Xiao Zhu and his beloved bike
Yesterday, many sympathetic netizens reposted this Weibo post — “I’m 19 years old, in my final year of high school. I haven’t done anything extraordinary, but the only comfort I have is my beloved bicycle that accompanied me on a 2,142 km journey to Lhasa. It was stolen on March 16th in front of the Jiubaiwan Restaurant at Shangtang Auchan in Hangzhou. She didn’t die on the Sichuan-Tibet Highway, but died at the hands of thieves. I’m absolutely devastated. She was one of a kind, hand-assembled by me, with precious Tibetan script on the frame…
The protagonist of the Weibo post is 19-year-old high school student Xiao Zhu. What he lost was a red-and-white mountain bike. What upset him most was that this bike carried the memories and stories of his first long journey in life.
Xiao Zhu is a cycling enthusiast. In 2009, he wanted to own a mountain bike of his own to see the world. He shared this idea with his parents and saved up all his pocket money. His father agreed. After that, Xiao Zhu carefully selected each component and spent half a month assembling the bike, screw by screw, part by part, taking it apart and putting it back together again until he finally built a professional and practical bicycle. Since the bike was worth over ten thousand yuan, his father set three rules: it could only be used for traveling or long journeys.
Last summer vacation, Xiao Zhu set off on his first long journey with his beloved bike, with the distant and beautiful Lhasa as the destination.
He took a train to Chengdu first, and then started the self-challenging “Sichuan-Tibet Cycling” journey with eight companions.
“From Chengdu to Lhasa, we cycled for a total of 26 days. The feeling of cycling through the mountain roads was really different from what I’d imagined,” Xiao Zhu said. “Sometimes we’d cycle for hours without seeing a single person. Especially when going uphill, I had to carry the bike. The mountain paths were really tough, and it felt like the sun was so close you could touch it — my clothes were so wet they could wring water out.”
Xiao Zhu said that while cycling could sometimes feel a bit monotonous, everyone encouraged each other, and seeing the destination getting closer made them more determined to keep going. The warm-hearted Tibetans they met along the way also left a deep impression on him. At a lodge in the town of Nyingchi’s Luolong, they met a Tibetan boy with a bright smile, and they became friends.
The boy took a marker and carefully wrote a line of Tibetan script on Xiao Zhu’s mountain bike: Tashi Delek, 2012 Sichuan-Tibet Journey. Tashi Delek means “Welcome” or “Good luck” in Chinese. “This is a precious memento from my Sichuan-Tibet trip.”
Unfortunately, now Xiao Zhu can only see the boy’s writing in photos. On March 16th, Xiao Zhu and a classmate cycled from Deqing to Hangzhou to meet a friend. While eating at Auchan in the northern part of the city, a thief struck. Just ten minutes after leaving the bike, it was gone. Upon discovering the theft, Xiao Zhu immediately called the police. Police have since obtained surveillance footage related to the case.
“The frame is a Giant XTC FR 08 in red and white,” Xiao Zhu said. As long as you remember that feature, you can recognize the bike at a glance.
“Now, whenever I face something difficult, I think of that trip and tell myself I can hold on a little longer, be a little braver. So this bike is very important to me.” Xiao Zhu believes that maybe one day, he’ll be able to see his bike again.