To show how serious the problem of climate ( 气候) change is and encourage bike use, the couple Daniel Rayneau-Kirkhope and Arianna Casiraghi did something amazing. They drew a large GPS bicycle across Europe by cycling. And they did this with their pet dog.

Rayneau-Kirkhope built the bikes for the journey himself. One of them had a cargo section (货物区) at the front, in which their dog could sit and travel with them. The couple gave up their jobs as physics researchers and began their journey in the summer of 2019. They cycled through seven countries — a 4,500-mile trip, and created the largest GPS drawing ever made.

While the actual cycling took about four months, the trip itself was a much longer journey. Beginning in the summer of 2019, they had to stop later because Casiraghi hurt her knee on the way. A return to the route (路线) that November had to be stopped again because it was too cold to camp. A plan to finish it in March 2020 then became impossible because of COVID-19.“We faced so many difficulties,” said Casiraghi.

The journey has won them three world records: the largest GPS drawing ever made, the biggest such image (图像) drawn only by cycling, and — perhaps unsurprisingly — the biggest bicycle ever drawn.

“Through the image, we want to tell people: please remember that you probably have a bicycle somewhere, and it would be nice if you could use it a little more often,” said Casiraghi. “Cycling is not only better for the planet, but also cheaper and healthier for those riding.”

China’s unbelievable high-speed rail network

At the beginning of the 21st century China had no high-speed railways. Slow, crowded and often uncomfortable trains ran across this vast country, with low average speeds making journeys such as Shanghai-Beijing a test of travel.

Today, it’s a completely different picture. With 37,900 kilometers of lines, linking all of its major big cities. China has the world’s largest work of high-speed railways. Half of that total has been completed in the last five years alone, with a further 3,700 kilometers due to open in the coming months of 2021. The network is expected to double in length again, to 70,000 kilometers, by 2035.