manufactured in China, there appears to be no store selling the pipe in Beijing proper.  

So in a creative (desperate) moment, I decided to try something ingenious (rash).  I bought a tea bottle, made of super hard plastic, with the intention of making a mallet head.  

I know what you're thinking...you polo freaks, you.  Doomed from the start, right?  Well, you'd be right...but I had to try.  

After sawing off the top bit of the water bottle, I started to drill through the sides to make space for the ski pole.   The bottle didn't crack during this process, and actually, the holes turned out to be quite nicely.  A good start.  

Then it was time to attach the bottle to the mallet.  The moment of truth: 

 

The bottle cracked as I tightened down the bolt.

And so my hopes were dashed, my dreams deferred.  

Without even a single game, the idea of a sippy-cup water bottle mallet fell to the wayside.  Tragedy. 

In brighter news, it appears we've located a source for the pipe.  We've made the order and expect the pipe in two days.  Here's hoping.

Bicycling in Beijing: Initial Observations

Upon arriving in Beijing, it wasn't long before I saw the emerging insanity that is Chinese driving patterns.

In his new book, "A Journey Through China From Farm to Factory," Peter Hessler writes "It’s hard to imagine another place where people take such joy in driving so badly...They don’t mind if you tailgate, or pass on the right or drive on the sidewalk. You can back down a highway entrance ramp without anybody batting an eyelash. . . . People pass on hills; they pass on turns; they pass in tunnels..."

Indeed, as I took a taxi from the Beijing airport to my hostel on the eastern edge of the Forbidden City, I tried to make small talk with my driver as we sped down the interstate. "Brrrrr," I said, rubbing my hands on the tops of my arms to indicate that it was cold outside. He glared at me. "Cold," I said, repeating the gesture. "Colt," he said--moving to turn up the heater in the already overly hot taxi. Not exactly what I'd intended to achieve...I learned quickly that attempting to make small talk in a language that wasn't my own was pretty much useless.

Left with little to do but stare out the window, we passed a car backing-up on the interstate. As in moving backwards and against traffic. On the interstate. Yeesh.

As we neared the city center, passing each of the ring roads forming the outer perimeter of Beijing, I looked desperately for bikes. I was increasingly dissappointed. The Asian city crawling with bikes, the place that so many people instantly understood to be integral to my project, was consumed by cars. The bikes were outnumbered by cars in the Beijing streets leading from the airport to the city center by 10 to 1.

I'd learned from a friend in Melbourne, a friend who'd lived in Shanghai for years, that traffic patterns in China were fundamentally different than those in most western countries. "In China, the bigger you are the more right of way you have," he explained. "So the bikes must always yield to the cars, and the pedestrians must yield to the bikes. Stick with the motorized scooters," he said. "Because you'll be riding faster than the average Chinese, and because you want to be in a group as often as possible, stick with the motor scooters. The bigger the group, the more right of way you have."

Taking all this in from the relative traffic comfort of Melbourne was pretty easy. Sure, I get that. Just give way to the cars.

But after five days spent riding a bike in the streets of Beijing, the dog-eat-dog insanity of it all has been a bit harder for my western mind to comprehend. Cars turn right at all times and without regard for who or what may be in their way. Cars turning left across crosswalks and forward moving traffic are equally as dangerous. So, after you make it past the right turning traffic, you have to guard your life from left turning traffic. And that's to say nothing of the electric powered three wheel carts that fill the bike lanes. Or the motor scooters going backwards in the bike lane, looking up, down, left, right...every way but straight ahead....In spite of the fact that they are in fact heading the wrong way.

In Amsterdam, the madness that is traffic had a name amongst local bicycle riders: the dance. Everyone moved quickly--but carefully--around everyone else: bikes, peds, cars, scooters, skateboarders. In Beijing it is exactly the opposite. Each person moves as recklessly as possible in the general direction of each other person. And the person who stops is the person with the least nerve. Or the person with the least amount of metal around their precious human exterior.

This morning, to pass a bus that had pulled into the bike lane to deposit passengers, I followed about 6 other riders out into traffic on the left side of the bus.

Now, bus drivers are professional drivers--lest we forget.

As I neared the middle of the bus, the driver began to slowly merge back into traffic--pushing me farther out into the roadway gnarled with cars. Looking the driver directly in the eye using her rear-view mirror, I made sure she could see me. She could. I quickly passed the front of the bus with less than an inch to spare between her bumper and my rear wheel. A bully tactic. I'm bigger, you're smaller...Take that!

Stay tuned for more observations and community based bike tomfoolery...

For now, check the Flickr page for photos. As it is, I can't yet add photos to the posts. Blogspot is blocked in China, so my mate Josh has agreed to post some text until we can sort out a better solution.

Keep them wheels turnin'!

[Just so you know, Anthony is having some trouble with the Great Firewall and asked me to post for him - I'll be relaying these blog updates as they come - JMG]