4Rivers: Day 10 (End)

Daily Mileage: 45 

Total Mileage: 388 

Start Location: Hakpori

End Location: Busan, Sasang Subway Station

The theme of the mornings continued and we woke up in a thick cloud again, tent and ground all soaked through. We had camped in front of a viewing platform and I think some guy had camped up there during the night. We heard him in the morning doing some kind if calisthenics and he was grunting and moving around before the sun even came up. 

We got an early start because we still had about 50 miles to the end of the route, which was in South Busan, so we knew it was going to be a fairly long day. The riding was good and eventually the mist rose and gave way to partly cloudy and hazy skies. It was warm and well into the 70s by noon, and it was by far the hottest day of the ride and I was sweating more than I had on everyday on the trip. 

About 20 miles from Busan the path started to get really crowded with other cyclists. These guys were in packs and riding really hard. They had bib numbers on their bikes and it didn’t take us long to realize we were in the midst of some organized ride. People kept coming and coming in waves and we got a lot of thumbs ups and “hi’s” from the riders. We stick out like sore thumbs since we are pretty much the only white people here, and it’s interesting when people try their English on us, as if all white people must surely speak English. It’s endearing. 

We soon realized the race was an out and back as we started getting passed by the fast riders we had seen coming the opposite direction. They would shout something in Korean before passing us, probably the equivalent of “on your left!”, and zoom right passed us. I felt like a part of the race even though I had no involvement in it. There were a lot of riders of all abilities too, not just fast individuals, and the scene was more like the bicycle equivalent of a 5K running race than anything else. 

Ten miles out from the end of the path the race culminated in this large field. There was a podium and food and music and all the racers were hanging around talking to one another.

The path narrowed as we entered into the city of Busan and more and more people began to appear on the path. These were mostly people walking and we had to navigate around them. A few more miles into the city and the path was jammed pack with people walking. Cherry blossoms lined the path and the wind was ripping off the pedals making them rain down on everyone. Everything was loud and obnoxious and hundreds of people blocked our way. Selfie sticks were in full force and people were posing for pictures in front of the cherry blossoms. Food vendors soon lined every inch of the path selling street food and cotton candy. Old ladies in purple visors exercised in the weird equipment in the park and picked weeds out of the ground. We followed a guy who had a loud bell on his bike and this worked well for a while to navigate the crowd. But eventually the crowd became too thick and we had to get off of the bikes and walk. 

The scene was like a culmination of everything Korean we had experienced along the path, turned up to level 10. It was like reaching the boss level of a video game where you needed to use all the abilities and experiences you learned in the main game to overcome the final challenge. 

We had 4 miles left to go but it was clear we would not be able to make it to the official end in any reasonable time. Riding the bike was impossible. We needed to get to the Sasang Subway station after we had reached the end, which was a backtrack to where we currently sat taking a break, so we decided to end the ride there and took a selfie of ourselves amidst the cherry blossoms to finalize our journey. It was a fitting end to an amazing bicycle ride across Korea. South Korea as a cycle touring destination is gaining a lot of popularity and it’s easy to see why. It has one of the best and longest dedicated cycling paths anywhere, and I’m happy to have experienced it.