Tenth Chinese bike o' the day

People hauling.

Well there were pedicabs all over, seen in the background of yesterday's photo and of this street scene. But almost all passenger bikes had steel rear racks strong enough to carry your sweetie on, sitting side saddle:



Sorry for the blur, but it gives you the idea, the side saddle rider pictured above was wearing a jacket of pure white and high shiny boots and was quite the vision being conveyed through the streets. I think the white jackets were something of an elitest fashion statement as the streets, resturaunts and student apartments were so dirty and filthy with coal dust that it showed your class or riches or something that you could keep a jacket like that clean. Just putting your forearms on a table would soil a white jacket. Weird, but I did see people in LA wearing knee high fur lined Ugg boots while walking in the sand on the beach in 70 degree weather, so I am not pretending Americans are any better.

I personally carried people weighing up to 140 pounds or so on my rack in china. No one would carry me, but I don't think I would have broken the racks at 170, whether I could be ridden, well that was another story. A friend and I nearly killed a 120 pound soaking wet pedicab driver in Leshan when 300 pounds of americans sat in the back of his cab. He did a great job, although we had to help him push the cab up an overpass. We tipped him very well.

In related notes, there have been a few nice pics popping up on the web and in my inbox lately that I thought I would share. Hurl from Cars'r'coffins took a single speed MTB trip through cambodia and vietnam and recently posted this family:

Click above for link to his flikr photos, including more photos of bikes in cambodia and vietnam.

I saw families like this in Egypt when I was last ther, maybe a family of five similarly arrayed with a sidesaddle mom with infant in her lap, in nasty traffic in Cairo on an indian hero type bike.

Finally, Michael Godwin sent me the following:

click for bigger, yet still blurry.

Same deal, but in Hatay, Turkey, but on a moped, higher affulence and more petrol in Turkey according to Mike. I do not recall seing many bikes at all when I was in Istanbul, I will have to check my pictures though. Thanks Mike.

If any of you have some interesting related chinese or asian or african or anywhere else interesting bike photos that you would like to share, send em to me at tsaleh at rocketmail dot com. I will post them if I want to especially if they are related to bikes I have or am going to post.