Touring - Biking in China

I may be relocating to Shanghai-I was wondering if could give me some info on the biking possibilities in the area-is it worth it to bring my road bike with me?
American Sensei

I was in Shanghai in Feb of 2001 and then again in Mar of 2002. The car traffic increased 10 fold in that period, at least from downtown to the Pudong area. I've heard the escalation has continued as more and more natives buy cars. The roads that I traveled by driver and taxi were new and well paved but again the traffic was(is) heavy. I didn't get out of the urban area much but the couple of times I did the roads seemed reasonable. Outside of the city the apparent affluence changes dramatically. Shanghai itself is a great metropolitan city. Outside you see the other China. BTW the free enterprise exhibited by the merchants is unreal and as capitalistic as anywhere that I've been;-) Bicycles are still a common mode of transportation by the Chinese, probably still the most common mode. But their style of riding is slow and steady and they are usually carrying some wares and in some cases some amazing loads. I'd be more wary of the other cyclists than the cars on the rural roads as far as accident potential. I saw several bicycle snarlups. I think the idea of riding in the area might be interesting.

A germ of an idea is to ride from Beijing (or further northwest) down to the coast (or thereabouts) and then cycle all the way down to Hong Kong. Hrmmm...

Or cycle along the Great Wall...pick up one of the Silk Road routes...and cycle to Istanbul. :D

Your bike will stick out like a sore thumb. Don't leave it anywhere, lock or no lock.

Biking the Great wall or the Silk Route sounds fantastic-but with the road conditions-might a hybrid or mountain bike be better than my road bike?
American Sensei

This may be an incorrect assumption of mine but I doubt very much that a road bike would survive long on China's roads. :o

This may be an incorrect assumption of mine but I doubt very much that a road bike would survive long on China's roads. :o

That would be incorrect, have you actually lived there?

No, I have not but unless you have actually cycled across China, through Central Asia and the Middle East on a road bike and have it survive then my opinion is probably as valid as your's, operator. This is the touring section and I may be incorrect in thinking that what he means by a road bike is a racing type rather than it being a T2000 or 520.

As for a touring bike sticking out like a sore thumb, it will do so in almost any part of the world including North America, especially when you do self-supported touring.

GOOD GRIEF

I always assumed that bike riders were a diff breed of individuals

Why in blazes can't threads stay with the idea of HELPING, or answering a question instead of deteriorating into a ,no your are wrong and I am right based on merely assumptions.

Please stay with facts and if one doesn't know don't offer info if one has never been in the area in question, it def offers no help

I hadn't thought about a China ride but the gentleman who initiated this thread has certainly a fantastic idea and I wish him well and would hope that should he live in China and ride there he might keep the others who read this forum informed. I'd be interested in going there someday, Marco Polo was one of my early school days heros

Well I have ridden in China.

Don't you think that would qualify more than random guessing with absolutely no basis?

Hrmm... Not wanting to take this thread away, I'm curious about riding in China as that is one of my touring "dream" rides (that or convince the school that I should teach there.. :D). Operator, what tours have you done (website or something?)

Kewl, operator. :beer: So, tell us, where have you ridden in China, when, with who and what equipment and, I guess more importantly for American Sensei, what were the road conditions like?

I lived in Beijing for a couple months. I picked up one of the "local" bikes and retrofitted it with panniers. The streets around urban Beijing are absolutely owned by cyclists, there's a cyclist for every meter of road. People were even towing/carrying sofas/chairs/tables/refrigerators you name it on their bikes. (Of course this was almost 10 years ago).

The roads were ok, not super smooth, but well maintained. This is of course all the roads within a 20km radius of downtown beijing. Once you got into the rural areas it starts to get potholey/bumpy. I'd bring at least a tire/spare tube to keep with you if you're brinign your road bike. It might be a hassle to obtain them at said city.

This might be out of date now, but bikes absolutely ruled the road, you don't get drivers honking at you for "just being there". The funniest thing was every half a kilometer or so there'd be a guy sitting under an umbrella offering to repair/patch tires or pump them up for insanely low prices (Cost of a bust ticket was about 10cents for comparison).

I realize this isn't "shanghai" but it should give you roughly speaking the type of conditions you'll be facing.

(I've heard that bikes were being banned on main/downtown core routes now for cars in the major cities, might want to check into that...)

I've heard about the bike bans as well and have posted on some China sites to check this out. I'm in Osaka now, the road conditions are do-able-but narrow roads, in moderate condition. After living and travelling in Pakistan and Thailand, I was worried that my road bike would be pretty useless on the potholed roads-but looks like it might be do-able.
American Sensei (oh-FYI female 46-international teacher :-)