4 Reasons Why Cycling in Beijing Is Way Nicer Than You Think

I love cycling. It’s fun. It’s good exercise. Second only to walking, it’s the best way to get to know the geography of a city and – depending where you’re going – it’s often faster than public transport or taxi. But most important of all, it’s empowering.

I've been getting around on two wheels for years now, so no matter how many well-intentioned friends and family flapped their hands and wailed about how dangerous and terrifying it would be, I never considered not getting a bike and cycling in Beijing. What I didn't expect was how enjoyable it would prove.

Compared to many Western cities, the bike lanes in Beijing are gigantic (Chang'an Avenue, anyone?), and in great condition. Wide bike lanes mean easy overtaking, which is essential if you want to keep both the lycra set and 80-year-old cyclists happy. Narrow bike lanes on the other hand cause bottlenecking, which in turn puts pressure on people to ride fast, causing an unreasonable and potentially dangerous situation. Wide lanes also solve the problem of bike lanes being obstructed by the delivery trucks, scooters, and cars, hazard-lights merrily blinking, an irritating but unavoidable fact of cycling the world over.

This is an obvious one: Beijing is as flat as a pancake. Whether you're riding with a zillion gears, an Ofo, or on a fixie, you're unlikely to break a sweat while riding around, unless you actually want to.

Unlike in the West, as recently as ten or 15 years ago, cycling was pretty much the only way to get around in Beijing. Everybody rode. Everywhere. While this may no longer be the case, there are still far more cyclists in Beijing than Paris, and there is a historical and cultural acceptance of cycling as a normal thing to do. Furthermore, compared to every other place I've cycled, drivers here have a much lower sense of entitlement to the road. Truly.

Is it the result of growing up with over a billion other people? The need to endlessly navigate around each other in confined spaces? Or is it the impact of 'face' which prevents petty outbursts of dissatisfaction? I don't know. I just know that Beijingers move around public spaces in a surprisingly easygoing way. Road rules are mostly guidelines, and despite the frequent cutting-off and pulling-into-busy-traffic-without-even-pretending-to-look, most of the time people adjust to accommodate one another without a word. Don't believe me? Ride the wrong way up a bike lane in Beijing and see what happens (nothing). Now try that again in London, New York, or Paris. Shannon Bufton from Serk relates this to a phenomena he calls "negotiated flow," explaining, "when you come to an intersection, everything slows down because [road users] don’t know who should be first since there is no steadfast rule ... you look everyone in the eye, and then you personally negotiate the space, which makes it very, very safe." The added benefit of this system is, in his view, "if something goes wrong, by the time you’ve slowed down to that speed, it’s just not dangerous at all."