Two young people, one in the south and one in the north, coincidentally chose to ride a bicycle home for the New Year. They set off alone, rode all the way, and shared what they saw and saw along the way on social platforms.
22-year-old Zhou Huading set off from Weihai for half a month, and his destination was his hometown of Zhumadian, Henan. This 1,200-kilometer ride is embodied in his mobile phone**: empty national highways, foggy weather, and strange-shaped trees and ...... along the wayHe shared these on social platforms.
Nineteen-year-old Yang Daixi set off from Guangzhou and ended in Shantou. Along the way, he met fellow riders, sunsets and sunsets on the beach, and experienced flat tires and "night riding steep slopes". "Riding has allowed me to achieve the freedom of the smallest unit. Yang Daixi said.
Prepare and go
Zhou Huading, 22 years old, is a first-year graduate student majoring in computer science at Dalian Maritime University. The idea of wanting to ride long distances stemmed from his trip to Lhasa last year. When he graduated from college in June last year, Zhou Huading planned a trip for himself. He set off from Zhengzhou, Henan Province, and traveled to Lhasa on a 40-hour hard seat. Along the way, Zhou Huading met people from different places and heard many stories, in his own words, "encountering different ways of life". Especially the cycling enthusiasts he met in the "Youth Hostel" opened the door to a new way of life for Zhou Huading. After school started in August, he spent 1,300 yuan on a bicycle and less than 300 yuan on helmets, goggles, sun masks and other equipment. He sees cycling as the beginning of a new way of life.
The starting point of Zhou Huading's ride is Weihai, Shandong. On December 25 last year, he set off from his school, first took a ferry to Weihai, and then started riding from Weihai, passing through Yantai, Jinan, Zibo and Zhengzhou. On January 12, he completed his 1,200-kilometer journey and returned to his hometown of Zhumadian, Henan.
This is Zhou Huading's first long-distance ride. Before leaving, he made preparations. The first is to plan the route, the second is to prepare the equipment, and even, in order to deal with possible faults on the bike, he also taught himself how to repair and change tires online.
Every morning at seven or eight o'clock, Zhou Huading set off from the hotel, generally riding until four or five o'clock in the afternoon, riding about 100 kilometers a day. In order to save money, he stayed in a hotel for thirty or forty yuan a night, "I started looking for a place to stay at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and I would look at each platform to find the cheapest one." Zhou Huading said.
Nineteen-year-old Yang Daixi set off from his school in Guangzhou on January 15 and traveled through Dongguan, Huizhou and Shanwei to his hometown of Shantou, a journey of more than 400 kilometers and four days. Before this ride, he had two long-distance cycling experiences, one was the cycling route around Chaoshan, with a total of more than 100 kilometers; The other time was from Shantou to Xiamen, a journey of more than 300 kilometers. The first two rides gave Yang Daixi accumulated experience, and he had the idea of riding home for the New Year. Yang Daixi usually starts in the afternoon and rides until the evening, and most of his journey is spent riding at night. After dark at night, there were few pedestrians on the national highway, and only night trucks passed him. He didn't feel scared, but felt fresh, and on the dark road, he turned on the lights and sang loudly on his bicycle alone.
Difficulties and gains
On December 30, Zhou Huading's bicycle had a flat tire halfway through. He removed the outer tire of the bicycle and hurriedly began to look for the place where the inner tire had burst, but after looking for a long time, he could not find it, and in desperation, he had to replace it with a spare tire. Along the way, his bike had three punctures.
The most impressive section of the road for Yang Daixi is in Huizhou, where Huizhou is bordered by Jiulian Mountain in the north, and is located in the southwest section of the parallel ridge valley in eastern Guangdong, with large undulations on the ground. Due to the undulating terrain, Yang Daixi was going uphill and downhill all the way. The steepest section of the road, with an incline of 9 degrees, and the panniers on the bicycle rack were heavy, and when riding on the steep slope, he felt that if he lifted the head of the bike slightly, he would fall down with the car. At that time, it was 10 o'clock in the evening, there were only night trucks passing by on the road, and the slope was narrow. For safety, he had to get out of the car and push his bicycle to the narrow road next to it.
In addition to difficulties, there are also unexpected adventures. On the road, they will meet "riders" who also love cycling, and when they meet in the same direction, they will ride together for a while, riding and chatting until the next fork in the road. Zhou Huading likes this kind of karmic encounter between people. He once met a 50-year-old uncle on the way, who had a wealth of cycling experience, and had ridden all the way from Shandong to Nepal. The two rode together for more than 10 minutes and split at a certain traffic light. After this attempt, Zhou Huading wanted to try more ways to see the world, and next time, he wanted to take a ride all the way to Lhasa again.
In Yang Daixi's view, the biggest gain in cycling is discovering the scenery that has not been discovered before. There is a short coastal distance from Huizhou to Shanwei, and it was dusk and sunset, and Yang Daixi rode along the seaside. In the afterglow of the setting sun, he looked at the sunset and felt at peace in his heart, "I used to pass by here when I went home, why didn't I find such a beautiful scenery at that time?" He said.
Next, he wants to ride a bicycle along the 318 Sichuan-Tibet line to Lhasa, "This experience made me feel that there is still such a free thing in this world." Yang Daixi said.