On the Road again

I came onto social media for a specific purpose - it was to share my travels in China. Things developed and I became a defender of China, or more correctly, a defender of truth. I'm going back to where it all started but that isn't going to change where it ended up.

Let me explain.

In 2014, with an Irish friend, who is still a friend but no longer in China, we took a bike each and with relatively little preparation, started a bike ride from the border of Macau then finished 57 days later at the border of Kazakhstan.

When I came back, I went into a four year spell of quite intense work, including three years as a senior manager in a British company here in Zhongshan and then almost 2 years as an IELTS examiner before retiring from full time work a little earlier than most in late 2018 at the ripe old age of 59. I opened a Twitter account in 2015 and didn't use it until 2020. When I started to use it, I had two followers, one was the friend I was with when I started it, the other was my brother who I saw the following day and told I had started it.

By 2020 though, I had plenty of time on my hands and something I'd always imagined would be fun, was sharing my bike rides on the internet - discussing other aspects of China with people who had an interest and following other people on bikes through their journeys.

I hoped to get more followers than one of my brothers who, at the time had almost 700 - that was my only challenge - now that account has over 89,000 and increases by several hundred every month.

However, people started to follow me, not because of my takes on China but because I was posting about cycling in China and somehow, it all got skewed, it most certainly wasn't my intention but it all became political. How this started was interesting. People would say to me as I posted photos in Xinjiang that it's impossible to travel through Xinjiang, I'd reply no it's not, here are some pictures of me there. Then they'd say, you must have had a guide and I'd say, no I didn't, there were only two of us, then they'd say you must have had special permission and I'd say, no I didn't, we just cycled into the Region from the Province of Gansu, no one stopped us, we rode into Hami, the first city in the region and I asked a police officer where foreigners can stay the night and he just pointed along the road and told me there are many hotels down there - he didn't ask who we were, what we were doing or why we were in Xinjiang without proper authority, he just pointed along a road and we stayed in the first nice looking hotel we saw. Then they would say, well you must be paid by the CCP then! and my reply would be innocently and naively that I'm not but that didn't stop the name calling - now I just say I wish I was and, if you can prove it, I'll give you the entire contents of my bank account that you claim I'm paid into. Furthermore, even if I am paid, which I'm not, what difference does it make if you can't prove me wrong? So there's the challenge - get over calling me names and prove me wrong, by doing so, you discredit me and you win - by calling me names, you bring discredit to yourself.

Back to bike riding, over my times in Xinjiang I've slept overnight in a culvert under the road, in an arid zone, not quite a desert, but pretty dry, in an abandoned quarry, even in a graveyard, I've slept on the floor of a restaurant storeroom and behind a service station as well as many more places, it's impossible to travel across the Taklamakan desert or through the Tarim Basin on a bike in a day and yet, each time we've done it and arrived in a hotel at the other end, there hasn't been a single I've ever been asked where we were yesterday. In fact not one time has a police officer ever asked where we'd been, they often asked what we were doing but they're curious, not authoritarian. Not once has a police officer ever asked us to show what photos we'd taken or told us we can't go to a place - it just doesn't happen.

I've crossed the Nanling mountains, the Qingling Mountains and the Tianshan mountains on a bike, I've crossed the Pearl River multiple times, the Yangtze River, or Chang Jiang as it should be called three times and the Huang He, the Yellow River twice. I've taken a ferry across the Bohai Sea and cycled through at least 12 provinces and regions including Heilongjiang in the far northeast, Hainan in the Deep Southeast, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu and Xinjiang in the North and West - I think it's fair to say, I've seen a fair bit of China and we stop every 20-30 kilometres for breaks and chats with locals, it's just as fair to say, I've met a lot of Chinese people in their own environments - when we get out of the comfort zones of Tier one and two cities, we certainly learn about the way people live in rural China.

In 2019, I had a strong feeling of being unfulfilled by the journey I took into Xinjiang, I really wanted to complete it by riding home again, So, with another friend from Australia and my wife, we shipped the bikes there, flew into Urumqi and rode out of it all the way back to Guangdong where we all live.

While on the topic of Xinjiang, I've been in the region several times, I've ridden in on a bike, I've travelled in on a train and I've ridden out on a bike after flying in on a plane and not one time have I had any negative interactions with police or been told I can't go anywhere I wanted to go - there was one night in a very small town when we were told there was no hotel to accept foreigners and the police came along to tell us we needed to keep riding to the next town - this wasn't Xinjiang specific, it has been a problem all over China as anyone who has travelled in China can tell you. Overall, on two different bike rides in Xinjiang, I believe I've covered over 5000 kilometres, without any problems with authority, without any restrictions and without seeing a single person getting oppressed - quite the opposite, they are welcoming and friendly there.

My last major bike ride, in 2019, was across Guangxi and Guangdong provinces, my wife and I went up to the Longji Rice terraces and we proved that the so called lockdowns were nothing of the sort as we cycled 7 weeks through over 10 different cities and hundreds of towns and villages. We posted from along the way mostly on my WeChat account but also some on my Twitter - I wasn't active on YouTube in those days so I wasn't taking videos of myself or my riding partners, we just enjoyed the rides.

So, although I've been active on social media for five years now, I've started my own Substack channel, my own YouTube and I have two X accounts, one for being a little less political than the other. And, although I've claimed to ride in China, there isn't much evidence of it nowadays, so now it's time to put that right.

To put this right, on Monday 12th May, my Australian friend Bev, the same guy who flew to Harbin to meet me and ride home over 42 days in 2018, and who flew to Urumqi to ride home with my wife and I over 57 days in 2019, will set off on an epic trip to Mongolia. IT should take us about 36 to 40 days riding about 80 kilometres a day with a few stops along the way, this one is about the journey, rather than the destination.

We plan to vlog every day, and I will be making some longer videos to post on YouTube, TikTok and WeChat - this is not a ride for charity so we're not sponsored, it's all coming out of our own pockets but we might get some expenses paid by our local media as they would like to meet us in Changsha, Wuhan, Taiyuan and Hohhot for a special report. They have a very good reason.

I live in the city of Zhongshan, the name was changed from Xiangshan to Zhongshan in April 1925, exactly 100 years ago to commemorate the life of Sun Yat Sen, the father of modern China, he went by the name of Sun Zhongshan when he was in hiding from the army of the Qing Dynasty - it's quite an honour to have our ride associated with this and we'll be looking for connections in those cities to the great man - who died in March 1925 - so we can give our local media something interesting to report.

There's another thing I want to do, especially when travelling through Rural Regions and that's look into the Rural revitalisation program - it's three years old now and I really want to see and hear from local people if I can, whether they've seen improvements in their lifestyles, so far, my opinion is yes, and that's borne out by some of the travelling I've done recently - however, there's always an element of proof needed to ensure it's going the way I've been told it's going and that can only be seen in the places where it's supposed to be working.

For this trip, we're going to cheat a little - it's not for charity like many of my other rides have been, so there's no need to make it too hard. We both love riding in China but we're both getting on in years - there are three mountain ranges to cross on the way to Mongolia and some long stretches of grasslands so we're going with Pedal assisted e-bikes.

I started riding this one about 2 years ago and have done almost 4000 kilometres on it, it's been great, it helps with accelerating away from the lights, it helps when my speed slows down for a hill but when I'm cruising it cuts out and lets me do the work - so I'm getting the exercise I needs and want at the same time as having this battery support my knees when strength is needed.

The battery will last me about 240 kilometres without all the additional weight of the camping gear, the clothes and all the spare parts we need to carry but we haven't yet tested the range through real mountains, in order to do that, we need to ride North of here about 400 kilometres, so, when we leave the border of Macau, we'll get to the city of Shaoguan on two charges, leaving Shaoguan and getting into Hunan province we're crossing the Nanling Mountains and that will really test the capacity but the distances on those days will be only 80 kilometres a day so we should be right.

While I'm travelling I'll be collecting stories, I'll look for interesting cultural, historical and personal issues to bring to you and I'll still be reading all my comments and replying. So, if you have questions about our journey, you can add them in the comment section and I'll get to them although maybe not as fast as I usually do.

Our routine when we're riding goes something like this:

When we're in urban areas, we wake up about 7am, have a coffee and check the bikes, by about 7:30 or definitely 8am, we're on the road and looking for a snack, there's plenty of street food and we usually like to get a few kilometres under our belt before we eat breakfast. Depending on what we see, it might be anything from 5 kilometres to 30 kilometres but, at about 20 per hour, which is normal for us, by 9:30, we've usually had something to eat.

A 15 or 230 minute break with breakfast allows us to get into the next spell which is usually 25-30 kilometres and about 90 minutes before we stop again and have a drink, snack or just a rest - we carry water and stay hydrated while riding but if we stop at a corner store or a service station the drink might be one of those power drinks.

Another 15-20 minute break and we're off again for another 25-30 kilometres and that's usually enough to put us at our next destination. There are plenty of small towns and our riding throughout most of China's South and East usually puts us in a town with hotels after about 4-5 hours of riding time and 80 to 100 kilometres of distance.

We then have the rest of the day free to check in, check the bikes, sort out washing, our clothes, ourselves and sometimes our equipment too. and it's rarely much later than 4 or 5pm.

This is the time for catching up on messages, creating blogs and vlogs and generally relaxing - every 5 or 6 days, we stop in a more developed place, on this route it will be Changsha, Wuhan, Taiyuan and Hohhot where we \plan to meet with out media friends and have at least one rest day.

There's no better way to learn about a place than to either walk or cycle through it - you stop every hour or two, you cover 60-100 kilometres a day and you meet real people in their real lives. This is why my take on China can be trusted, because II don't live in an expat bubble, I don't listen to or read Western media and even when I find a foreigner who doesn't like China, and here are still a few, I'm able to convince them that they don't know China, they only know their lives in it - it isn't China they don't like, it's usually something about the life they have here and, if we're honest, those people would be unhappy wherever they were!

We have just days before starting, I'm ready, I have my camping gear sorted, the bike is tuned up, new tyres, new brakes and a new seat which is more comfortable than the last one. We're riding 20-30 kilometres a day at the moment with the occasional 50 kilometre day - I can't wait to get started and get that Guangdong in the rear view mirror, there's no better feeling for me than being on the road again.

If you have questions, please feel free to ask, if you want to support, I don't ask for donations but am always happy that people are prepared to help and, if at the end of the trip, we have more money than the cost of the trip, I'll do what I always do and donate that to the Disabled Association of Zhongshan.

My WeChat QR code is here

If people who have WeChat want to join the daily posts, you'll be most welcome and WeChat is a good place for donations, it's a lot easier than the international banking system and I don't use PayPal, or any of the other internationally recognised methods. Another good way to donate to me, without making a cash donation is to simply make sure you're subscribed and notified and then please sit through the adverts, and share my videos widely, the more people who watch, the more income I'm likely to receive.

And that's all I'm asking, that and a little of your patience if my posts are not as regular, or if one post doesn't suit you, stick with it because the next one might, some posts will be purely cycling, some will be more political but there will be something for everyone in the subscribers list and your messages and questions will get my attention.