This is my my shiney new Chinese bike, I bought it on Saturday from a salesperson at the local department store who was thrilled to sell a bike to a rich white person. No, it doesn't have shocks, or pegs, and it's a little heavy to take it off any sweet jumps. What it does have are some sweet fenders to keep the road grime off of me when it rains, and a rack on which I can attach groceries, I also bought a basket, but haven't put that on yet. It's heavy, the breaks don't work all that great, and it's a little small for me (this was the biggest one they had), but this is my Chinese bike. Can you believe I got this, a pump, the basket, and a sturdy lock for less than $50 USD!


Sunday I decided to take my bike out for a ride around my part of Shanghai. I brought it down to the street, got on, and immediately the seat nearly fell off, loose bolt. So my first stop was the Chinese department store, pictured below.

Immagine a Super Target on steroids, that's what this place was, 4 stories worth. Good news is I did manage to find my wrench, bad news is, where the hell did I park my bike? This is the second level of bike parking, at least I knew that much about where I left it.

Well I found my bike (it was the new, expensive looking one) and fixed it while some interested Chinese observers looked on, I guess there not used to seeing Americans tinkering with bicycles outside their big giant department store where they just ate their McDonalds lunch and bought an iPod.

So finally I was really off. While on most side roads you're left to fend for yourself (below),

the highways all have nice, wide, bikepaths (below) that really make it easy to get anywhere around town on a bike. It's really a treat compared to Houston where you can't go anywhere on a bike. This path runs along one of the main highways through town, the highway is elevated, so you don't get as much traffic noise, and is nicely planted along the way as to make for an enjoyable ride around town.

All in all, a bicyle is a great way to get around Shanghai, especially my little part of town. My bike get's me to the store, to work if I really wanted to ride it there, or just around the block.

I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures!