Related News
Riding high with bicycle museum
Print Edition
How many bicycles do you need in your life? For 67-year-old Chai Lin, the answer is 1,300 and counting.
Chai’s obsession with bicycles dates back to the 1960s when he saw some people riding the two-wheeled vehicle in his home city of Lanzhou, capital of northwest China’s Gansu Province. “They were like flying on the streets, and my heart went flying with them,” recalled Chai. Since then, he dreamt of owning a bike.
However, in that era of scarcity, a bicycle was still a luxury for ordinary Chinese. Even when Chai started working in 1979, he had to cut back on other expenses for at least four months before he could save up for a domestic bicycle.
To get enough money sooner, Chai made use of his talent in calligraphy and painting by selling artworks on the street.
Thanks to all the efforts and “crowd-funding” in his family, Chai got his first bike, a British-made Raleigh, at the price of 880 yuan (US$116) in 1980.
After becoming a businessman and earning enough to buy fancy motorbikes and cars, Chai’s passion for bikes, however, didn’t dwindle. He began to collect bikes of various brands and ages, especially antiques, from around the world through auctions and other ways.
With his collection growing, in 2009, with the support of the Gansu provincial government, he invested 200 million yuan for a museum for his bikes.
After 10 years’ efforts, the Gansu Sanmu Bicycle Museum in Lanzhou opened to the public in January 2019 for free.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
