[File photo]

Zhang Xiangdong doesn't categorize his new book Brief Flight as a travelogue, but a collection of reflections on the first 36 years of his life, of which entrepreneurship and cycling have played important roles.

"People will feel as if they have had a long talk with me after reading the book," Zhang says.

"I spoke to myself on my long journeys when I was riding a bike alone. I wrote down these conversations in my book. It reveals my mind."

Many people may romanticize a cycling tour as a series of pleasant encounters, such as coming across a rainbow over a mountain, or meeting the French couple who sheltered the exhausted and starving Zhang when he showed up at their house at 2 am.

However, the journey is actually "boring" most of the time. Imagine you are the only cyclist, pedaling at a monotonous pace down an endless road. The sounds of your breath, the rotating chain and the tires against the ground are all that you can hear.

But in Zhang's opinion, the monotony is the most fascinating part of a cycling journey.

Leaving his regular work and life thousands of kilometers away, Zhang can drop all his identities, including that of a company's president, from his shoulders when he is cycling.

"You are nothing but a cyclist," he writes in his book. "You finally become yourself, completely."