After several turbulent decades for the bicycle industry, bicycles have managed to make a return to the daily lives of the Chinese people, though reclaiming their "throne" in the transportation network has proven difficult.

Cyclists on rented shared bikes ride pass the Tian'anmen Rostrum in Beijing on Dec 30, 2019. (ZOUHONG / CHINA DAILY)

With the increasing use of automobiles in past decades, bicycles have slowly fallen out of popularity in China, once known as the Bicycle Kingdom.

But in 2016, bicycles－in the form of shared bikes－were back in vogue. Shared bikes were dubbed one of China's four great modern inventions, along with high-speed railways, QR code payments and online shopping. Not only did shared bikes help reduce traffic jams and promote environmentally friendly lifestyles, but they also saved some bicycle plants on the verge of collapse. In the years that followed, the bike-sharing industry became a hot spot for investment.

That resulted in bike-sharing enterprises wantonly rushing out bikes for a share of the market, leading to excess numbers of bicycles on city streets and even giving rise to "burial grounds" of overwhelming numbers of damaged shared bikes in the suburbs.

To solve this problem, a public bike-sharing system with fixed parking areas has been set up outside many subway stations in Beijing. Users are required to swipe their public transportation cards if they want to rent one of these bikes. This has improved the parking and management of shared bikes. The city also offers free use of its public shared bikes for the first hour.

Pedestrians walk past a public shared bike parking area outside a subway station in Tongzhou district, Beijing, on Dec 16, 2019. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

People cycle on the first bicycle-only lane in Beijing on June 20, 2019 and the lane links Changping and Haidian districts. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

A man works in a wheel workshop at a Golden Wheel Bicycle Group factory in Tianjin on July 10, 2019. The group, which has many foreign clients, is seeing its business thrive. Tianjin, an important bike-making hub, produces nearly half of China's bicycles. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Commuters pick up and drop off public shared bikes at one of the fixed parking areas in Beijing's Tongzhou district on Dec 16, 2019. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

People cycle on shared bikes in Beijing on Dec 23, 2019. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

A man piggybacks a young girl past a public shared bike rental site outside the Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing on June 17, 2019. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)