Pedal power on the comeback trail in a car-obsessed China

Bicycles are as potent a symbol of China as dragons, pandas or the Great Wall, but greater riches means the "Kingdom of Bicycles" has to fend off the challenge of a powerful invading force: millions of cars.

But bikes are fighting back. A senior official has urged people to get back in the saddle. The sight of packs of bicycles thronging the boulevards of Beijing was one of the iconic images of the post-revolution era. There were 500 million cyclists in China in the early 1980s. Nowadays, bicycles have been banned in parts of Shanghai to stop congestion, and in Beijing, people use their bikes 60 per cent less than they did 10 years ago.

The number of cyclists has dropped as rapidly as private car ownership has expanded to more than two million cars, a quarter of a million of which were bought in the past two years.

China's deputy minister of construction, Qiu Baoxing, has attacked city planners for making it tougher for cyclists to get around.

"The explosive growth of motor vehicles has caused severe traffic jams and is posing a grave challenge to the country's energy security and urban development," Mr Qiu told a city planning conference. "The Ministry of Construction is firmly opposed to the elimination of bicycle lanes and has ordered cities to restore them," he said.

A bicycle was the most significant purchase a family could make 20 years ago, but now it is a means of getting around for either the very poor in the cities, or the very rich on the outskirts who go mountain biking. Most people who have made a bit of money want to be seen driving a shiny big car, not pedalling a bike.

Some refuse to cycle because the air is often so foul. "I still love riding bicycles, but not as much as I used to, partly because the environment in Beijing has become less agreeable," said Hao, who bought a car last year. "You don't enjoy cycling when you're breathing foul air."

The car industry is a "pillar industry" crucial to China's economic development, so the government is putting emphasis on bike-free ring roads rather than cycle paths. While Beijing has a network of wide bike paths, increasingly they are being turned into car lanes.

"I have to cycle to school, but I prefer to take buses because I think it is not safe to ride on the street," said Xie Kai, 24, a student at Tsinghua University.

Zhou Zhe, 25, a secretary, lives in central Beijing and makes good use of her portable mini-bicycle. "But I usually take the subway or taxi to work, simply because they are much faster than riding a bicycle," she said.

Some reckon that simple economics will get people back on their bikes. High oil prices are feeding into prices at the pump, despite government subsidies for petrol. And Beijing residents are still reeling from a 25 per cent rise in taxi fares last month. China may also take a leaf out of London's book and bring in a congestion charge.

Wang Fenghe, chairman of the China Bicycle Association, said recently that China will continue to be a "Kingdom of Bicycles", as convenience will win out in the end. But even he was forced to give up cycling recently after he was knocked off his bike by a car.

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