Cross-Korea Cycling: Trail Culture

November 18, 2014 • Blog, Culture

Written by: Khoi Truong

One of the many things that we did not expect at the starting line was that the trail had a culture and a personality. When we began working out the details of the trip, we accounted for things like water consumption, and minimum kilometres per day; essentially 1/4 of what was to come. When we started pedalling, we entered another world.

The first item of note, was the trail’s personality; I am referring to the unpredictable nature of the path. At the beginning of our second day, we packed our entire lives onto the back of our bicycles and then began our morning push at about ten o’clock.

We started day-two bearing in mind the lessons we learned on day-one. The main lesson was that our progress would probably be slower than what we had predicted; the day was going to be an uphill battle.

That morning we had gone no further than a block when, in some twisted mockery of our preparation, we were faced with what can only be described as a paved road attempting to imitate a cliff. The 4-Rivers Trail took what seemed like the entire day’s worth of inclined road, and crammed it into the first ten kilometres.

The second item of note is the charmingly motivational inhabitants. There were people of all ages, professions, and cycling experience going past us, being passed by us, and travelling in different directions than us. And each of them, almost without fail, would greet us with one word of encouragement: “Fighting!”

Ingrained in Korean culture is the universally encouraging cheer: “Fighting.” The word is often enthusiastically roared with an accompanying fist pump. In western culture, this entire gesture can be translated to “Give it your best shot; you can do it!” Hour after hour we were spurred on by all manner of the Korean cycling population, and were given ample opportunity to return the sentiment.

Before long, the cyclists on the trail started to recognize each other. We began to develop a tiny network of acquaintances who I fondly refer to as the 4-Rivers Family. The first, and most prominent, connection we made was with a father-son duo, let’s refer to them as the Team Daddy. We met them that afternoon and, by luck, we encountered the duo every single day for the remainder of the trip. Eventually we started eating meals together, getting lost together, and booking into motels together. Coincidentally, we ended the trip together as well…but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The last two hours of day-two was a race against the setting sun. True to the unpredictable character of the trail, the distance-markers started playing with us. For every sign that read ‘20km to destination’ we would soon pass another that would increase the distance somehow. It was like watching a Saturday-morning cartoon where Bugs Bunny would sit in class staring at a clock that would move so slow that it began going backwards.

After fording a river, and biking midway up a dam, Chandler and I ended the day at a nearby friend’s apartment. She took us out to celebrate our big accomplishment. You see, that night signified the first point on the trip that we were on track; we had spent the first two days behind schedule, and worked very hard to get to this moment. The first thing we did the next morning, was throw all that progress out into the wind.

Khoi is an artsy, bohemian, former-traveller in his late twenties. He enjoys adventure, feeling lost, being healthy, and looking good. An intellectual who relishes in frank discussion, his friends describe spending time with him as ‘refreshing.’ Despite a highly social existence during his university years and his early-to-late twenties, Khoi now focuses his attention on developing relationships with more strong-willed, and independent thinkers.

Cycling Korea The 4-Rivers Trail