Adventures on a red electric bike

"Get off the road," an old man shouts as I swerve hopelessly along on my electric bike, avoiding an endless number of obstacles. At least, I assume that's what he was shouting, but given that he was speaking Chinese I actually had absolutely no idea. It could have been "you're a great driver", although the fleeing crowds of pedestrians directly in front of me make that possibility rather unlikely.

This is by now a typical scene: me, my e-bike, and China. A few weeks after arriving and experiencing the hellish crush of the subway a few times too many, I made the executive decision to purchase an e-bike, something mostly absent from the English roads.

I picked up a red beauty, finely proportioned and with the maximum possible speed (a hefty 40 km/h).