A ‘Cycling Madman’ Pedals His Way Across the World

Niko J. Kallianiotis for The New York Times Lai Likun, a native of China, is bicycling around the world. Last month, he made a stop in Flushing, Queens.

Lai Likun, 41, of China, is visiting New York City, but he does not plan on renting a CitiBike.

Short-term rentals are not useful to Mr. Lai. He has already been through six sturdy bikes over the past three years, having pedaled 31,000 miles through four continents and nearly 25 countries as part of a five-year solo bicycle tour around the world.

Mr. Lai, a farmer and factory worker, says his next destination is South America. He is flying to Beijing on Tuesday to straighten out his visa. Then he will head to the Pacific islands.

“It’s been my dream to bicycle around the world ever since I was 6 years old,” said Mr. Lai, who arrived in New York City in mid-June after completing the North American leg of his tour, a nearly seven-month journey that took him into Mexico and Cuba.

Mr. Lai came to the United States last December, arriving in New York City, before making his way to Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, then to Texas and into Mexico. After a side trip to Cuba, he resumed traveling through Mexico to California, Nevada and Utah, before turning east and heading to Chicago, Detroit, Boston and then returning to New York.

Mr. Lai said he left his hometown of Shunde, in Guangdong Province, in November 2009 with the equivalent of roughly $20 in his pocket. He visited more than 40 Chinese cities and then crossed into Russia for a long westerly journey to northern Europe. After being turned away at the Finland border, he flew back to China and basically started over, this time through the far western region of Xinjiang and then south along the Silk Road route to Yunan Province and onto Vietnam.

Mr. Lai said he had relied on donations of food, shelter and money from strangers along the way, and on his outdoors-survivor skills - often living off the land and sleeping in a tent.

He travels with a portable karaoke machine, so that he can stop and belt out 1980s Chinese pop songs for donations.

Although he usually has the appropriate travel documents, border crossings have often been smoothed by showing officials the ever-growing pile of paperwork documenting his journey, including many awards from Chinese associations along the way, and many clippings from Chinese-language newspapers, in which he is repeatedly referred to in headlines as the “Shunde Ironman” or the “Cycling Madman.”

Even while he was being interviewed in a children’s playground in Flushing the other day, police officers arrived and shooed him away, but became friendly after learning his story. One of them, Kevin O’Donnell, from the 109th Precinct’s community affairs division, pulled out a $5 bill and gave it to Mr. Lai.

In every city or town he has visited, Mr. Lai has tried to find Chinese populations, whether it be a lone Chinese takeout place in a small town or bustling Chinatowns in major cities, where he has been invariably feted by various Chinese associations and followed by the local Chinese-language press.

But Mr. Lai â€" who speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese dialects, but no other languages â€" has also gone weeks at a time without meeting any Chinese speakers.

To communicate, he has asked people along the journey to help him write basic requests in various languages on Post-its, which he then staples together into phrase books:

“Please help me get to Chinatown. Thank you!”
“Can I find Chinese people nearby?”
“Would you please fill my bottle with hot water?”
“Would you please shelter me for the night?”

In a Flushing coffee shop, his bicycle leaned against a counter, with a collection of miniature flags fastened at the handlebars. It was loaded with gear, including a plastic “survival bucket,” which he said was used for bathing and fishing and to carry provisions. He also uses it to collect donations.

A bachelor, he stays in touch with friends and family back home by cellphone. Though he has a smartphone, he still relies on paper maps and atlases.

There has been romance - proposals from women in Malaysia and Cambodia, and a fling in Russia - and desperate culinary tactics that involved roasting small game - snakes in Cuba, field mice in Texas and frogs in Thailand â€" on a skewer over an open fire.

There has been danger, including getting lost in the Sahara without food, only to be saved by a passer-by who drove him to the nearest town.

Mr. Lai practices kung fu, which he said had helped him during several scrapes on his journey, including a confrontation in Siberia with a group of motorcyclists armed with handguns.

Through a combination of dancing, singing and kung fu moves, Mr. Lai said he was able to defuse the situation. Soon he was showing the bikers photos of his trek.

If nothing else, he said his journey proved that “as long as you stay determined, there is nothing a that person cannot do.’’