Michael de Waal-Montgomery montymike@gmail.com WITH more than 4,500 km of dusty desert, rugged mountains and corn-filled plains separating San Francisco and New York City, the most sensible route for travelers going from one to the other likely is boarding a plane at San Francisco International Airport and arriving five or six hours later at JFK in New York. Zhou Yong, however, wasn’t interested in being sensible. In August 2011, the 28-year-old former telecommunications engineer, who now lives in Shenzhen, quit his job at Huawei Technologies Co. and, together with his wife Guan Qiong, 29, set out on the journey of a lifetime: cycling across the United States, from the Bay Area to the Big Apple. A bold step Zhou, from Xiantao City in Hubei Province, explained that after working for Huawei for four years in locations such as Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Bangladesh, he was eventually relocated to the company’s Shenzhen headquarters, where every day became a blur of “reports, teleconferences and fighting.” The environment was a sharp contrast to his time in Malaysia, where he said he was “the team leader, leading 10-plus engineers in technical projects.” He quickly became dissatisfied with his job in Shenzhen. “One day in 2011, when I was still working for Huawei, a college friend came to visit me and we watched a video on Youku of a Taiwanese man who cycled from New York to Los Angeles,” Zhou explained. “When I watched the video, I realized how boring my life was. I wanted to do something like that.” After some serious thought, Zhou told his boss he wanted to resign. “He was very shocked. He asked me why and told me to think it through,” Zhou said. “He told me that I would never be able to find a job that pays such a high salary. Including shares, bonuses and other perks, I was earning nearly 500,000 yuan (US$81,000) per year.” But money wasn’t everything for Zhou. On the road A jobless Zhou and his wife started their journey in San Francisco on Aug. 20, 2011. One of the couple’s early stops was Mountain View, California, notable as the headquarters of Google, the U.S. Internet search giant. Zhou said a friendly local named Peter, a co-founder of a tech start-up, took the time to show them around the town, explaining that Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and late Apple CEO Steve Jobs had houses there. Also on the brief tour, they visited “a pub and restaurant street that was full of Silicon Valley engineers at night.” Zhou remembers being amazed at the town-wide free WiFi, courtesy of Google. The couple camped that night in the backyard of a Mountain View resident, an experience that would become all too familiar over their 45 days crossing the country. Had he not been traveling with his wife, Zhou said, he might have taken more risks and been less worried about finding safe places to stay. New friends “What we’d heard in China was that America was a dangerous place; they have guns, Mafia and a lot of South American gangsters,” he said. “My wife was worried that I would die in the middle of nowhere [if she didn’t come with me].” Zhou said that on the contrary, the trip left a lasting impression on him of the simple kindness of strangers. “One thing the trip taught me was that if you want to do something, many people will help you,” he said. “Friends ask if we encountered problems, if I was robbed, and I always say no, because a lot of people helped me.” In Hannibal, Illinois, a kindly old man who had retired from the U.S. Navy and his wife treated Zhou and Guan to homemade apple pie and let them camp in their backyard for a night. Then there was a husband and wife from China living in Champaign, Illinois. The wife ran a hostel and her husband was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. When she learned that Zhou and Guan were travelers from Shenzhen, she was amazed. “Oh! You are from Shenzhen!” she exclaimed, according to Zhou. “I am from Guangzhou!” She treated them like family, giving the couple a 50-percent discount on their room and free buffet meals. As a huge fan of NBA basketball, two of the trip’s highlights for Zhou were visiting Chicago, hometown of the Chicago Bulls — the team known by many because of legendary player Michael Jordan — as well as the Staples Center in Los Angeles, home of the LA Lakers and NBA superstar Kobe Bryant. When they finally arrived in New York, 45 days and dozens of flat tires later, it was already Oct. 6. The fatigued couple decided to recuperate by going on a two-week shopping spree. “From San Francisco to New York cost me 40,000 yuan,” Zhou said. “And yet only two weeks in New York also cost me 40,000 yuan! When we arrived, we only had T-shirts and summer clothes, so my wife and I went to Fifth Avenue every day to buy new clothes.” Zhou has simple advice for cyclists thinking of doing a similar trip. “Persistence,” he said. “You need to hang on and keep riding.” Future plans The couple plans to return to the United States one day, “but next time we won’t cycle, we’ll drive,” Zhou said. “Every day on our bicycles we saw people passing in cars, and it seemed so much faster and more relaxing. My wife wants to go to Yellowstone and a lot of other national parks and tourist spots that we didn’t go to because it wasn’t on my planned cycling route.” The young couple from China still has plenty of time ahead for leisurely drives across the United States. But whether they will ever undertake another cycling trip of such magnitude remains to be seen. Zhou said he’s planning to do a 15-day cycling trip in Taiwan next month, and a 25-day cycle in Tibet next year. There likely will be new lessons to learn in those places, too. “After we finished (in the United States),” Zhou said, with an air of mystery, “My wife told me that she finally understood the trip.” Zhou can be contacted at zhouyong0356@hotmail.com. “Persistence. You need to hang on and keep riding.”— Zhou Yong, who spent 45 days cycling from San Francisco to New York with his wife in 2011 | 