Recently, while the outdoor wind is blowing, a way of travel that Chinese people are accustomed to seems to be returning.
Amid the setting sun rising or the setting sun, more and more silhouettes of cyclists appear on the city roads. They either ride bicycles with full body or sweep a shared bicycle, riding on the way to and from home and company in various postures and in different moods.
Ride back. /Visual China
At a time when cities are becoming more and more congested, if an electric bike that is effortless and free to walk is the king, then a bicycle that requires cyclists to put in endurance and physical strength is more like a Zen master. It requires the cooperation of the body's muscles and the mind, which means the soreness and the surge in the heart's load when competing for speed.
But it is also a kind of effort and feedback that can happen instantly. Once the bicycle moves, every effort you put in will give back to your speed and the oncoming wind.
All this is in the hands of the cyclist. You can "lie down" and ride slowly, or grit your teeth and accelerate, your muscles become tense and your breathing becomes rapid. When a certain speed accumulates, the soreness will be released at the next moment.
For some people who choose to ride to work in a medium and long distance, bicycles not only mean staying away from crowded subways and endless traffic jams, but also means the antidote to life, which brings people trapped in social media and far-reaching news from Rescued from the black box - although they did want to go to work in a different way at the beginning, they all fell in love with bicycles in the end.
down-to-earth happiness. / "Normal People"
Beyond soreness
Feel the freedom of
Guangzhou worker mushroom commuting journey is 16.9 kilometers, along the Zhujiang , from the west to the east of Guangzhou, it takes an hour to ride, each trip consumes 560 kcal.
new car for mushrooms. /Mushroom
Finally, these data will become a cycling roadmap, or a cycling record that indicates the time, average pace and other professional data, a gust of wind, sweat, and a gradually dark and healthy skin color. It made him feel unprecedented relief.
Previously, his way of commuting to and from get off work was the same as that of most office workers in the city. He stepped into the subway and faced his face staring at his phone. The plan for the day lies in the morning, but the beginning of the day has already opened the empty head. "I feel that going to work is meaningless, and I seem to be doing repetitive things every day." It is suspended in the two points and one line between my residence and my work area. The pattern numbed him.
Until he saw a group of photos of riding to work in his circle of friends, perhaps sweat, muscle tension when riding a bike, and energy overflowing from the photos, making him want to give it a try.
The temptation of riding. /Unsplash
A very ordinary time after get off work, he took out his cell phone and scanned a shared bicycle on the side of the road, thinking that he could ride wherever he could go. On the road, it began to drizzle in the sky, and his favorite music was playing in his headphones. At that moment, he suddenly felt "very happy". Although he had sweated a lot, he couldn't feel tired.
may be the secretion of dopamine caused by exercise, which may just prove that he was not lazy today. Since then, he has begun to look forward to cycling every day to get off work. In the past, he always slept until after eight o'clock on the subway, and he was even unable to get up. However, since he rode a bicycle to work, he often woke up before the alarm clock rang, and he had inexplicably hoped every day.
In Shenzhen, Miaoyu, who is also trapped in subway commuting, is also eager to find some changes. She works in an investment bank. From morning to night, she needs to deal with explosive information, working overtime until eleven or two o'clock in the evening, and often feels that her head is already overloading. Until the next morning, when she entered the transportation and continued bombarding her was the news from afar, anxious.
She began to long for some time to emptie. The long commute distance, maybe it can be used to do something, riding a bike to and from get off work has become a change incision.
bought the first road car, and Miaoyu named it Chandler. /Miaoyu
Elva, who settled in Shanghai, has an indissoluble bond with bicycles, which is entirely due to the physical limitation of movement space.In 2020, the epidemic broke out, and the whole city where she lives was silent. For three months, life was from one end of the room to the other. After the lockdown was unblocked, she finally walked out of the room. She swept a shared bicycle on the street and sped on the spacious road. When her feet left the ground, she finally realized what "physical freedom" was.
After returning to Shanghai, her business failed and her relationship ended. Her whole self-confidence collapsed and she fell to the bottom. The figure of a cyclist on the street allowed her to see a glimmer of hope to let herself go.
urgently needs to let himself go. /Elva
In recent years, the external environment of life has faced drastically changes, and the outdoor trend has been blown up. A trend of outdoor aesthetics has also brought about a new trend. In cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Guangzhou, which already have a strong cycling atmosphere, many young people like Mushroom, Miaoyu, and Elva also boarded bicycles, often riding more than ten kilometers, shuttled through the bus. Between city streets.
Danny, who opened a bicycle community store in Shanghai, said that such a grand occasion reminded him of the prosperous " dead flying " culture 10 years ago, when 600 bicycles appeared on the streets of Shanghai at the same time.
All this seems to make them feel again and life is boiling again.
exert force, breathe
find your own rhythm
Miaoyu's riding began in April this year. The spring is bright and 10 kilometers of bike to work every day. She feels that "the roads in the world are mine." She holds the steering wheel, "How to start the mood of the whole day and take the power in her own hands."
ride home and meets the sunset. /Miaoyu
However, a long distance riding will make the lower limbs feel particularly uncomfortable. Especially at the beginning, the riding posture was not correct and the seat height was not adjusted properly, so I felt super sore after riding the bike every day. In addition, when you first start riding a bike, you will always accidentally take the wrong path as you follow the navigation, and you are not very familiar with the road conditions, so you will spend a lot of extra time on the road.
How many days does she get up, she will suddenly lose motivation, "Why don't you slow down first"? She tried her best to overcome her burnout. After overcoming her physical discomfort and being fully familiar with the road conditions, she entered the scorching heat of Shenzhen again.
In July and August, Shenzhen's flat road was almost completely exposed to the sun, and there was no place to hide. It felt like it was almost a little hot-stroke while riding, and it felt dizzy and had difficulty breathing.
But even so, she persisted. She truly passed the "exciting period" of cycling at the beginning and survived the scorching heat. She felt that she had entered a new stage of cycling.
It is inevitable to live with pedestrians when riding in the city. At first, she was a little irritable, why are people on the road always playing with their phones, so they didn't pay attention to the arrival of the car, and even rang the ringtone without responding. She began to think about the question from a different perspective, "Are you too slow or are you too anxious?" So she began to adjust her mentality, "Maybe I can't pursue speed, and I don't have to ride it in one hour."
While riding, people began to feel the speed again. /Unsplash
She thought that if she didn't want to meet so many people on the road, she could choose to go out earlier in the morning. Now, she often goes out at around six o'clock, rides near the company, drink a cup of coffee to clean up her mood, and change to a clean one. Clothes, start a new day.
She was afraid to stop herself in a difficult situation. After feeling something was wrong, she tried to find another way for herself. So, she also firmly believed that "just like riding a bicycle, the roads will become smoother from crowded and life will become better from difficulties." After passing the enthusiasm of cycling such as
, she felt that she had entered the state of " flow ". She didn't even listen to songs in her ears, and her brain was empty and breathing. "There is no impact of a large amount of fragmented information, and my thinking is much clearer every day."
In recent years, a psychological concept "flow" has been frequently mentioned, meaning that people enter a state of extreme concentration and then enjoy the process. This concept is frequently mentioned, not by chance, but a kind of self-rescue in the current atmosphere of impetuousness, anxiety and internal consumption.
When holding the bicycle handle, Miaoyu found her rhythm and confidence again, "If the environment is better, you can slowly slow down and see the scenery, no one urges you." Because many times before, life seemed to be based on other people's rhythm and direction, such as "the recognition of the boss", but I rarely hear my inner voice.
The steering wheel is in your own hands. /Unsplash
In just two years of contact with bicycles, Elva has developed from a normal cycling to a professional cyclist. Ordinary urban cycling can no longer satisfy her. She likes to ride on the mountain road, and even takes her bicycle to ride around the country. She enjoys riding her bike on the road, focusing only on what she is doing now. Many people say that riding is a pursuit of freedom, and Elve thinks it is even a state of escape.
"It allows you to adjust yourself in another state, find some things, and find the goals you want in your heart. Even when you persist every kilometer, you will find some confidence and find your own mind. Some recognition of herself. In this process, she slowly restored to a peaceful mindset, and then returned to her work and life.
Not long ago, she went to Xiamen The , Ten Miles Blue Mountain , a 6-kilometer steep slope from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, is a cycling place for many cyclists to advance. It happened to be the heat that day, and the temperature was very high. She just started to ride a bicycle to climb the hill, and she felt that It's too late, and her whole body is shaking, as if she has reached the limit of physical fitness.
She just stopped to make herself cry, and then calmed down to analyze "Is it OK?" She thought it would be impossible to insist on riding, but it was even more important when she was "slowing down". Test The most dangerous thing to get off is to test your body's ability to control your car. After struggling for a while, she finally gave up. Riding a bicycle will let her learn to "give up", and "put down her ego" at the right time.
cycling, and you must also Learn to admit defeat. /Photography @DirtyTanwalls
But to really recall, all she can think of is the "very good" part of the cycling, although it may be difficult to climb the hill I will constantly doubt my life, "Why do I have to make myself like this?"
But when I finally climbed up the hill and started to " slope ", she ushered in a moment of majesty and freedom, and her forehead was full of sweat , When you climb to the top of the mountain, hope seems to gradually recover from the bottom of your heart.
In "Bicycle: Wheel of Freedom", the author wrote: "Bicycles give my life every day to redemption. "
cycling asceticism, and it is exactly the same for them.
cycling joy. / "Red Rocket"
stumbles on the ground and walks
regain the realism of life
In the present, Not caring about people around us seems to have become a normal state of life. In recent years, life has become more and more convenient. With mobile phones, we can have almost anything we need every day without leaving home, and we can buy groceries, Order takeaway, note "If you don't make a phone call, just put it at the door", and then build a two-dimensional social universe in your circle of friends, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu.
When the Internet provides us with more and more conveniences, But our lives are becoming more and more lost.
Oxford University Professor of Anthropology 公公司 mentioned "the disappearance near" in the interview program " Thirteen Invitation ", when everything can be completed online, People gradually lost a landing of the "nearby" in the real world , systematic understanding. But our feelings about life must happen in real life.
On an ordinary weekend morning, the sun just rose, and the thick cumulus clouds in the sky blocked the sun. It is rare in the blue sky days. Shady. I swept a shared bicycle casually and started riding aimlessly to the Pearl River.
Shared bicycles can be seen on the roadside. /Unsplash
The breeze blows towards me, the sunlight passes through the green leaves, and the nose floats into the roadside Qilixiang The smell is that the steamer in the roadside bun shop is steaming...
The old man fishing by the river is preparing to harvest the big fish he has been waiting for for a long time. The pedestrian who is pounding and exercising stops to watch, and the two start chatting.The takeaway rider who passed by early in the morning had to stop and pick up his phone to take a picture of this scene.
slow down, then accelerate, and when my feet accelerated and held my breath and rushed forward, I always think of the Chen Bolin and Gui Lunmei in the movie " Blue Door " I watched during my adolescence. The beginning of summer is full of pure power.
How much is youth and bicycles. /《Blue Gate》
Not only that, my life seems to have left the constraints of subway lines and entered a bigger world.
These simple and subtle things constitute the realism of daily life. When we ride our bicycles through the city, we reaffirm that we live because of these realism.
For mushrooms, when riding a bicycle by the river and seeing the red sunset hanging there, it is fleeting; or riding through the large green lawn under the Guangzhou Tower , lurking in the indescribable chaos in his heart, finally spread. Once, he met the elder brother who was riding on the road. He decided to ride hard, and in the end he surpassed the elder brother. The two looked at each other. He remembered that his elder brother greeted him and was very happy.
A small accident on the cycling road. /Mushroom crash picture.
Miaoyu's life has opened up a new territory because of cycling. Although she grew up in Shenzhen, she discovered during cycling that "I haven't discovered a place in this city before." When she got off work, she I like to ride a bike to find the old snack stall, sometimes just to travel through various alleys.
There have been many times. She was looking for the old man who set up a stall on the roadside on the same road. If he was not driven away today, she would be happy. She found her vision in a daze, and it was from the social network and the news from afar. Take it out and return to a particularly specific life.
Now, Elva has formed a bicycle fleet, and cycling accounts for almost 80% of her life, but the world has opened up its new territory.
riding on her became a surprise like opening a blind box. She always rides her bike to new places, sometimes it’s a surprise, sometimes it may be a fright, but in short, riding her bike opens her new senses.
Elva rides a bike on the streets of Shanghai. Photography @DirtyTanwalls
As Hemingway said, "Ride a bicycle is the best way to understand the terrain of a region, because you need to sweat and ride up the mountain and then slide down like a flying..." For Elva, riding The most important thing is the experiences and memories created in this process.
In "The Return of the Bicycle", Frederick Horan called this real feeling "a breath of reality."
Humans have a history of 200 years of riding bicycles. People have ridden it to travel, pursuing modernization and pursuing freedom. Nowadays, people step on bicycles again to return to real life as much as possible in chaos and helplessness.
References
"The Return of Bicycle" | [France] Frederick Holland
"Bicycle: Wheel of Freedom" | [English] Robert Payne
