Portrait of an LBX

By Andy

As we rapidly approach two measly months left on this trip (are we the only ones who think that’s a short time?), I find myself thinking more and more about all the things I want to do when I’m not spending eight hours a day on a bike saddle.

This trip has had a profound effect on me, in ways of which I’m already aware, and I’m sure in many ways that I won’t realize until it’s over. Before I left, I promised my parents and my friends, “I won’t let this trip or a year with Evan turn me into a hippy.” I don’t know that I’ve reached that level, but my time on the road has altered my attitude about a great many things in ways that I think are for the better.

Traveling through the Chinese countryside and meeting the farmers living there, I’m always struck by their self-sufficiency. These LBXes grow their own food, harvest it, cook it and often process it into other products. Families not engaged in the tea business keep a few tea trees on their property because tea is important to them and they don’t want to rely on someone else for it. Country LBXes make their own booze, often from whatever they happen to be growing — rice, corn, sweet potatoes, lychee, red bayberries, coffee beans, you name it — if it’s got sugar in it, LBXes are turning it into intoxicants.

Granted, most of the rotgut these LBXes are cooking up is akin to kerosene and leaves you with a debilitating hangover (ask Evan, who gets them the worst), but I admire the spirit. So many of their urban counterparts, a mere generation removed from their roots in the fields, can barely wash their own clothes.

I think this is true in America too, though the scale and many of the factors are obviously different. That’s why my goal when I get back is to learn as many of what I consider “life skills” as I can.

I’ve got an aunt and uncle on what my aunt describes as a “homesteading” kick. They live on a beautiful farm in a restored mill. They’re not farmers; in fact, they run the family insurance business. But on the farm they keep a garden that provides much of what they need. They pick the vegetables when they’re fresh and can them for when they’re not. They’ve turned a bee infestation in their roof into a source of fresh honey. And my uncle makes a ton of wine in the basement (and has recently started a commercial operation as well!). (The link is not working for me from China)

I don’t own a home or any land, so I certainly couldn’t get nearly so crazy, but I’ve still got some things I’d like to do.

First on the list is beer. It’s easy to get into, and I think I could find some inspiration in it. From what I understand of America these days, this aspiration may be a bit cliche. But I think a solid, from-scratch brewing setup would be both a good father-son project and a tasty treat. My uncle has offered to let me in on the winemaking process as well, so that’s on the list now too.

When my girlfriend was tagging along with us, she got to complaining that this bike trip has made me too skinny. Well, I’ve got a strategy in place, and it involves more than just home-brewed beer! The ability of our LBX acquaintances to take a few things from their gardens and transform them into delicious country cooking never ceases to amaze me, and I intend to learn how to do it.

Apropos to cooking, one particular comment from a farmer we met way back in the beginning of our trip has stuck with me. “Sure, we use tons of fertilizer and stuff on the vegetables we’re going to sell — we get paid by the weight,” this farmer told us. “But we don’t do that for the stuff we eat ourselves. We keep that all-natural.”

As with most things we see on this trip, this guy had it only half right. LBXes may appreciate eating fresh and healthy (or “green” and “ecological” as the political buzzwords that are always thrown at us go), but they’re still stir frying their dishes with pork lard and topping everything off with a hefty dose of MSG. Nevertheless, they’re onto something. I intend to eat healthier and fresher (or more “ecologically” and “greener,” if you will) when I get back.

One of my other goals is a reaction to one of the big negatives we’ve witnessed on this trip: a general apathy toward quality — from shoddy building construction to road signs that are wrong about distances remaining by as much as a third — LBXes just don’t seem to give a damn, and neither does their government.

I’m as guilty as the next guy of rushing things that shouldn’t be rushed (just look at my sloppy posts on this site!), but I intend to slow things down and teach myself to do them right. By brewing my own beer, I’m not talking about going down to the local home brewing store, picking up a lager kit, mixing it with water in a plastic bucket and waiting a month. I want to do things as much from scratch as possible, and I intend to mix, match, experiment and learn from others until I’ve got a product I’m happy with, like our friend Tutu is doing with his pu’er tea.

And speaking of tea, Evan and I have both been picking up a ton on this trip, and we’ll be picking up more when we’re finished and taking it back home with us. I’ll be drinking that in the traditional way as I continue to do translation work to make a few bucks as we start to work on a book about this adventure, but I also intend to apply that mix-and-match philosophy to tea and whip up some of the most delicious concoctions you can imagine.

Finally, let’s get to the obvious thing. I see a lot of blogs about bike trips paint a mission of “spreading awareness about sustainable transportation,” like people seeing some dirty, sweaty biker ride by with a bunch of bags strapped to his bike are gonna say, “Wow, that looks like a really great way to get around.” That’s some real BS. I think most of the awareness one fosters on a trip like this is within oneself, and I’m no exception.

If you’re living in a city, the bike is a good transportation tool, and when I’m in DC I intend to use it that way, just as I would’ve if I hadn’t biked 15,000km around China. But at the end of this trip I will have been on a bike eight hours a day for more days than not for a full year, and I hope that’s given me the awareness about how great it feels to be in shape and exercise regularly. I’ve never been good with such self-motivation, but I intend to keep up the biking, get back into running (I ran hurdles in track for 11 years from middle school through college and cross country for four years in high school) and even learn how to swim well enough to use that as exercise too. Being in shape just feels too good to let myself go without it anymore.

The transition from five years in the inhuman megalopolis that is Beijing to a year on the road has certainly taught a few things about what’s important to me. From now on, no matter where I live, I intend to get out of the city and into nature (isn’t it so strange that we have to “get out into nature” in the first place?) — more hiking, more bike trips, more camping, more whatever it takes.

But now, back to the task at hand!