From Incheon to Busan by Bike
We started cycling during COVID for a boring reason: there was no other good option. Travel was basically off the table, and public transport felt like something to avoid. We still wanted to move, to go somewhere, to feel that life was not only apartment and work. So we bought bikes.
At first it was just short rides. Nearby cities, coastal roads, random routes on weekends. Nothing heroic. But that period was hard for me, and those rides quickly became more than a hobby. Work felt like constant pressure. I had personal problems too. Some days I felt like I was just trying not to lose my mind. Cycling gave me air. It gave me a reason to leave the house and keep moving when everything in my head felt stuck.
People now hear "Incheon to Busan" and think we just woke up and did it. Not true. Before that, we rode a lot. In that year alone we did around 1,000 km before the big trip. No special training plan, no coach, no smart system. Just riding again and again until distance stopped feeling impossible.
The Incheon to Busan route was about 660 km and took us around a week. Some people do it faster. That was not the point. We were not trying to prove anything to strangers. We wanted to do one long, real trip together.
I remember the hard parts more than the smooth ones. Near Busan there was a mountain section we could not ride up. We pushed the bikes for a long time, it got dark, the temperature dropped, and then we had to descend in darkness. It was cold and genuinely scary. I still remember that feeling in my hands and legs. It was terrible while it was happening, but it stayed with me for a reason.
There was another day when one of our bikes had mechanical problems outside the city. No taxi around, no hotel nearby, nothing convenient. That was one of those moments where "travel" stops being romantic and becomes plain stress. We got lucky. Good people helped us get to town. Without them, that day would have ended very differently.
Through almost the entire ride I had one thought repeating in my head: I do not want my whole life to be office-work-sleep-repeat. I am not saying work is bad. I care about my job. But I do not want it to become everything I am. Something about that road made the feeling impossible to ignore.
It also changed how my wife and I communicate. When both of you are exhausted, hungry, and still have distance left, you do not have energy for polite performance. You either learn to talk honestly or you make each other miserable. We argued sometimes, of course. But we also got better at finding common language fast, even when we were both at our limit. Hard trips can break people, but they can also make people closer. For us, it did the second.
Breathing became important, especially on climbs. My wife has asthma, so before longer rides we were genuinely worried. But steady pace and controlled breathing helped more than trying to force anything. Not "power through" style, just rhythm. Step by step. That rhythm carried us through sections that looked impossible at first.
One of my favorite memories is not even the big route itself. For a while after that trip, we had a simple ritual: after work we would ride about 10 km along the sea, eat dinner near a lighthouse, and ride back. That was it. Nothing impressive. But during that period I lived for those evenings.
The same pressure came back eventually. Work, obligations, stress, routine. The walls started pressing again. Cycling did not fix everything forever.
But it gave me something else to hold on to. Before that, work took all the space. After that, it did not.
When people ask me about that trip, especially couples thinking about doing something similar, I usually say not to wait for perfect conditions. We did not have perfect gear or perfect fitness. Somewhere on a long road, when there is no good option except to keep moving, something shifts. You stop performing and start solving. That is harder to find on a short comfortable ride.
When I think about Incheon to Busan now, I do not think of sport. I think of survival. I think of one difficult period where those rides kept me functional. I think of sharing both the fear and the joy with my wife. I think of dark descents, cold hands, random kindness from strangers, and finally rolling into the city knowing we had actually done it.
That trip was never about medals or stats.
It was about remembering that life could still be larger than stress.