Things seem upside down, because at the same time governments in Australia are trying to make cyclists safer and even installing rent-a-bike options. It is estimated that more than a billion bicycles are present in the world, and nearly half of them are in China. But in China the pushy may soon be relegated to history.

We curse the crawl of vehicles on Australia’s city streets most evenings, but the traffic report from China these days sounds like hell – 140 traffic jams on a Friday evening and 88 on a Sunday morning in Beijing alone! (China Daily online 20 Sept 2010). China is now the world’s biggest car consumer and with that comes the biggest traffic jams, a toll approaching 300,000 traffic-related deaths a year, and it brings solutions too – and I don’t mean those enterprising vendors who set up shop for the duration of the traffic jam dispensing noodles! The Chinese have come up with an alternative and a new wave is building – the e-bike is it – move out health conscious, fair dinkum cyclists!

An e-bike is a cross between a pushy and a scooter - they combine pedal power with battery-based propulsion (some have pedals and some don’t), and they are more solid like a scooter. The bikes move at up to 50 kilometres an hour, with a range of 80 kilometres on a fully charged battery and are so quiet they frequently take pedestrians by surprise. As regulations and issues like licencing and insurance are yet to develop, entrepreneurial Chinese are already making money from paid passenger services by e-bike.

In 2009, Chinese bought 21 million e-bikes or 90% of the number sold worldwide (price range 1,700 yuan to 3,000 yuan), compared with 14 million autos (medium-priced cars start from 200,000 Yuan). While China now has about 63 million vehicles on the road (Shanghai Security News), it has twice as many e-bikes and is now the world's leading market for these cheap, green machines, helping to alleviate the harmful effects of the country's love affair with the car.

So where to for the humble pushy? In the 70s, Deng Xiaoping defined prosperity as “a Flying Pigeon in every household”. The whole country moved by bicycle, literally. Now everyone wants a car but many are settling for an electric bike. “Motorcycles are too dangerous, cars are too expensive, public transportation is too crowded and pedal bikes leave you too tired," said Hu Guang, deputy general manager of e-bike manufacturer Xinri (Time Online, 14 June 2009), which made 1.6 million e-bikes last year, from a base of 1000 in 1999 when they started in business. Add to that the banning or restricting of cars and scooters in certain cities – and there is no need to register or even get a licence for an e-bike in most cities – it looks like an attractive option.

The push bike in China grew from the 1930s when China started to make bikes and they became affordable. After the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the bike industry expanded and a bike became one of the big 3 purchases at marriage: a sewing machine, a watch and a bike (costing several months salary back in the middle of last century).

The level of one million bicycles was reached in 1958 and bike lanes became part of urban street planning and commuting workers even received financial subsidies when purchasing a bicycle. By 1986 over 60% of commuters travelled by bicycle (now the number is below 18% and falling).

Fast forward to 2010 – over 1800 vehicles per day are added to Beijing and traffic jams last for weeks. By contrast, in Australia where the car has been king for decades, there are over 15 million motor vehicles on our roads, or three motor vehicles for every four people in the population. With only 3% of China’s population in the car generation it is a frightening prospect and leaves us wondering how they will all get on the road – by 2020 over 200 million vehicles will be trying to do that in China and growing!. Meantime back in Australia more and more of us are taking to the bike lanes and paths to get fit and to avoid the commuter crush.

Safety concerns are undoubtedly a reason for the fall in cyclists in China and reading the Melbourne Age recently bike rider injuries and fatalities are on the rise here too, but western cities are finding ways to improve cyclist safety and opening new innovations. In China traditional bike lanes are being reduced or narrowed and e-bikes and cars frequently clog these lanes; there are more and more no-go zones for push bikes and parking places are hard to find leading to increases in bike theft – the car is dictating planning decisions. Recognising the need to get cars off the road, China now has a Car Free Day (like our Ride to Work Day) to encourage people back in the saddle and has to impose restrictions where odd and even number plated cars can only drive on certain days of the week.

Changes to transportation are one of the first things you observe in 21^st Century China. In the old days bikes were everywhere; now the air is polluted with fumes and car horns and the road clogged with cars; flyovers, ring roads and underpasses scroll around the skyline. The e-bike revolution is catching up though and these vehicles are being seen, but not heard in greater numbers.

More than 95% of the world's e-bikes forecast to be sold over the next six years will be bought in China, From virtually nothing a decade ago, electric bikes have become an $11 billion global industry.(David Goodman, New York Times, 31 January 2010).

The 120 million e-bikes estimated to be on the roads in China, might make them already the top alternative to cars and public transport, but not for this determined cyclist on Melbourne’s roads – rain, hail or shine - and there has been plenty of the former this year, I’ll be sticking to pedal power, donning the Chinese raincoat and keeping fit.

Chin Communications, Chinese Translation Specialists, translates all sorts of business documents, as well as articles and books; Chin Communications is also a registered translator for official documents like driver licences; staff frequently travel to interpret for visiting VIPs by bike and therefore are never held up by traffic!

This article appeared in the November issue of the Asian Executive Magazine.

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