A California man in the final stretch of his bid to bicycle the length of the Great Wall says he's having "the best time I ever had."
Kevin Foster, 30, has been the first person to bicycle any substantial distance on top of the wall, which China's emperors originally built more than 2,000 years ago to keep out foreigners.On Sunday, Foster did wheelies on the ancient wall outside Beijing.
"Pretty risky," exclaimed a middle-aged Chinese man as he watched Foster whiz along.
So far, Foster, a part-time actor from Ojai, Calif., has bicycled 1,065 miles on or alongside the wall on a custom-built mountain bike. He was setting out Monday on the last 190-mile stretch to the coast.
It took Foster years of effort to win Chinese government approval for his trip, which began May 11 at the wall's westernmost pass, Jiayuguan, about 950 miles from Beijing as the crow flies.
The project bogged down for more than a week when the jeep that was to accompany him failed to show up, and he was forced to fly back to the capital.
He restarted May 28 and cycled until June 8, when he had to travel by jeep and train to Beijing to avoid passing through a closed military area.
Foster said he's bicycled 1,065 miles in 19 days, three-fourths of that on top of the wall. In some places the wall disintegrated into rubble or disappeared altogether, and he bicycled in its traces.
He has been accompanied by a driver and jeep carrying supplies and two young Chinese staffers from his host organization, the Institute of Geography, who have taken turns cycling with him.
The group spent some nights in small towns that hundreds of years ago housed soldiers guarding the frontier. Other nights they slept on the wall.
"There are actually people who live on the wall and around the wall," he said.