Made in China: On Yer Bike!

"Fifteen miles out of Peking all the indecencies and filthiness which are its characteristics disappear entirely."

So wrote British attache Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford in 1866, and his observation remains true enough today. Granted, municipal officials are making admirable efforts to rid the city of indecency and filth -- or at least to keep it hidden from view -- in time for the 2008 Olympics. But for now, maintenance of good mental and physical health demands regular respite from the pollution and madding crowds. And that can be had, happily, only fifteen miles away.

Beijing sits at the northern end of the North China Plain in a pocket of flatland called the Beijing Bay, bounded by mountains to its north and west. On a reasonably clear day, you can see the Western Hills from the office high-rises downtown. This smallish range includes the well-known Xiangshan (Fragrant Hills), famed around China for their brilliant display of crimson leaves each fall. But the real place to play for a day is north of town, in the rugged mountains of the Yanjing range.

On weekends, a group of us throw our bicycles on the back of a truck, climb aboard and head for those mountains. To get there we endure a grueling ride through the hideous, dust-choked urban sprawl north of the Asian Games Village - - the area where, unbelievably, Beijing intends to hold many Olympic events in seven years. For now it remains a chaotic mess of slapdash low-rise buildings, covered in white tiles and blue glass, lining horribly congested and badly rutted roads. Exposed to it directly, bouncing in the back of the truck, it seems all the more oppressive.

Then suddenly, it ends. We emerge into bucolic bliss, leaving behind the confusion, the smog, and the bad architecture. The mountains at Yanjing rise before us, lush, green and inviting.

We stop in the little town of Xingshou to load up on supplies -- bottled water, yogurt, fruit -- and then begin the two-hour climb toward Huanghua Cheng. There, a pristine section of the Great Wall and a terrific lunch of grilled fish and cornbread await us. The road is well paved and takes us past quaint villages -- tight clusters of tile-roofed houses with stone walls and carved wood windows. Young goatherds and hoary farmers turn out to shout encouragement to the city folk with their fancy bikes, funny helmets and fluorescent jerseys. And locals engage us in impromptu races, attaining impressive velocity on their one-speed clunkers. We see more donkeys than automobiles.

The area around Huanghua Cheng offers a number of alternative destinations: To the west, there's Yinshan (Silver Mountain) with its forest of pagodas, some dating back to the 12th century. To the east, there's a challenging hill -- and a wicked downhill coast that makes it worth the effort -- between Huanghua Cheng and the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Further north and higher into the mountains, there's some gorgeous deciduous forest and some hardcore hills to tackle on the way to the Ming Tombs.

Cycling is becoming an increasingly popular form of recreation among Beijingers, and the city now boasts a fair number of amply stocked high-end bicycle shops and cycling clubs, often organized on the Internet. On our weekend rides we see other cyclists on nice bikes, and these days they aren't always expatriates. Around town, kids on fully suspended, alloy-framed mountain bikes are constantly whizzing past me, weaving in and out of the slow flow of heavy, steel-frame Flying Pigeons and Phoenixes. Good bikes are surprisingly cheap in Beijing, and widely available for rent to tourists. Indispensable for locals and the short- term visitor alike, the bicycle is the best way to avoid the capital's nasty traffic, explore its labyrinthine hutong (lanes and alleys), and escape what Freeman-Mitford called its "indecencies and filthiness."