HEY JEJU: STAMPS FROM SOUTH KOREA
WRITTEN BY: IMOGEN SMITH

Jeju, Korea, and Nick the photographer and I are doing it tough.

Not that riding in Korea isn’t an endless joy. There are 1,745 kilometres of wide, fast, dedicated bike paths in Korea, plus countless old, minor roads to cycle on. In fact, we suspect Korea could be the world’s most underrated cycling destination: you can literally cycle anywhere safely and quickly, enjoy a really unique culture by bike, then eat incredible food to top it off, day after day after day.

Like many things in Korea, cycle touring has been gamified in a whacky but effective way. You can get a special cycling passport from a tourism centre for a few bucks, then stop at bizarre red phone boxes every 20 kilometres or so. Inside the phone boxes, as you make your way around each of the 12 major routes, you find the stamps to mark your miniature passport maps. When you complete a route, you earn a big shiny sticker, or if you do a whole lot of riding and get a whole lot of stamps, you get a medal. Following the passport routes, you can commute into the heart of Seoul, ride a closed road over a mountain pass, or bikepack 633 kilometres from the capital to Busan using Korea’s longest bike path. You can ride up the east coast to the Demilitarized Zone or you can pedal around a tiny little island in the Korea Strait where every Korean likes to holiday: Jeju.

Koreans head to Jeju, off the south-west coast of the mainland, to swap their gruelling work culture and busy cities for raw seafood feasts and selfies at the beach. Honeymooners in matching outfits sashay through hotel receptions and large groups of Korean Boomers dominate the coffee machines at breakfast buffets. With a rugged coastline, laid-back vibe and loads of local culture and food to explore, it’s a fascinating location for curious Westerners to go bike touring as well. And for us passport-holders, that means doing the ‘Jeju Fantasy Bike Trail’, a 240-kilometre route around the island’s coastal circumference.

IMOGEN WEARS THE ALL DAY JERSEY IN PINE AND THE ALL DAY BIB IN AUBERGINE AND THE ALL DAY QUILTED GILET IN PINE. SHOP THE LOOK.

But things haven’t been straightforward.

First there’s the issue of our guide. We wouldn’t normally ride with a guide, but this is a media gig, and he’s got the job of minding us. After just one day together, riding a mountain pass on the mainland, it seems he’s had enough. When we arrive on Jeju, he takes us through narrow, twisty streets and in a back-alley bike shop filled with cigarette smoke and spare parts for 26” wheels and trades his touring bike for a monstrous, chipped e-bike (maximum speed: 35km/h). Nick and I laugh it off. On our gravel bikes, anything flat isn’t going to be an issue, and we’re riding the coast road around the edge of a tiny island!

Our trip around Jeju is divided up into three days with about 80 kilometres of riding. Not a huge amount, but enough that we can get a feel for the place and take plenty of photos for the magazine article I’m writing. Things start well. The wind is at our backs and we manage to keep up with our guide on his e-bike for all but the steepest cliff-edge pinch climbs. Soon, however, we work our way around the western edge of the island, and things take a turn.

Jeju, you see, is famous for its wind, and the guy is merciless, jamming his bike in turbo and riding 100 metres in front so we never quite get a draft, but we’re also never far enough away to stop burying ourselves trying. It also turns out that our guide has a thing about red lights. We’re unsure whether he’s been this way all his life, or whether it’s a result of the flogging we gave him up the Saejae pass the other day, but he seems to be in a desperate hurry to get away from us. To go where is alarmingly unclear—he’s our guide, after all.

We get our revenge, in a way. Number one on our list of things that we absolutely must do is get a cover shot for the magazine that sent us here. That means we have to stop. A lot.

We battle the wind under bleak, grey skies around the southern edge of the island, shouting over the roar. We fight our way west to east against relentless walls of air, taking in Jeju’s mandarin farms, Jeju’s pony-shaped lighthouses, Jeju’s stone walls and Jeju’s volcanic mountains. We pedal over black, smooth bitumen right on the very coast, where waves spray us with seafoam and dolphins play in iron-grey seas. But still no cover shot.

We come screaming to a halt whenever the sun peeks out, looking for shots without electricity lines, car traffic, or bollards. We get shouted at for taking our bikes into walkers-only paths and stop on the side of highways to shoot next to tiny cabbage fields. We photograph a derelict camping ground and take photos of squid trawlers and other Korean life furniture while our guide stares us down or smokes cigarettes. The only places he does take us for photos (the new cruise ship terminal and the botanic gardens—no bikes allowed), we show no interest, and probably hurt his feelings.

Eventually, after thousands of frames, we’ve got something good enough for a magazine cover. By the third day and the final 80 kilometres, the weather is worse, raining and five degrees, and our guide puts his bike in the van and follows us by road. We’ve rounded the eastern edge of the island and started heading back towards the north where we started, so without the e-bike punishing us, and with the wind at our backs again, the wild, bleak, and cold just make it feel like an adventure. We stop for noodles and hot chocolate at a convenience store and eventually take a maze of old city roads to the highest point of Jeju City where we began. We collect a silver sticker for our passports, a change of clothes, and a hot shower before flying back to the mainland, where, on a sunny Sunday morning in Seoul, we watch bunches of well-dressed Korean roadies fly past on endless, smooth bike paths, the best in the world.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT IMOGEN WORE ON THE TRIP? CHECK OUT THE GEAR REVIEW HERE.