By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Chen Zhe pedaled into Pemberville Tuesday evening with chunks of ice matted in his facial hair. Despite riding 62 miles from Vermilion in frigid temperatures and icy road conditions, Zhe insisted he did not need time to thaw out.
This was nothing new for Zhe, who days before cycled through New York in temperatures dipping to zero.
“I don’t worry about the weather,” Zhe said, as he warmed up in the kitchen of Tom Oberhouse and Laura Landry-Meyer, who are part of the Warm Showers network that links up long-distance bicyclists with people willing to house them for a night.
Zhe, 29, began his bicycle journeys in 2015, when he traveled throughout China from his hometown of Xi’an. He had no long-term goals other than riding and learning.
“I started this trip when I was 23,” he said. “I wanted to open my mind.”
Along the way through his homeland, Zhe became friends with two cyclists who urged him to expand his horizons.
“They told me about Europe. I wanted to try to do that,” Zhe said.
Expanding his journeys beyond China requires him to get visas for every nation he pedals through. His first leg outside his homeland went west through Kazakhstan, then through Russia to Estonia and Latvia, Poland, Germany and then France, where his travels came to an abrupt halt.
In a town about 100 miles from Paris, Zhe crashed his bike, tumbling over the handlebars, falling about 10 feet off a bridge, and breaking both wrists. He returned to his parents’ home in western China to recover.
The next year, Zhe was back on the road, this time riding from Kenya to South Africa. From there he flew to Chile and started his trek through South America, hitting Argentina, Brazil and Peru. Again, his journey was interrupted – this time by the COVID pandemic.
Zhe said he was stuck in Peru for nearly a year and half due to a COVID lockdown, before he was allowed to enter the U.S. In October of 2020, he flew to Miami, where he began his route northward up the East Coast to Boston.
His stop in Pemberville came as Zhe heads west to Chicago. Originally, he had hoped to go north into Canada, but COVID has stalled those plans. So from Chicago, Zhe said he may head south to Mexico.
Though Zhe doesn’t mind cycling through snow, the cold weather does present challenges – like the time his dinner plans were dashed when his eggs were frozen solid.
During warmer weather, Zhe does not rely as much on the Warm Showers locations. He often camps in secluded areas, cooking his meals outdoors from scratch, including hand-rolling Chinese noodles from raw flour, eggs, salt and water.
Daylight hours are spent pedaling – anywhere from 50 to 100 miles a day.
Zhe insists his goal isn’t to circle the globe – just to continue opening his mind on the open road.
More on Warm Showers
The non-profit hospitality service of Warm Showers is made up of a community of touring cyclists and those who support them. The platform provides the technology for reciprocal hospitality for cyclists and hosts.
It started more than 10 years ago as a spreadsheet of names, and now includes more than 166,000 members, and 111,000 hosts in 161 countries.
Oberhouse and Landry-Meyer are accustomed to having long-distance cyclists stop by for dinner, showers, a chance to do laundry, and a place to pitch a tent – or in colder weather, a warm bed inside.
Zhe’s visit was unexpected, since few cyclists attempt long journeys in January. But Landry-Meyer was ready with a big pot of chicken soup and biscuits.
Landry-Meyer said she inherited her role with Warm Showers when she married Oberhouse in 2011. Many of the visits by cyclists have been memorable, she said.
Like the time Oberhouse met up with Angus and Hamish from England, while riding bike near Napoleon. Oberhouse gave his wife a heads up from the road.
“I invited these guys for dinner tonight – they seem really nice,” Landry-Meyer said, recalling the phone message.
So she stopped by the former Kaiser’s farm market in Pemberville to pick up fresh vegetables for dinner. There, she happened upon a cyclist, who she believed must have been Angus or Hamish. Instead, he was Bill from Brooklyn. So she invited him to dinner as well.
After dinner and beers, the Brooklyn bicyclist offered a friendly word of caution.
“You can’t just be pulling people off the street” and inviting them into their home, he said.
So Oberhouse and Landry-Meyer joined Warm Showers.
Since then, the couple have shared meals and their home with cyclists from around the world. There was Optimistic Chris from Wisconsin, and Joe from Los Angeles, who owned a vegan food truck.
“He went out to the garden and picked stuff, and made the most divine meal,” Landry-Meyer said.
They occasionally get postcards from Geordie from the United Kingdom, and from a father and son from Minnesota.
Sometimes Oberhouse – an avid cyclist himself – will ride out to greet those passing through Pemberville. On one occasion, he rode to Grand Rapids to locate one cyclist, and ended up finding another family of four headed through the area.
“We have a lot of food – just knock on the door,” Oberhouse told the family.
