A night cycling trend that began last June with four Chinese students traveling 50km to taste guan tang bao spread to 100,000 more on Friday, blocking roads in the city of Kaifeng.
They are nicknamed the “Night Riding Army” (the horde of night owl cyclists in French). This Friday, around 100,000 students traveled at night and by bike the 50 kilometers that separate Zhengzhou from the former imperial capital Kaifeng (eastern Henan province, China).
An event which led to the blocking of the streets. The Chinese police were therefore forced to implement traffic control measures in order to put an end to this phenomenon which had become viral on social networks.
Kaifeng – which seeks to attract local tourists – has quickly reached capacity, with accommodation, restaurants and public spaces filled. Six-lane roads and the Zhengzhou expressway and the streets of Kaifeng were overflowing with cyclists, local authorities announced.
A hidden message?
This initiative is far from recent. The latter began in June 2024 when four students from Zhengzhou University decided to ride several hours by bicycle – which they had rented – to go to Kaifeng, in search of the famous guan tang bao, buns with steam filled with soup. The chronicle of their trip then went viral on social media, launching the hashtag “Youth is priceless, enjoy it in time”.
Their goal? Promote cheap travel and spend as little as possible at a time when job prospects are few and salaries are not increasing. In their province, it is in fact possible to rent a bicycle for 1.95 dollars per month (1.83 euros).
Faced with the popularity of the trend, companies specializing in bicycle rental such as Hellobike, DiDi Bike and Mobile announced in a press release that in the future, their bicycles would be locked if they left an area given.
This measure does not seem to want to stop the students. On Saturday, some of them who still had the option of leaving their universities decided to travel on foot, the Guardian reported. “I followed my boyfriend on a night ride to Kaifeng, but now the police don't let people go to Kaifeng by bike,” one young woman wrote on social media. “There are so many bikes parked on the side of the road that students started walking. It’s so good to be young, that’s what youth is!” she added.
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