Nanjing might be one of the best cycling cities in the world for people who are not particularly serious cyclists. You do not need expensive gear, a carefully planned route or thighs carved out of marble by years of competitive suffering. You just need a phone with Alipay, a vague sense of direction and a willingness to wander a little bit farther than originally intended.
One of the great joys of living in China as a foreign teacher is how easy ordinary adventure becomes. In many countries a casual afternoon ride requires preparation. In Nanjing it begins the moment you walk outside and see a row of blue Hello bikes or green Meituan bikes waiting beside the sidewalk. Scan the code, listen for the click and suddenly the entire city opens up.
My favorite rides usually begin with no destination at all. That is the point. Nanjing rewards curiosity better than almost any city I have lived in. The bike infrastructure is extensive enough that even someone used to American roads quickly starts to relax. Wide separated bike lanes run beside major avenues, smaller neighborhood streets are often calm enough to cruise through comfortably and drivers generally expect bikes to be part of the flow of traffic. The occasional electric scooter flying past carrying a family of three and several bags of groceries keeps things interesting.
The areas around Gulou and Nanjing Normal University are particularly good for aimless exploration. The city has a massive student population and that energy spills out into the streets. Tiny coffee shops hide beside noodle restaurants, bookstores occupy the second floors of aging buildings and convenience stores become unofficial social hubs late at night. A ride that begins as a quick coffee run somehow turns into three hours of wandering through alleys full of old plane trees and faded apartment blocks draped with laundry.
Xianlin, where many foreign teachers live and work, offers a different kind of ride. The roads are newer, wider and lined with universities. On evenings when the weather cools down, long streams of students move through the district on shared bikes. It feels less like commuting and more like a city collectively deciding to go outside for a while. Riding there at sunset with music in your headphones and warm air coming off the pavement is one of those simple experiences that quietly becomes part of your routine life in China.
For longer rides, the paths around Purple Mountain are hard to beat. You can spend an entire afternoon climbing gradual hills beneath dense green trees before descending back into the city for dinner. The Qinhuai River area is another excellent place to explore slowly. Small bridges, narrow side streets and pockets of older architecture appear between modern shopping centers and apartment towers. Nanjing constantly shifts between ancient and futuristic, often within the same block.
The best advice I can give is not to overplan. Some of my favorite places in the city were found entirely by accident: a hidden barbecue shop beside a canal, a tiny café full of sleeping cats, a park full of old men practicing calligraphy on the pavement with giant water brushes. Cycling in Nanjing works best when you leave room for those discoveries.
Eventually your phone battery will start dying, your legs will get tired and you will end up eating dumplings somewhere far from where you intended to be. That usually means it was a pretty successful ride.
