This week was the first time I had been to Panjiayuan antique bike meet in months. Being it was the end of spring festival, and still winter, there wasn't the usual crowd. And the crowd that was there came late. But still there was some interesting stuff to be seen. One first timer unloaded a table of bits and pieces. A fine melange for a browsing.
Frequent readers of this blog know that it mainly focuses on Brake-rod roadsters, but sometimes also features other interesting bikes. Here is one such bike. It is a Forever, or Yongjiu in phonetic Chinese. The particular model is called "The Victor".
Looks new, right? Of course because I am asking you know it is probably not.
Shanghai Forever is another one of the "Famous Four" Chinese brands, and currently the most successful. The company was founded in 1940, and was listed on the Shanghai stock exchange in 1993. They were taken over in 2001 and now manufacture all types of leisure products including mahjong tables, but of course it is the bikes we were interested in. As the name "Forever" might suggest, the bikes are intended to last a long time indeed. I was once told that there was a saying in the old Communist days:
"If you have a baby boy, get a Forever, because he will be with the family always, but if you have a baby girl, get a Flying Pigeon because she will eventually fly away."
Xi'an. City of Legend. China's first capital. Eastern terminus of the Silk Road and center of the mighty Tang Dynasty.
Xi'an is resplendent with history, and nothing is a more potent reminder of this than the Ming city wall. Withstanding the test of time, they still stand guard separating Old Xi'an from the booming modern metropolis.
Now the walls you see are 11KM long and built during the gunpowder age. This means they are THICK and wide enough to lead a cavalry charge down. In these more peaceful times, you could also drive a truck.
We settled for a bike.
The entire trip will take you about an hour to an hour and a half. When you are done, hand the bike back and go get yourself some tasty chuan'r in Xi'an's atmospheric Muslim quarter. Or maybe catch a cab and go see some Xi'an's better known residents.
If you are in to Beijing, and want to satisfy a bicycle hankering, you must head to Beixinqiao. Bicycle heaven. Take the 5 subway line to the Yongehong stop (Lama Temple). Visit the temple which is one of Beijing's great landmarks, and then go to the nearby Natooke fixie shop, if that is your desire
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If not, walk back to the main street, Yongehong Nan Da Jie and then head south.
At Jiaodouku Lu, cross the street. Now you are approaching bicycle heaven. If you go west, you will run into a strip of local shops and a Giant bicycle super store.
I'll say this for the Taiwanese Giant brand, they know how to do a bicycle shop up right! The have a huge stock of proprietary bikes, nicely displayed with upscale components including Shimano and Campy conveniently located nearby. From the looks of things, I'd say that the French "Randonneur" style of bike is coming back into vogue.
On the north side of Jiaodouku Lu is a Giant eCycle super-store, if you'd rather let the volts due the pedalling.
If you head back to the corner of Jiaodouku Lu and Yonghehong lu and head south, you'll see are the Pawnshops, one on either side of the road, followed by some more local shops. The road is now called Dong Si Shi Tiao
The pawnshops usually have a good selection of roadsters: British, Japanese and Chinese, of course.
South of that on Dong Si Shi Tiao are several local shops sell new roadsters: Flying Pigeon, Phoenix, Forever. There's a lot of folding bikes and eCycles mixed, in there of course.
There are also several street side bike doctors in the area.
At the extreme south on the map is a shop selling high end German and Chinese bikes, particularly the Merida brand. If you feel like a carbon fiber race bike, you can find them here.
I would then turn around and head north again to the junction of Jiaodouku. Then turn east. You are now in a section of the street is called "Gui Jie", or Ghost Street. It is wall-to-wall restaurants for about a kilometer and a half, many of which are open all night. The "ghosts" in this case are the diners who come in at 3 AM wearing pajamas for some late night hot pot. I've been at 1:30 AM and many restuarants still had a waiting line outside! At any time, this is a great place to get some good food and a Yanjing beer.
(Map credit to Google Maps)
