Restless Me - The Journal of World Travel

(Excerpted from "Habits of Flying" in Stephen Ausherman's book of travel essays Restless Tribes.)

Shortly after the Tiananmen massacre of June 4, 1989, I prepared for a teaching assignment in Siping, China. Though ready for a year of sacrifices, I could not have anticipated the list of items that I was forbidden to bring into their country: weapons, drugs, pornography, political and religious propaganda, mountain bikes.

The last item ripped my breath away. How was I to survive a year without my trusty Cannondale? This faithful bike, which I'd christened Betsy, had carried me safely across the greater part of North Carolina's mountains and beaches and everything in between. She had delivered me from potentially deadly encounters with mountain ledges and railroad trestles, vicious copperheads and packs of feral dogs, hillbilly deputies and the broad side of countless minivans.

This wasn't just a bike. She was a bold machine forged from American sweat and steel, a crimson chariot that knew her way around tor and vale.

But it was precisely this kind of flashy craftsmanship that the Chinese Party sought to hide from the People. Our new breed of bikes, mountain bikes in particular, threatened to disgrace the Chinese model, the design of which changed little since Huo Baoji first unveiled his carefully crafted Fei Ge in 1950.

Alas, my trusty Betsy would have to stay behind and await my return.

- - - - -

I arrived at Siping Teachers College on a dusty dawn in early September. Strains of a familiar tune echoed throughout the cinderblock campus. It was the music from the movie Born Free, and it woke the students for their morning exercise drills.

My Foreign Assistant and the Dean of Foreign Affairs showed me to my apartment and told me they'd come back later to give me an orientation of the town and college. In the meantime, I was to rest up from my journey. Wait for us here, they said. They didn't tell me at the time, but they figured I'd need about five days.

I waited about five hours before setting out on my own. My first order of business was, of course, to secure a bicycle. I didn't waste time shopping around, as the only model available was the Fei Ge. Huo Baoji based his classic model on the 1932 English Raleigh roadster. He had Flying Dove in mind when naming his creation, but due to a glitch in the translation, the bike became known as the Flying Pigeon.

Weighing in at nearly 50 pounds, the Flying Pigeon was a beast of a bike. It was also a work of art in its simplicity. Pedals, chain, wheels, frame, seat and handlebars -- that's all you got. Handbrakes were included, but rarely functional. And like Henry Ford's Model-T, the Flying Pigeon came in any color you wanted, as long as you wanted black.

I snapped up a used Flying Pigeon at a roadside repair shack for a mere 95 Yuan, about $25. (New bikes cost up to Y230 and a ration coupon). I sped off toward downtown Siping, an industrial city of 400,000 weary souls. It seemed half the population was out plodding along on bicycles identical to mine.

The only difference was mine went faster. I rode at the breakneck speed I'd grown accustomed to while racing to classes over the past four years. I rattled down boulevards, weaving through the masses like a barbarian. I passed tractors and buses and army trucks. As the only white boy in town, I got stares. Imagine a Mongolian warrior in Des Moines running his fool head off everywhere he went. That's how ridiculous I looked.

I couldn't help it. That's what bikes did to me. They infused me with energy and a giddy sense of liberation, no doubt a remnant from those high-school nights when I would sneak out and ride off to meet friends who had done the same.

I rode everyday in Siping. On my fifth day, my Foreign Assistant returned to my apartment and scolded me for going into town unescorted. I wondered, briefly, who had ratted me out, but it didn't matter. There was no way anyone was going to stop me from doing it again. Next