Reinventing the Bicycle in Beijing

Beijing's streets are littered with skeletons. Corralled into the shadows between intermittent streetlights, or laid bare on the pyres of public refuse, they shrink from the high-beam gaze of the lumbering Audis struggling through narrow lanes. They are the remnants of a previous age: the Kingdom of the Bicycle.

With the highest household vehicle ownership in China, and ever-expanding ring roads encircling the city, the once mighty bicycle is no longer the status symbol it once was. Instead, now many urbanites profess that they would rather cry in a BMW than smile on the back of a bike, a sentiment that is hard to overcome amongst China's rapidly expanding middle class.