This article was first published in Rouleur 142
Two men in lycra stood aside their road bikes on the banks of the Han River, smoking.
When photographer and cyclist Alberto Viciana left South Korea after his honeymoon, he vowed to return. Broken and bruised after the prestigious Traka gravel race, his enthusiasm for the sport had dwindled – a three-week trip with his wife to Seoul was exactly the off-season break he needed. But a fleeting glimpse of a clan of riders in a downtown cafe was enough to scratch the itch: Viciana immediately planned to come back and explore this small semblance of cycling culture.
A pack of Marlboro Golds on the side of the road, however, was not necessarily what he was expecting upon his return four years later. Nor was the fact that this incongruent episode of nicotine consumption would take place eight hours into an 80 kilometre route – which surely should have taken four hours at most, coffee break included.
The morning social ride Viciana initially envisaged had instead evolved into an entire day of exchanging stories and cultures over countless stops for coffee and cold noodles, or naengmyeon ( 냉면 ), along the bike paths that hug the meanders of the Han River as it winds through Seoul.
“It was shocking when they said they would bring us back after dinner,” he laughs. “The other riders explained to me that when someone is their guest, they give him everything. And that’s how we felt. There was also a smoking stop, which was shocking because obviously you don’t expect that ever! But they were such strong climbers too.
“The local riders brought us to a super nice place for lunch, and we all sat together on the floor to eat. Everyone was asking each other questions, and was super friendly. The Korean barbeque was never ending, I had to be like ‘stop, I can’t eat anymore!’ – I had enough food to last me two weeks!” he jokes.
As a bearded, tattooed, six-foot Spaniard, such a warm welcome was not anticipated, Viciana admits. But this, as he would later come to realise, was jeong ( 정 ): a South Korean sentiment rooted in the idea of collective responsibility. Emphasised in sharing and with no real definitive meaning even in Korean, it’s an emotional state usually expressed through experience. Being plied with food was merely synecdoche.
Collective carb-loading made for a fitting farewell – in a few days time, Viciana would prepare to take on the 600km ‘Cross Country Route’ alone. The route, which partially follows the famous Four Rivers Trail, is a series of continuous, well-maintained cycling paths and picturesque country roads starting from the port city of Incheon in the north east and ending in Busan at the southeast tip of the peninsula.
What is usually a week-long touring bike sojourn for most was of course not enough for an athlete whose long list of sponsors includes Kask, Fizik, Pirelli, and MAAP, and whose pursuit of adventure has taken him through the gruelling tests of Badlands gravel race in Spain to the slopes of the Ngorongoro crater in Tanzania. Riding the route in one go was the only way that made sense.
“That’s a thing for me, because I always set my bar really high,” says the rugged 37-year-old, with a knowing smile. “I love to do ultra races to discover myself and go beyond my boundaries. No one had done the route as fast as possible, and it was mainly families on touring bikes. The people I met in the community, they were like ‘oh my god, you’re doing it in one, that’s amazing!’
“I wanted to motivate other people to go and discover the country that way. Anyone can beat my time, because I’m not the fastest, and so it’s a good challenge for other people,” he says.
But fast-forward some hours, and Viciana’s priorities had changed. As he rode out of Seoul's bowl-shaped basin in the early May heat, the noise and smog of the megacity tracked by the Hangnag bike path as it flies through the capital’s core had dissipated into the endless vista for which the ‘Land of Embroidered Mountains and Rivers’ ( 금수강산 ) is renowned. Mountains cover almost 70 per cent of South Korea, accounting for dramatic views from bike causeways which skirt around cliffs at the water's edge. Old rail bridges, watergates, and river islands filled with migrating birds spill into the Saejae section of the bikepath, which takes riders over the ancient Ihwa Mountain Pass in the middle of the country to flat rice paddies and fields of yuchae ( 유채 ), or canola flowers, on the other side.
So a Strava KOM could probably wait for now. And if taking in the scenery had supplanted a need to complete the route as fast as possible, riding at night in the dark no longer made any sense. “The first part of getting out of Seoul was special,” says Viciana, speaking slowly as if to savour the memory. “You get through the small tunnels, and then it’s really special to get out of the city. You had these yellow flowers all the time. It was amazing to be in such a crowded city with a really busy atmosphere, and then to follow the river for an hour, where you have mountains, you have nature, and just a really cool place to take time to think.
“People said that I wouldn’t be able to cycle overnight because of snakes! But that was the funny part, because it was more the fact that I was missing the beauty, and the fact I wasn’t enjoying the view.” So came the decision to stop near Daegu, sleep for a couple of hours, and continue at sunrise.
A bike, a red postbox, a vending machine, and a tall, semi-exhausted European man: throughout the ride, each panoramic view is connected by this absurd collection of elements. But this, Beckett-esque scene is a common sight for those traversing the cycling network in South Korea. For the humble price of $3.36, riders can purchase a passport to be stamped in red phone booths along the 12 long-distance bicycle routes.
In a sport where trackable statistics edge into obsession, this analogue recording of progress seems an invention that is both brilliantly ingenious and heart-warmingly wholesome. Each page is dedicated to a map of a different route, coded by colour, as Viciana explains: “Depending on the route, you get a stamp, and then if you complete all the routes you get a proper medal – it’s really cool.”
Brought up in Málaga, Viciana moved to London before settling in the Netherlands, his hybrid aura of classic Continental ciclismo and gnarled gravelist grit marking a rider well-versed in Europe’s various cycling spheres. Nonetheless, such a simple idea as a bicycle passport astounds him: “If you think about it, it’s like, why don’t we do something similar in Western culture to promote the cycling that we do? It’s a really nice incentive for people to explore and go with friends.
“Next to the booth there is always a convenience store and a toilet, which is free. And the sushi rice triangles, onigiri, I loved them! That was the main thing I ate, because they were cheap, and a lot of ice cream, a lot of cakes,” he says.
South Korea’s dedicated cycling infrastructure is vast, with over 1000 miles of paved, often traffic-free routes. However, its offerings of convenience and comfort perhaps come at the price of predictability – the nemesis of a truly intrepid adventure. “It was maybe a little bit too flat for what I enjoy”, Viciana admits.
But for those looking to experience the varied texture of the nation's landscape and culture, the saddle is a great place to start. Leaving Daegu, the nation’s fourth largest city with a population of over 2.3 million, he looked back over the sprawling metropolis. The needlelike Woobang tower protruded from clusters of skyscrapers, set against the orange haze of the morning sky as it met the hills in the distance. The further Viciana rode, the more he became conscious of South Korea’s multiplicity.
“The moment of going through Daegu bridge on the water was surreal. You’re riding next to the river, but it feels like you’re on the river. And then on the other side are the lights of the big city,” he recalls.
The Cross Country Route taken by Viciana is a vessel through which to experience the porous boundary between South Korea’s ancient heritage and hyper-modernity: Confucian academies and hanok villages rooted in thousands of years of tradition lie in fascinating proximity to high-tech megacities that drive the global circulation of Korean pop culture, known as the Hallyu or ‘Korean Wave’ – from K-pop brands to fashion and beauty trends – while bearing traces of an unsettled military past. Since the Korean War, tensions continue to simmer between North and South Korea, divided by one of the world’s most heavily militarised borders which runs across the peninsula.
“Late in the ride, I think there must’ve been some practice from the military, with fighter planes doing an exercise. I was wearing headphones, but I could hear this loud noise, and then suddenly I saw them passing really fast next to me.”
Rivers gradually turned to suburbia as Viciana neared his final destination. But of all the mixed emotions that accompany the end of an ultraride, muttering curses at a 25 per cent incline was not how he had imagined this finale. Almost 40 hours after setting off from Incheon, he’d reached the vibrant coastal city of Busan, but an error on the route he had downloaded left him at the mercy of double-digit gradients surrounding the city centre. An apt punishment for earlier complaints of the route being too flat…
But when the climbs petered out and he could finally press ‘end ride’ at 592.99km under the neon signs of Busan’s Seo district, his frustrations turned to the same realisation which had driven him to take a break halfway through his journey. This was not a ride to simply be logged and forgotten. It wasn’t designed for the purpose of max speeds, nor was it made to be followed via GPS. Instead, it was mapped by the lines and stamps of the cream pages in a pocket-sized leather-bound booklet. In other words, to ride it fully and completely, you had to commit to the immersive experience: “If you follow the colours and have a bit of knowledge about the names, then you can follow it properly,” says the Spaniard.
For a man who makes a living by rendering life, in still, through the lens of a camera, the balancing act of recording the flow and character of a nation by shutter speed, versus living it through experience, was difficult: “It was more complicated than normal. It was tricky to ride and take photos at the same time. It was also complex because my storytelling is to capture moments without people noticing, but a lot of the people would act in front of the camera. They didn’t like casual photos.”
A picture says a thousand words, but in this case, to tell the whole story was impossible. The people and places behind his emotional attachment to South Korea, forged during his honeymoon and rekindled in the saddle, could only be fully represented through real-life encounters, like flying through an ancient wooden bridge on a bicycle, or sitting on the floor with strangers to eat together – jeong.
Viciana describes this connection: “It’s a really special place. If you go back somewhere, you always feel more attached,” he says. “The people just want to ride bikes. They don’t care about who you are, if you are wearing a brand or whatever. They just care about the joy of being together and sharing the moment and some things together. If you go, you will find how friendly and inclusive people are.”
All this would come to him as he experienced another feeling that no picture could replicate: the satisfaction after riding the hypotenuse of an entire country of a bowl of noodles, and a cold beer.
