Cycling in the Cold
A Night Ride in Winter
On a cold night in December, an ordinary Thursday evening just before Christmas. Though there was no wind, the bitter chill of deep winter still seeped through layers of thick sweaters, fleece, and down jackets. The scarf covering my face had been dampened by my breath...
So, among most cyclists, a kind of unspoken camaraderie easily forms. Cycling is a sport that requires equipment, where each person and their bike become a true unit, and cyclists must keep their distance from one another. Yet, because they share a common tool, a sense of intimate connection arises among them. The group I joined is just like this. Every Thursday evening between 6:30 and 7:30 PM, they gather in a small plaza under the Guanghua Bridge on East Third Ring Road. Some wear trench coats and plaid scarves, clearly just rushed over from their office desks; others are dressed in red sportswear and leopard-print pants, as if they’ve just stepped off a stage; some have cheeks red from the cold wind, chewing on corn as they wait for the ride to begin.
The people gathering in this small plaza are all kinds, but once the ride starts, everyone becomes one. The tall figure in the white down jacket is the leader, always maintaining a position at the front and center, keeping the speed at 15–18 km/h, with no one allowed to overtake him. At the back of the group is the sweeper, who must always stay at the rear. When you’re exhausted and struggling to keep up, glancing back, you’ll always see that sweep rider behind you — it gives you a sense of security.
Under these basic cycling rules, this group moves swiftly and steadily forward. Their bikes, clothes, and physiques vary, yet they maintain fixed distances, everyone grounded in their positions — no sudden lane changes, no abrupt stops — moving uniformly and steadily along Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue like a single entity.
These urban cyclists call this activity “street sweeping.” It’s a very vivid metaphor. A bunch of people, with no particular destination or reason, ride together through Beijing’s streets every Thursday evening toward a spot in the city. Today’s route takes them across Chang’an Avenue, ending at the East Dongku Church in Wangfujing. This cycling event started seven years ago, originally with only a western route. As more participants joined, the starting point of the western route — under a small flower stand at Parkson Mall — became overcrowded. To spare cyclists from other parts of the city the hardship of crossing the metropolis, the organizers added eastern, southern, and northern routes. “Sweeping friends” now ride from different directions toward the same goal. In summer, just the eastern route alone can attract nearly a hundred participants. Now, during the most challenging winter nights, when many fear the cold and stay away, our eastern route team tonight consists of only eleven riders.
After pedaling to Nanzi Zi Street, we suddenly hear a crisp jingling sound from behind, accompanied by cheerful greetings. A middle-aged woman wearing a floral fur hat swoops into the group like a whirlwind — it’s the northern route joining in. The ride hits a high point. On the final stretch before reaching the destination, new riders keep joining, and by the time we arrive at the East Dongku Church, groups of cyclists crowd the church steps. Some wear fluorescent-vested cycling shirts, others sport old Red Army hats, and there’s even a nearly 60-year-old woman in full cycling gear. Most are young people chatting and laughing loudly. Riders from the western, northern, and southern routes arrive, dusty and weary. About fifty or sixty people huddle together on the church steps, greeting one another noisily, lining up for group photos, then mounting their bikes, whistling farewells, and riding off in different directions.
Memories of Cycling
If you were to find a reason for such simple late-night rides in the bitter cold, aside from “liking bicycles,” it’s hard to come up with a unified or convincing answer. Bicycles are a traditional mode of transport in China, even a part of the national memory for several generations. Whether it’s a short street sweep on a cold winter night or an epic around-the-world cycling journey, behind it all lies a personal love for the bicycle and warm memories.
On September 23, 2003, Liu Wen, a young man, set out from Hekou in Yunnan and spent nine months cycling across borders, traversing 11 countries in Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and East Africa — covering nearly 10,000 kilometers, about 7,000 of which were by bicycle. Why choose a bicycle for such long-distance travel in an era of well-developed road networks and mechanical dominance? Liu Wen told this magazine that it’s partly tradition — “China has a history of Pan Dengming cycling around the world, and in the 1980s, there was a biking craze in China.” Although Liu Wen grew up in a remote corner of Inner Mongolia, he was influenced by the romance of the 1980s and went on his first long bike trip. “At that time, I was in middle school and missed the city where I grew up as a child. That trip lasted about ten days, roughly equivalent to cycling the Sichuan-Tibet Highway today.” He later described the experience in a book: “A person’s growth is always deeply connected to a place. That place is a home where your entire spirit can be freely extracted or filled — a balance between imagination and reality. Of course, a child wouldn’t understand that. The way he wants to return to such a ‘home’ is simple — to find a way back to Baotou.” The bicycle was the only tool he could choose at the time — it didn’t require much money, just determination and enthusiasm. During the break after graduating middle school, he set off on his first long-distance ride. “I cycled westward along National Highway 110 at the foot of the Yin Mountains. It was August. Beneath the green mountains, strong winds blew across the grass, and sunflowers bloomed along the roadside, their petals facing the deep blue sky. The view was vast, and the initial sadness quickly faded in the face of the scenery.”
But completing a solo journey of hundreds of kilometers using a tool powered solely by physical effort is no easy feat. Young Liu Wen had no concept of wilderness survival, nor did he know to bring essential gear — not even a water bottle. He had no extra clothes or sleeping bag. “All I knew was to pedal hard. When I was hungry or thirsty, I’d ask for food or drink from locals. When I was tired, I’d rest under a roadside willow tree. At night, I’d find a kind family to stay with.” The first half of the trip was through the affluent Hetao Plain, during melon season — for just a few cents, he could buy a melon. Those were the happier moments of his first cycling journey. But when he was less than 100 kilometers from Wuhai, his hometown, the road turned into arid saline-alkali land. “This area was sparsely populated, the weather was hot, and the hot winds whipped up dust, shrouding the endless road. It felt like I was the only person in the world. I was genuinely scared. Hungry and thirsty, I pushed my bike forward like an idiot. Fortunately, I later met a truck driver who helped me escape danger. Near Wuhai, I encountered rainstorms and hail. There was nowhere to hide in the desert, and I ran around trying to dodge the hail.” On the tenth day of his trip, Liu Wen returned home. The redness on his face from the sun and wind took a whole week to fade.
According to Aristotle: “Walking is the thread of memory. Each walk is a small theater, with plots and disasters. Walking intertwines with thought, friendship, and interests.” Even for an immature teenager, relying on a bicycle, he created a small theater to satisfy his longing. For hundreds of kilometers, what would take just hours by car, stretched into a ten-day journey due to a different tool. In those ten lonely days of cycling, Liu Wen experienced joy, hope, fear, and fatigue. More importantly, it laid important groundwork for his later global cycling journey. “It gave me the support for what I wanted to do in the future,” Liu Wen told this magazine.
Ten years later, Liu Wen got back on a bike and rode to Lhasa via the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. In those ten years, Liu Wen had transformed from a lonely teenager cycling out of homesickness into an angry young man. For youths from small towns born in the 1970s, joining the military or going to university were the only paths. Liu Wen dropped out in his second year of high school, but his restless nature also made him fear military service. He came to Beijing to seek a way out. Life in Beijing broadened his horizons but also made him more aware of his own insignificance. “Most importantly, I realized my grassroots identity stemmed from my upbringing — something almost impossible to reverse later in life.” He worked as a shop assistant, sold vegetables, played guitar in the artist village at Yuanmingyuan, and eventually opened a music store in Xi’an, finding a relatively stable life. But he said his psychological issues grew worse — uncontrollable anxiety, anger, and occasional persistent low fevers. So he got back on his bike again.
In Liu Wen’s cycling story, the bicycle is a tool he could choose to resist a reality he disliked. Driven by anger, he used long-distance, ascetic cycling to push the boundaries of his life. He said that through those nine months of cross-border cycling, he gradually “transformed from an angry youth into an ordinary person — not only experiencing the joy of life but also reshaping my values, setting off on a completely new life path.” When interviewed by this magazine, he was in the United States, working and studying video editing while making documentaries. One documentary he plans to make is called *Me and My Country* — “riding a motorcycle around China to think about my relationship with my country, my growth, and more.”
Cycling and the Era
Different people choose to cycle for different reasons. Though individual motivations vary, each reflects aspects of the era.
Pan Dengming is the pioneer of long-distance cycling in China, revered as the “first person to cycle around the world.” In the summer of 1930, a group of young people in Shanghai organized the “Chinese Youth Asia Walk Team,” determined to walk across Asia. They published a declaration in *Shen Bao* newspaper: “The Chinese nation, carrying over five thousand years of civilization and creation, has unfortunately fallen into lethargy and decadence in recent times, becoming a common mental illness among the youth. We feel the spirit of the times cheering us on, and we unhesitatingly shoulder this great burden. We decide to embark on our goal with indomitable courage, starting from Shanghai. With every step, we will demonstrate the glory of Chinese history, leaving a profound impression on society until we reach our intended destination.” At the time, 21-year-old Pan Dengming was running a Western restaurant called “Happy Ridge” in Nanjing, located in today’s Southeast University area near Sipailou. By chance, Pan Dengming read this declaration. A sports enthusiast since childhood, he was immediately drawn in. He abandoned his restaurant business in Nanjing and followed the “Chinese Youth Asia Walk Team” southward. However, due to various reasons, by the time the group crossed the border into Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa, only Pan Dengming remained among the original eight members. But Pan Dengming didn’t back down. Instead, he decided to go beyond Asia and head for the world. On New Year’s Day 1931, he bought a British-made “Raleigh” bicycle in Saigon, Vietnam, and began a seven-year global cycling journey.
Years later, when Liu Wen, inspired by this piece of history, embarked on his own cross-border ride and wrote *On the Road by Bicycle*, it was dubbed the Chinese version of *No Biking, No Dying* — a cycling memoir written by Japanese youth Shiro Tsuyoshi, who completed a global ride in the late 1960s. But comparing the two books reveals that even though both youths, dissatisfied with comfortable lives, set off on similar journeys, the worlds they saw were vastly different. Tsuyoshi’s motivation was “since I was born into this world, I want to see it well and find my own best view in the world.” Thus, his book contains detailed descriptions of breathtaking sights visible only by bike. Liu Wen’s ride, however, carried more complex meanings — a rebellion against the narrow opportunities and lack of choices for grassroots individuals. He hoped to completely break free from the constraints of his original social ties and gain new freedom. He wrote about his cycling experiences in the book *On the Road by Bicycle*. “There’s a core idea in my book: only with a true understanding of the world can you possess self-power, not imagination.” Liu Wen told this magazine. Strictly speaking, his cycling record isn’t a travelogue but a chronicle of a Chinese youth’s struggle against harsh realities.
Cycling and the City
But is cycling really a danger-free — or controllable-danger — lifestyle? As I cycled the roads of Beijing, I couldn’t help but ask myself this question. Over the course of two weeks, following two groups of cyclists on two cross-city rides, I discovered that once you mount this long-forgotten mode of transport, the city reveals many faces never seen before.
The first ride was with cyclists from “Outdoor Notes,” starting from “798” in the north of the city and cycling southeast, covering less than 20 kilometers. At normal cycling speeds in the wild, this distance should take less than an hour. But the dangers far exceeded expectations. Beijing is growing at a speed urban management can’t keep up with — especially in fringe areas, where some spots have no streetlights, leaving everything pitch black and invisible to cyclists, or where motor vehicles dominate the road, leaving only narrow paths along curbs for cyclists. Even the limited bike lanes are often turned into parking spaces, forcing cyclists to weave through traffic. At intersections, chaos reigns. Cars race to beat the yellow light, ignoring lane boundaries, while electric scooters often go the wrong way — each more powerful than a bicycle and each posing a threat to cyclist safety.
Felix Krutzig, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley’s Berkeley Institute of the Environment, wrote in an article describing Beijing traffic how poor urban transport further discourages cycling: “Beijing has only 1% of China’s population but 10% of its cars. As a result, traffic congestion on major roads in Beijing is no longer limited to peak hours. It’s not just cars that get stuck — crowded buses are too. Commuters spend hours on the road daily. Air pollution causes frequent asthma and lung cancer cases. Over 1,000 people in Beijing die in car accidents each year, further reducing people’s willingness to bike. In fact, the bicycle is the most environmentally friendly and, until recently, the most common mode of transport suited to Chinese cities. Yet, pedestrian and bicycle access is blocked by the torrent of cars on main roads and physical barriers.”
But what’s touching is that, no matter how bad the conditions, quite a few people still choose to cycle through the city. Watching their everyday attire and demeanor, you sense a more natural coexistence between humans and bicycles — this natural posture may stem from a simple love for cycling and could become a force for social change.
Beijing’s cyclists have formed all kinds of groups, each with different focuses. Some cycling clubs are professional training teams centered on triathlons. “Outdoor Notes” is a group that combines riding with writing travel guides. And “Iron Brush” might be the most accessible — they organize the most influential Thursday street sweep events. Anyone wanting to try cycling can join a group of strangers at 7:30 PM every Thursday evening at a city meetup point and start pedaling through Beijing’s traffic. They persist in cycling despite harsh winds, traffic, and exhaust fumes — perhaps taking the first step toward fighting for cyclists’ right to the road. The UK has a similar precedent: traditional walking enthusiasts, through their growing Ramblers Association, held a massive “Invasion of Banned Britain” event in its 14th year. In 1997, the Labour Party pushed for “Right to Roam” legislation in Parliament, demanding public access to the countryside. They chanted slogans like “This land is ours” and “Give us the streets,” calling for expanded public space, access rights, and environmental preservation — all becoming key parts of the political agenda.