After staring at a computer all week, Yu Yande is one of a growing number of Chinese who escape Beijing at the weekend, heading for the mountains and open roads -- on his bicycle.

Once a cyclists' paradise, the Chinese capital is now better known for its snarled traffic jams and unbreathable air, but bikes are slowly making a comeback as residents grow fed up with gridlock and look for ways to get fit.

To inspire them, the highest-level international biking race to hit China since the 2008 Olympics kicks off Wednesday in Beijing. For five days, 18 mostly European professional cycling teams will battle it out in the city.

"As kids we rode our bikes to school every day, but thats hardly a sport," said Yu, a 40-year-old web company executive who is excited to see the competition.

"Until three years ago, before the Olympics, I didnt really think of cycling as a sport."

Now though, Yu joins a group of cyclists every Saturday in the mountains north and east of central Beijing to pedal as far as 120 kilometres (75 miles) at a clip, often in the shadow of the Great Wall.

Sporting colourful racing jerseys, the riders often turn villagers' heads when they stop for lunch at roadside farm stands.

"Few people realise this Beijing still exists, but its here for us all to enjoy on our bikes," said Yu.

Riding bikes as a sport is a new phenomenon in China, where many people prefer buying cars as a symbol of wealth and status.

"More and more people are involved in riding bicycles as a sport rather than a way of getting around," said Zheng Peidong from the National Bicycle Quality Control Centre, a government body that tests bikes.

"Many retired people and young students have formed their own groups," he added.

Bike sales are doing well too. Trek China, the local outfit of US bike manufacturer Trek Bicycle Corp, expects to record sales of 100 million yuan ($15.6 million) this year, up from just two million yuan in 2006.

"Business is going very well," marketing supervisor Wang Hao, 25, told AFP.

Trek still has a modest market share compared with Taiwanese market leader Giant or the classic mainland brands Flying Pigeon and Phoenix.

But according to Wang, the company will have a total of 260 stores across China by year-end, after starting up just five years ago.

In October, Trek will open its third high-end bike shop on Beijings west side, away from expatriate neighbourhoods, where Wang expects premium bikes to sell well.

Just this year, the firm has already sold 30 bicycles costing more than 60,000 yuan each, including two limited edition carbon frames branded with Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong's name and priced at 100,000 yuan.

Thats a fortune compared with the 1,500 yuan Yu spent on his first bike in 2008, bought when authorities implemented new traffic rules for the Beijing Olympics barring residents in the capital from driving their cars every day.

"I needed a way to get to work and thought it would be good for my health," he said.

He quickly upgraded to a 10,000 yuan road bike, as he "thought it would be fun to ride with other people." Now, more and more of his friends are taking up cycling too.

Nevertheless, bike enthusiasts in China still have a lot of work to do in a country where the car is king and cycling lacks the attention of tennis, track or basketball.

Cycling, for one, lacks superstars like former Houston Rockets basketball centre Yao Ming, track and field champion Liu Xiang or French Open tennis winner Li Na.

Guo Shuang, a sprint cyclist, won the Olympic bronze in Beijing and will compete in the 2012 London Games, but she is not a household name.

Li Fuyu, Chinas only top long-distance cyclist, was suspended from Armstrong's Radio Shack team for three years for doping in 2010.

The "Tour of Beijing", meanwhile, has hardly been publicised. Even Yu, a keen cyclist, was initially unaware of the October 5-9 event.

Only a few high-profile Chinese are proud pedal-pushers, such as billionaire industrialist Chen Guangbiao, who smashed a Mercedes-Benz last month to celebrate "National Urban Car-Free Day".

Tom Lanhove, a Belgian diplomat who has run the group Yu rides in for five years, says there is still a "negative connotation around the bike" in China.

"This is a huge stumbling block for high-end bicycle sales in China. Nobody can afford them, and if they can, they're buying fancy cars instead," he said.

In Beijing, though, the government says it wants to improve the city's cycling infrastructure by restoring bike lanes, providing 50,000 bikes for hire by 2015 and adding more bike parking spaces near bus and subway stations.

Authorities are hoping the "Tour of Beijing" will help peddle the sport to more people and promote green transport.