Henan puts brakes on student night cycling trend

For university students, grabbing a shared bike to join a few friends for an intercity evening ride covering 50 kilometers in Henan province may be the ultimate expression of enthusiasm for young cyclists. But as the number of participants grew, so did the problems.

The collective cycling trend has been a hit with university students in Henan, where groups of students big or small set off on shared bikes late at night and pedal for over five hours to cover the 50-km stretch from Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, to the city of Kaifeng.

The trend was inspired by four young women from Zhengzhou who set off on an impulse journey to try Kaifeng's famous guantangbao, a type of soup dumpling, on June 18. Leaving at around 7 pm, they cycled on shared bikes before being rewarded with a plate of steaming dumplings at their destination.