In which we depart Beijing for Changping and the Great Wall. We depart our hotel. 250 meters to the Birds Nest Stadium past the Water Cube and turn right out of town. We are following the Badaling Expressway. This is the same route of the men's Olympic cycling road race. We are not doing it quite as fast. I blame the traffic for our slow pace, but secretly suspect that a lack of years of training and dedication, drugs and an extra 30 kilograms is probably the real reason. Karen has far more close encounters with cars on the way than [View Full Entry]

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In which the journey starts and you are drawn in ..... To paraphrase Douglas Adams: Beijing is big - really big - you just won't believe how vastly, hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to Beijing. Karen quickly sums up the population of Beijing - "Holy Crap! Look at all those people!" 17.4 Million is one of the official estimates of this city's population. Local opinion has the number a lot higher. Illegal migrants from the country side make the population higher again. This is [View Full Entry]

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Cycling around Beijing is generally achievable - but not for the squeamish or feint hearted. The following observations are based on a visit to Beijing during a windy and (mercifully) clear last week of October 2008. We used our own bicycles, transported safely and within baggage weight limits by Qantas from Australian. A Navigators Nightmare We stayed at the North end of Beijing at the Crowne Plaza Wuzhou. A ride South to the Forbidden City seemed straight forward enough. In reality there were a few barriers to easy navigation. Some of the more major roads in Beijing are fenced [View Full Entry]

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