奇速英语

27-year-old passionate biker Song Renka has been cycling since her teens. “I love making plans for cycling routes and matching my clothes and accessories(配饰) for when I’m on the bike. It is not just exercise, it also makes me happy,” Song said.

Song is not the only biker in China who sees cycling as a way to show who they are. All around the country, especially in major urban centers such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, bikes are no longer defined as tools for daily commutes(通勤) but have become a lifestyle choice.

RE, a biking lifestyle company in Beijing, runs just one of the city clubs that have started to gather cool bikers together. The company’s shops not only provide bicycle products, but also have cafes and flowers and clothing sections(部分) as it aims to promote bike culture as a lifestyle choice and also expand the scale and togetherness of the biking community in the city.

Biking circles are not just connected through brick and mortar shops(实体店) but also online communities. Take RE for example, it has more than 20,000 registered online members and over 20 sub-communities, in which bikers take part in creative events such as designing their own riding clothes from recycled materials. Such creative trends can also be observed on social media platforms such as Douban and Little Red Book, on which riders share their designed routes and experiences.

On Little Red Book, a biker called MR planned a route through the streets in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province that looks like an elephant. It got many likes from bikers. Also, Wang Junjun, a cycling planner in Chongqing, said he designed a very challenging route called “The 3D Adventure”, which guides bikers to know hard-to-find places in the city. “Due to its mountainous nature, not many people ride bikes in Chongqing, but the city is an interesting place to cycle,” Wang said.

Because of COVID-19, more people especially in big cities, have fallen in love with biking around the city. They have begun to see the advantages of this low-cost form of transportation: It is environmentally friendly and also better for their health.

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