- what is the best way from the airport to downtown (can I use the Highway from the airport?)

You can take the aireport bus shuttle or a taxi. If you take taxi, it should cost over RMB100 (about $15 I guess). Don't forget to ask for the invoice. If you leave your bag on the taxi, the invoice can help you locate the taxi easily. There's a highway but you can't ride a bike on it.

http://www.richee.com/tr/bj/tce/index.php?mods=forumdisplay&forumid=4

- where are local bike-shops where staff speak at least basic english

This's hard to tell. There're many bike shops but the staff perhaps never went to a high-school. I think we can prepare a letter in both English and Chinese and paste it on our site so that you can print it out and try to ask for the service in a shop. It will take a great amount of time to list the suitable shops. So if you, or a friend of you, is staying at Beijing, you're welcomed to contact us. Let's see if we can work the list out.

- are there english/chinese streetmaps available

You can buy a map at the airport. Many hotels have prepared the map as well. You can also buy a map in English in some bookstores.

- which are the sightseeing spots

The spots currently listed on richee.com are the ones worthy of a visit, if this is your first time to Beijing. However we do realize that there are many more interesting places to go. Before we can get a list of them, we need to know what you may be interested in, which types of places you want to have a look.

http://www.richee.com/tr/bj/tce/index.php?mods=forumdisplay&forumid=15

- is there any low-budget accomodation ( youth hostels, university accomodation, private accomodation)

There're many. One of the youth hostels is just by the Wangfujing market street. From there you can walk to the Tiananmen Square. We'll see if we can work out a better list of them in the next few weeks.

Some places, such as the Wangfujing market street, Tiananmen Square, are the closed area for bike and bus.