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Gael Thoreau points out<br />
Nanluoguxiang sights<br />
during his sidecar tours<br />
Gael Thoreau applies his<br />
brakes, tucks in his wing<br />
mirrors, and negotiates<br />
his way slowly between<br />
lamppost and doorstep. The<br />
Frenchman’s Chang Jiang 750<br />
sidecar motorbike might be the<br />
perfect mode of transport for<br />
exploring Beijing’s hutongs, but<br />
frequent tight spaces often require<br />
bike and rider to suck in their<br />
collective breath. For Thoreau,<br />
though, it’s all part of the charm of<br />
these ancient thoroughfares.<br />
“It can be a squeeze sometimes,<br />
but there’s always something<br />
HUB //<br />
interesting going on round the<br />
corner,” he says. “The hutongs<br />
are fi lled with so much history<br />
and humanity. Like Robert Pirsig<br />
wrote in his book Zen and the Art<br />
of Motorcycle Maintenance: on a<br />
motorbike, you’re not travelling in<br />
a landscape — you’re part of the<br />
landscape. Sidecar tours are truly<br />
the best way to see the hutong<br />
because riders can see, smell and<br />
hear everything.”<br />
In China’s rapidly developing<br />
capital, there’s nothing more<br />
evocative of ‘Old Beijing’ than<br />
its hutongs — collections of<br />
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