One of the images of China that people have is that of lots of people cycling – masses of them with little car type traffic. This image is no longer accurate but I decided that I wanted to get out of this city in Yunan Province and a pushbike seemed like the obvious method. Hire places are not that common, Kunming is not a tourist city, so I did not have a large selection. What I had in fact was a good old-fashioned single gear bone-rattler. It could have been Dutch except it was not a fixed gear and there were brakes. Well there were brake levers and some residual pads but on anything steeper than about ten degrees I could not actually stop. It is quite hilly round Kunming.
Like the Netherlands there are also cycle lanes. Now, those of you familiar with Holland know that this means lanes about 40 or 50 centimetres wide with separate traffic lights, crossovers on the car lanes and the like. Well Kunming does it slightly different. First of all the cycle lanes are 4 or 5 metres wide. Now this obviously gives you plenty of room – plenty of room to get a car or a bus down the lane for instance. This is slightly more confusing than normal because there are hefty steel barriers between the cycle lane and the road. However, if you are a car driver who wants to get to the shop it is easier to drive down the cycle lane and then up on to the pavement rather than get straight on the pavement at the road junction. After all there may have dips for entrances, trees, stalls and other such impediments. A bus 10 centimetres from your rear wheel can be a bit off-putting. I never really figured this one out because normally they put in a bus stop by eliminating the cycle lane and forcing cyclist up on the pavement but, nonetheless, there was obviously some vital need for this to happen on a fairly regular basis.
The real problem with cars is that the cycle lanes run out about twenty or thirty metres before a junction and the cars obviously want to turn right. They drive on the wrong side of the road here i.e. on the right, and have the American policy of being able to turn right at a red light. As a cyclist going straight on you are now in a precarious position – cars have the right of way and will use it because they are bigger than you - but you cannot get off at every junction and wait for pedestrian lights, which are not too much of a guarantee anyway. If you are Chinese you go straight on and assume that everything will go round you. This is done by not looking round; if you haven’t looked round then how can you be responsible for anything? I looked for a Chinese cyclist a metre or two behind me and on my left and used him (or her, I am no sexist in these matters) as a shield.
There is one other thing about cars. When they are turning across a block of cyclist’s into an alley or something they creep forward slowly but consistently at perhaps 5 or 8 kph. This allows the cyclist the opportunity of going in front of or behind the car. The two-wheeled travellers invariably go in front because it is a lesser change of angle, you may swing out of your intended line a bit far but it is obviously better than braking and swerving the other way. This does imply a certain amount of faith but I got pretty good at it after a couple of days. This behaviour also explained something that has puzzled me about China ever since I got here. Why, when am I nearly across the road, do cyclists and motorbike riders head for that forty – thirty – twenty centimetre gap between me and the pavement in stead of going behind me? The answer; they treat me exactly the same way as a car – getting round the front it is easier. Now I may not be too thin (in fact a 9 year old on the flight to Kunming had taken the time to reassure me that I was fat; he also said my hair was white so you can guess how popular he was) but I am hardly car sized, at least when I am sober enough to stand up.
However, cars are not the real hazards. Oh no, there is much worse. Knitters for instance; knitting is a popular pastime in Kunming and you often see women on the pavement knitting. It is a nice sunny day, clear of shadows out in the middle of the cycle lane so where better to have a knit and a chat with your knitting pal?
You are not impressed by knitters; how about a market? You are idly riding along and suddenly it is all stalls and people. A cycle lane is a nice empty space; where better for an evening market?
Motor Bikes. It is difficult to say what constitutes a cycle in China but it definitely includes small capacity motor-bikes. Now this shouldn’t be a problem because you can hear them but which side will they appear on? In all circumstances, at all times, on all roads in China you can pass on either side of any vehicle. I got nervous.
Cyclists? Your friend is walking so you cycle at walking speed. It is obviously easier if the cyclist and two or three pedestrians (as there always are) walk in a line abreast. It is obviously much easier if you all walk in one place – the nice smooth cycle lane not the rough, bumpy pavement. Remember the no looking over your shoulder rule so wobbling is somebody else’s problem. Do you care if there is only a metre to your right with three cyclists approaching busy overtaking each other - no. If the cyclists can get through that 50 centimetre wobble between you and your walking mate good luck to them, otherwise they will be stamping on the brakes and jumping off the bike pretty damn quick.
Horse & Cart? When I was a kid I thought that when you trotted on a pony it was quick; I never dreamed that I would be second-guessing the movements of these shitting machines as I overtook them on a bike.
Fruit Barrow? Now how can that be difficult? Two reasons; they follow the don’t look over your shoulder rule so can suddenly swing a 100 kilograms of barrow and fruit into the side of your bike. That is if you are lucky. Normally they are coming the other way. Why use the pavement with all its humps and hollows, rubbish bins and stalls? No the cycle path is obviously easier and why cross the road with that heavy load – surely no reasonable person would expect a fruit seller to do that? Naturally this would not be a problem if there were an open lane with no cyclists in it. Why would a fruit seller want to be where there are no customers?
Trucks are not a problem in cycle lanes. However, when you get out of town and there are no cycle lanes almost all traffic consists of minibuses and trucks. And you? You are either pushing your bike up a hill full of trucks and hairpins because it is too steep for your one gear, riding down the hill with trucks, hairpins and your braking problems or have found some dirt road that is only 4 metres wide with lots of trucks going both ways. There are no other sorts of road around Kunming.
Cyclists again. There are cycle lanes down both sides of all the main roads but about 10 per cent of people are cycling the wrong way up your lane. As I mentioned all overtaking manoeuvres are legitimate in China so which side are you going to pass on? You are thinking “No problem because the lane is so wide.” Oh yes. Throw in the odd fruit-seller, three or four other bikes a dog and maybe somebody standing around smoking and what have you got? Who knows which side of whom the opposition will go, you just guess and try and look serene. Naturally after a couple of days I was doing exactly this – cycling the wrong way up a cycle lane - in the dark. Lights? Pah, those are for wimps.
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