Nearly at the end of the ride, he could already feel the change of seasons.
"Riding a bicycle on the road is like putting your body through hell while your soul ascends to heaven. Only those who have experienced it can understand that irresistible charm. Every rider on the road is their own hero," said Li Jian.
Li Jian, a 24-year-old from Changzhou, set off from Jintan and passed through Shandong, Hebei, Beijing, Liaoning, and Jilin before reaching his hometown in Heilongjiang. Excluding time spent sightseeing, Li Jian spent a total of 36 days cycling, covering over 3,800 kilometers. He also live-streamed the entire journey online.
Setting off in early September wearing shorts and short sleeves, and recently returning to Changzhou in thermal underwear, the post-90s Li Jian also completed a very important task: bringing his grandparents from their hometown to Jintan to enjoy a comfortable retirement.
For Li Jian, this journey was highly rewarding. He said, "Riding a bicycle on the road is like putting your body through hell while your soul ascends to heaven. Only those who have experienced it can understand that irresistible charm. Every rider on the road is their own hero."
A friend told Li Jian that with this experience, he’d be able to handle anything in the future. "As for whether that’s true, I’m also looking forward to finding out."
He stumbled upon a cycling forum online and couldn’t resist buying his first bike after two months
Li Jian is a young man from Jinshantun, Heilongjiang, but he has lived in Jintan with his parents for over ten years.
He hadn’t been cycling for long. Earlier this year, while browsing Baidu Tieba, he accidentally came across the cycling section and found many posts where riders shared live streams of their long-distance journeys. "At the time, I was just clicking around and thought these cyclists were amazing—just riding a bike and traveling everywhere. I was really in awe of them. Then I started following the cycling forum, checking in every day, reading posts, and after about two months, I finally couldn’t hold back and bought my first bicycle."
After that, Li Jian found a few like-minded friends to cycle with, often riding for two or three hours, covering around 20 kilometers.
After seeing a post about a group of high school graduates cycling to Lhasa, Li Jian couldn’t hold back any longer. "Originally, I also wanted to go to Lhasa. Nowadays, lots of people cycle the Sichuan-Tibet 318 route, but I felt I wasn’t ready yet. If I just set off blindly, I might end up having to hitchhike to Lhasa, but hitchhiking isn’t what I want. Rather than going unprepared, I’d rather not go."
Coincidentally, his parents were also discussing bringing Li Jian’s grandparents to Changzhou. Right when Li Jian was obsessed with long-distance cycling, he proposed quitting his job to go to Heilongjiang to pick up the two elders and, at the same time, fulfill his dream of cycling.
The fully equipped young man rode out for half a day only to realize he had carelessly forgotten to bring his wallet
Once he proposed this idea, his parents disagreed. Li Jian spent two whole months persuading them, and only when they saw he was serious did his father finally relent. By the time Li Jian had made up his mind, his mother couldn’t stop him either. Later, Li Jian found out that when his grandparents learned he was cycling back to Heilongjiang, they scolded his parents over the phone.
"Their worry was only natural, so I was very cautious throughout the entire ride." That said, even the fully prepared Li Jian ran into a major problem right after setting off—when he reached the first stop, Danyang, he realized he had forgotten his wallet. His mother had to rush over to bring it to him, wasting over an hour.
Li Jian admitted that on the first afternoon, when he reached Yangzhong, he started to feel a bit daunted thinking about the more than 30 days of riding still ahead. Even worse, just as he entered downtown Yangzhong, his bicycle chain broke.
Then came an even more miserable second day. The worst things for a cyclist are rain and headwinds—and that day, he encountered both. On top of that, because he followed Baidu Maps, Li Jian ended up taking many detours. While eating, he also discovered that the new rain pants he had bought had already ripped open...
After persevering through over 3,800 kilometers, the originally 180-pound muscular young man lost more than ten pounds
In fact, throughout the entire 3,800-kilometer cycling journey, there were countless challenges: wrong turns, flat tires, grueling uphill climbs that drove him crazy, and even riding until his pants were rubbed raw... the list goes on.
Li Jian said he did indeed have many moments during the ride when he wanted to give up.
He recalled that during the 10 days in the Shandong Peninsula, although the roads were wide and clean, the hills there left him speechless. "Those long, steep hills were truly unbearable—I kept cursing myself for choosing such a route!"
And when he entered Siping in the northeast, it rained in autumn. Although Li Jian quickly put on his rain cape, the rain hitting his feet was bone-chillingly cold. "I couldn’t keep going at that point—I was afraid of catching a cold. The next day, after the rain stopped, it was extremely cold, minus 4 degrees Celsius, and to make matters worse, it was headwind. I could barely pedal the bike..."
In the second half of the journey, Li Jian also woke up in the middle of the night with diarrhea, and in the morning, he didn’t feel like eating anything, managing only half a bowl of congee. He rode a short distance before vomiting by the roadside. He didn’t eat anything at noon, only drinking two bottles of soda the whole way, and by the time he reached Shenyang, he still didn’t feel hungry. He didn’t even know how he managed to get through that day.
By the time he finished cycling over 3,800 kilometers, the once 180-pound muscular young man had lost more than ten pounds. Reflecting on the moment he finally arrived at his grandparents’ home, Li Jian said he was happy to have made it, but also felt a bit sentimental. "Although it was tough, if everything had gone smoothly, what would have been the point of the ride?"
When daily life consists almost entirely of cycling, the feeling of being on the road can only truly be understood by experiencing it yourself
When asked about the biggest takeaway from his first solo long-distance ride, Li Jian said it was the importance of enduring loneliness. Every day, he would start riding in the morning, continue until lunch, rest a bit, and then ride again until evening, with almost no one to talk to all day.
What kept this young man going through such a tough cycling journey? Li Jian laughed: "I pushed myself into this. I made solemn promises to my family, friends, and netizens that I would cycle back to Heilongjiang. Since I chose to be on the road, I couldn’t stop—not matter how hard or tiring it got, I had to persevere. Every time I felt like giving up, I imagined the teasing words and expressions my friends had prepared for me."
On the road, Li Jian also found more motivation to keep going through the live-stream posts he shared online. His parents even registered online usernames to follow their son’s live stream. "I’m so worried, fatty boy—rest if you’re tired." "Fatty son, you’re amazing—Dad will always be your support!"
There were also netizens he hadn’t met who left comments like, “Bro, you’re amazing—this is like the Long March of 25,000 li (about 12,500 km)! People back in our hometown are all rooting for you. Stay safe on the road. If you need any help, just give us a call—we made sure your phone isn’t turned off or out of service. We’ve been following your journey every day.” Some netizens even “called on local forum members along his route to invite him for a meal if they had the time and means. Cycling home—what a carefree way to live life. Youth is truly wonderful!”
Li Jian is immersed in cycling and has his own insights. He says that the scenery at every intersection is different—you never know what awaits you after the next turn. Once, although he took a detour, he discovered that the road was “straight as an arrow, with a canal on the left, rice fields on the right, and fallen leaves. The feeling of being on the road is something you can only truly understand by experiencing it yourself.”
Along the way, he met “grandpa-level” cyclists—every rider is their own hero.
Li Jian said that this cycling trip actually brought him quite a lot. He said, “Riding a bike on the road is like putting your body through hell while your soul enters heaven. Only those who have experienced it can appreciate that enticing charm.”
For him, “I met a lot of good people along the way and made quite a few friends. I’ve also learned to persevere more in the future, because if I could endure something this tough, what else is there to complain about?”
During the ride, the somewhat careless Li Jian accidentally lost his ID card. Most of the time, he had to use his driver’s license to get a certificate from the police station. A kind aunt at a hostel, seeing that he didn’t want to spend money on a taxi to the station, even lent him her bicycle to take him there.
Along the way, he once encountered a cycling team with a support vehicle following behind. They also took care of him for a while, giving him water and apples. This part of the ride was also a very happy time for Li Jian, as there were people to talk to and take photos with—he didn’t feel lonely at all.
There was another time when, feeling lonely, he chased after a few fellow cyclists on the road. When he caught up, he was truly surprised—it turned out to be four grandpa-level cyclists, all in their sixties or seventies.
“Every rider is their own hero.” In Li Jian’s heart, the dream of cycling to Lhasa without hitching a ride still remains.