Ich Bin Ein Beijinger: Powered Pedals

I’m not what you’d call an environmental role model. I have no idea how big my carbon footprint is, but I doubt I’ve shed the wasteful habits learned in 30 years of life in America, so we’re probably talking Sasquatch proportions. Air conditioning, beef consumption, incandescent lighting – my sins against Gaia are numerous.

The one mark in the assets column of my eco-karmic balance sheet is that I don’t drive a car. I haven’t owned one for ten years now, and as I’ve watched Beijing’s traffic go from bad to intolerably freaking bad, I’ve grown ever more stubborn in my refusal to buy a car. This was a bone of contention between me and my wife Fanfan, who didn’t grow up driving like I did, and who like most Chinese can’t really be faulted for wanting a car. For her, cars were about self-expression; for me, conveyance was all that mattered.

If we must buy a car, I said, then there’s no way we’re buying an SUV (her starting position). I countered with a Suzuki Swift, or something equally tiny. I’d be willing to go as big as a Prius, I said, but she so hated everything in my acceptable range, and got so tired of my sanctimonious tirades about peak oil, smog and global warming that finally she stopped arguing with me. Sure, there are times I wish I could whisk the family off to Huairou or points beyond for weekend escapes from Old Chokey, but hiring or borrowing seems a more economical way to go. And so I’m glad to be car-free and planning on staying this way, at least until plug-ins are cheap and widely available.

But one must get around. Some years back, around 2004, I started seeing all these electric bikes on the road, zipping past me as I huffed along on my mountain bike. I bought my first e-bike about three years ago. It was a Giant, but that was a misnomer – the thing was actually tiny, like a proper gas-powered scooter shrunk to 60 percent of its original size. Fanfan was livid. Riding the thing, she said, I looked like one of those circus bears pedaling a miniature bicycle. It was especially comical because, as she’s fond of pointing out, I have relatively short legs and an absurdly long torso. Within months, at her insistence, I had given the thing to her parents.

When we moved this summer to a part of town that’s beyond walking distance from a convenient subway stop and practically gridlocked during rush hour, she relented and let me buy another e-bike. I settled on a Dushifeng – a “Citify” – with an outsize lead-acid battery that can carry the thing 70km on a charge at a decent clip of about 30km/hr. With a 500 watt motor, it’s even got a bit of pep. It cost me RMB 2,300, and to Fanfan’s relief, it’s big enough that I don’t look ridiculous – or wouldn’t, anyway, were it not for the bicycle helmet and ski goggles she insists I don before setting off.

A single charge gets me back and forth from Zhongguancun, where I go once or twice a week. Crossing the vast expanse of Beijing, one has practically limitless choices of route, and I change mine up every time, just to go through parts of town I’ve not been through in a while. It’s astonishing how much you miss when you take the subway all the time. The e-bike has put me back in touch with Beijing.

Last night I was at a dinner party thrown by an American environmental lawyer, and oddly, electric bikes were the subject of prolonged conversation. A journalist friend of mine had bought one recently, and declared that it had changed his life. The host, who had real green credibility to uphold, had finally decided to pay twice the going rate and swap to a lithium-ion job, which is not only less environmentally damaging but will also go something like 140km on a charge. The downside, it turns out, is it poses a higher chance of explosion. We wondered why they hadn’t gotten more popular in America.

Another American journalist professed his hatred for scooters, electric or otherwise, decrying the “Guangzhouification” of Beijing and pronouncing them a major road safety hazard. We agreed: They’re dangerously quiet, so pedestrians and other cyclists can’t hear you as you approach. But then we went right back to extolling their virtues.

I’m now contemplating formation of an outlaw e-biker gang dedicated to the noble work of keeping the bike lanes of Beijing free of cars. Those selfish assholes have driven me to paroxysms of rage on many a morning commute, and I’m for meting out rough justice. Who’s with me?