BEIJING, Aug 8 (Reuters) - A bike ride across Beijing reveals a city in the throes of massive changes that will continue long after next year's Olympic Games.
Three million cars clog Beijing's roads, but this remains a city of bicycles. There are 10 million for 15 million residents by one recent count.
A ride along the fourth ring road past the ultra-modern "Bird's Nest" stadium crosses slums and high-tech towers, privilege and street survival, political indifference and prickly rebellion -- and people who often see the 2008 games as a mirror reflecting hopes or fears for their own future.
Starting at Taiyanggong, a slum neighbourhood several kilometres southeast from the stadium, even the city's poor appeared caught up in the patriotic buzz of preparations.
"LIKE LANDING ON THE MOON"
In this dirt-road cluster of rough brick houses and shops where street barbers charge 3 yuan ($0.40) a cut, garbage pickers and shoe repairers were bewildered that foreign critics would worry about media freedom or strife in Darfur or the wisdom of their country spending $40 billion to get ready for the Games.
"When Liu Xiang wins a gold medal, that will be like landing on the moon," said Wang Xingku, a labourer from rural Anhui province, referring to the track star who is China's best known athlete.
The games will be a test of how Beijing treats its three million migrant workers, mostly from the poor countryside and often treated as second-class citizens.
Some residents of Taiyanggong worried about being thrown out during the games by image-obsessed officials. Wang took a softer line.
"Some people have said we'll be kicked out. I don't want that, but look at me," he added, displaying a threadbare, grimy coat. "Maybe foreigners will get the wrong impression if we stay."
Others were determined to hang around and snap up the valuable stuff millions of rich visitors will leave -- and maybe also get a glimpse of Liu Xiang or another star.
"If they try to take us away, they'll also have to learn to ride fast," said Liu Demin, from central China, who collects restaurant scraps on his three-wheeled bike.
CHANGING FAST
To the west of the stadium, stolid grey apartment blocks give way to Zhongguancun, with its canyons of futuristic office blocks and concentration of Beijing's growing middle class.
For them, the Games were a chance to make a point about the country's prospects and their own.
"Too many foreigners still think China is just poor and dirty," said computer technician Wang Qiang, who recalled travelling in Europe and encountering puzzled questions about whether his country had mobile phones.
"I'm not saying that we don't have backwardness, but look at this and you can see how fast things are modernising," he said, gesturing to the banks of steel and glass office towers in front of Tsinghua University.
Here too, however, there are the few domestic voices critical of the games. The district is a gathering place for dissidents and rights activists who distrust the ruling Communist Party's embrace of the Olympics.
"At least up to now I don't think the games are a good thing," said Wang Tiancheng, a former law lecturer who lost his job and was jailed for helping to found a small opposition party.
"They said it would improve rights, but to make sure things aren't disrupted, they're escalating monitoring and restrictions."
Police have already warned him not to leave home during warm-up sports events before the opening of the Games, he said.
"I guess that this time next year, people like me will be either locked up at home or sent on holiday," Wang said.
But such doubts are rare in this city.
The unfinished "Bird's Nest" stadium has already become a magnet where locals and tourists gather to peer at the rising tangle of steel and concrete and take snapshots across from shoals of traffic on the expressway.
"It's like a symbol, you know? It shows that our country can build things like this," said Man Shiping, a businessman walking his Chihuahua dog near the stadium.
"It's too complicated for ordinary people to understand, all the twists and turns. We don't have the learning to get it, but I'm sure it will be beautiful."
