Bike News

Stolen from the Age ...
China's bike fades to black By Tianjin
May 23 2006
ONE of the most iconic symbols of old China — the sturdy, gearless black bicycle ridden by the masses — is running out of customers in Lycra-clad, mountain-biking modern China. Sales at Flying Pigeon, the state bicycle company set up after the Communist revolution in 1949, have plummeted so far that the company is considering outsourcing to South-East Asia and Africa to cut costs. Tens of thousands of Flying Pigeon and the other two former state brands, Forever and Phoenix, still travel the cycle lanes of China's cities. But cars are now king and the cycle lanes are being rebranded highways. Bicycles have been banned in parts of Shanghai to ease congestion and cycling in Beijing has become a daily suicide mission with 1500 new cars a day swerving onto the capital's roads. In a cut-throat market, the only bicycles selling well are racers and mountain bikes. Most up-and-coming Chinese would not be seen dead on Flying Pigeon's sturdy 20-kilogram bone-shaker with its reinforced crossbar to carry pigs. Sales have plunged since the 1980s when 4 million cycles were sold each year. Last year 1.5 million were made, 30 per cent of which were exported. Yet the company does not believe in advertising. "We have no need to advertise. Everybody in China knows Flying Pigeon," the company's export director, Wang Dajian, said. Asked if he was willing to enter a joint venture to help to modernise the company, Mr Wang was horrified. "Never! No! Too much history, too much culture. We can never have joint venture here. Flying Pigeon is too Chinese, too traditional." Traditional perhaps, but many of the young employees who make up the 500-strong workforce arrive at work on stylish mountain bikes.