Just an odd "bike" seen while riding

I was out on a multi-day bicycle ride and I happened to see this oddity. It immediately made me think of the "elf" electric runabout. Yes it is a little beat, it clearly gets use (and it has clearly tipped over at least once). According to local law, it is a bicycle.

Interesting. Do you actually see the pedals? What city is that?

It was in a small city, near Nanjing, called Zhenjiang. I didn't see any pedals; but Chinese law does not require electric bicycles to have pedals. Several of the scooters you see parked on the sidewalk behind it are, according to the law, bicycles.

I was out on a three day ride and was staying, for the night, in a hostel near where I took that picture.

Thanks. So is that portion of China bicycle friendly? Are you on a regular bicycle ride, or an ebike ride?

3 wheels and no pedals. I think something got lost in translation.

SamTexas said:

Thanks. So is that portion of China bicycle friendly? Are you on a regular bicycle ride, or an ebike ride?

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I was actually out on my recumbent.


I will say something that may sound a bit harsh; but by western standards China is not bike friendly at all. Very few conventional bikes are seen on the streets. Most of the bicycles are the electric scooter style that have no pedals. Conventional bicycles tend to fall into two camps, th every poor, and more expensive, sport style, bikes.

Bicycling is seen as transportation for the very poor; however, in China the disdain for the poor is conspicuous and that turns into rude treatment of bicyclists. Just a few examples, last week I went to a relatively large forest park in Nanjing. Autos are permitted to drive in; but bicycles are not permitted in at all. It is common for bicyclists to be required to dismount at intersections while waiting for a light. Further, it is common, at entrances to campuses and other large facilities, for bicyclists to be required to dismount and walk through the entrance while autos are not even stopped; creating a situation where bicyclists are mounting and dismounting in the middle of a swarm of speeding autos, motorcycles and trucks. . . it is about reminding the poor of their place in society.

The much heralded separate lanes for bicycles suffer from terribly planned intersections that give priority to autos. Further, the lanes are typically used by autos and lorries to bypass traffic stalls. Bicycles are not permitted on any public transportation, not even if folded (however, this is frequently ignored on the long distance trains if you use the "slow" service trains). There is also th e stunning carelessness with which the Chinese drive. One of the things I look forward to on my returns to the US is the polite, orderly traffic.

I figured just as much. How do you get by over there? Are you fluent in the language?

SamTexas said:

I figured just as much. How do you get by over there? Are you fluent in the language?

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Actually I do pretty well. I am polite to people and, for all my grumbling, I am considered pretty easy going.

As far as the language, no way. I studied Chinese when I was in Grad school and I know less Chinese after six years in China than I did in school. The trouble is that Chinese is not a language, it is a family of languages that share a common writing system. It is like saying that you speak Indo-European. It is not uncommon for people that live only a hundred miles apart to be unable to talk to each other. There is a big push to require putonghua (what we call Mandarin) education to everyone in the schools; but, that seems to be a relatively new program.

I can read enough to get by though. As I told another American once, it is an interesting experience in being functionally illiterate. I can speak a little, but no where near fluency.

Sounds good. Thanks for sharing.

I spent a few days in Guangzhou in the mid 90's. I was an experience I don't want to repeat again. Macau and Hong Kong were much better for me.

Are you an engineer? I'm impudently surmising that based on your aerodynamically wise choice in recumbents. :wink:

(Can you get those low-racers cheap over there? I get the feeling the price for specialty bicycles are significantly increased above manufacturing cost when marketed in the USA (Just as Apple's products are), when sometimes they can be obtained at near the cost of manufacture under a 'different brand' or 'no name' brand over there.)

40% appears on chinese bikes and there parts when they enter europe (or maybe just the uk). It is called an anti-dumping charge.

I call this absolute bollox. It is not an anti dumping charge. It just keeps european manufacturers competitive. Life is good for thief's such as the banks that insure them.

Most bike's sold are racers around £650 so for each one sold a few cheap bikes could appear in the city. Very soon they could be more of a dumping problem than theft problem. We have stacks of scrap men driving round looking for such bikes though, and charity's that fix them up and sell them for peanuts. There would never be a dumping problem that causes more bother than bike theft.


I'm not sure who passes a lot of these rules, but I want my 40% back, and it won't lead to me dumping my bike I assure you. The only problem I see is so much european bike money heading out of europe. You can't hide that behind dumping though. At best such an excuse can only ensure nothing sells for $50

swbluto said:

Are you an engineer? I'm impudently surmising that based on your aerodynamically wise choice in recumbents. :wink:

(Can you get those low-racers cheap over there? I get the feeling the price for specialty bicycles are significantly increased above manufacturing cost when marketed in the USA (Just as Apple's products are), when sometimes they can be obtained at near the cost of manufacture under a 'different brand' or 'no name' brand over there.)

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Actually, I am an Economics teacher. Here is a link http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.20.ouCE9i&id=15792829391 to where I got the bike. It is about $800USD.