Where have all the bicycles gone?
I must admit that the song sung by Katie Melua needs to be addressed.
She mentioned that there are “9 million bicycles in Beijing and that’s a fact.”
One noticeable thing that has hit me like a sledge hammer is that there are hardly any bicycles.
The last time that I journeyed along the wall they were like a swarm of bees, everywhere. Adults, children old folks slowly peddled and swerved their way across the countryside.
Coming and going everywhere, carrying farming implements, produce wood, basically anything that needed to be moved from A to B was on that bicycle. Around every corner there was also a bicycle repair station, fixing punctures replacing chains and just doing general repairs to keep the fleet moving.
This has now all changed, one hardly sees a bicycle, if one does it’s the rental type which one finds in the cities, green, and red, pink, yellow and any other colour. They have been replaced by electric scooters that are everywhere; I would say that one now sees one bicycle for every 30 scooters.
I remember going past a school and there were massive bicycle stands, now this is replaced by the lots for scooters. The same in the farmlands, all over the fields; scooters are parked, waiting to carry the produce, farmer and implements back to the village.
