Tandem Ride to Tiananmen Square

Lynn and Bike Friday at the Tiananmen Gate
A strong breeze blew away yesterday's smog, and the bright blue sky that greeted us this morning convinced us to play hooky, and ride our tandem down to Tiananmen Square, as well as to a big book store nearby to buy some guide books. You can look at a Google Map of the ride I made using GPS Visualizer. The yellow tags are where I took photos. We tried to avoid the big main road (Xidan Avenue) which has places where it gets very busy and slow. This was not a total success, as we ended up on a narrow street, not really wide enough for a lane in each direction, and without a separate bike lane. At least the speed of the traffic was determined by the procession of bikes. Nearer Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City there are wide bike lanes on ever wider boulevards, making for nice biking.

The Chinese seem to have seen everything, and so two Westerners on a strange bicycle built for two only arouses a few interested glances and comments.


Lynn, Mao, and Suprised Looks


Lynn and Little Boy
Spring is arriving, and the Magnolia trees along the walls of the Forbidden City were blooming.


Magnolia Blossom


Chinese Lantern and Magnolia
At many stores and attractions there is a manned bike park where you can leave a bike under the hopefully watchful eyes of a guard for half a yuan. The photo shows the one at the nearby bookstore we were aiming for - Beijing Books - a very large one, but, it turned out, one with not a large selection of guide books in English. Still, it was a lovely day for a ride!


Bike Park
On the way back we ended up on an even narrower lane, cycling through throngs of people shopping at the little shops and stalls. This was fun once we got far enough that the cars had given up their attempt to use the lane as a short cut!