Between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng, but it exploded to 100 thousand people
A 50 kilometer night bike ride that began with four Chinese students looking for dumplings exploded on Friday, involving around 100 thousand people and forcing the authorities to use the axe, despite initial encouragement. Clogging major roads and overwhelming a small tourist town, students, mostly on shared public bicycles, pedaled for several hours amid patriotic slogans across Henan province from their campuses in Zhengzhou to the ancient city of Kaifeng, famous for its ‘guan tang bao’ dumplings.
“People were singing together and cheering each other on as they went up the hill together,” Liu Lulu, a student at Henan University, told China Daily. “I could feel the passion of the young people. And it was much more than just a bike ride.” bicycle”. But Kaifeng very quickly reached capacity, with accommodation, restaurants and public spaces bursting at the seams, authorities said.
A video posted on social media, for example, showed tens of thousands of cyclists on the six-lane Zhengkai Avenue, on the highway between Zhengzhou and on the streets of the much smaller Kaifeng, while police used megaphones to ask students to leave, in bicycle or on free buses.
To prevent a repeat of Friday’s event, authorities announced temporary restrictions on roads and cycle paths for the weekend, and bike-sharing apps warned they would remotely lock any bikes taken out of designated zones in Zhengzhou. Having started with word of mouth on social media, the phenomenon has taken on unimaginable dimensions, risky for public order. Kaifeng, among many Chinese cities trying to attract more tourists, has offered incentives such as free entry to its attractions.
The People’s Daily, the official voice of the Chinese Communist Party, celebrated Thursday “the wave of young travelers” in Kaifeng, an example of “youthful adventures” and “a vibrant spirit, full of curiosity, determination and desire to discover, which adds new dimensions to the tourism industry.”
But that evening the number of students on bicycles rose to 17,000, then on Friday it increased tenfold, to at least 100,000.
