An old Chinese proverb holds that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step, but Canadian adventurer Ryan Pyle and his younger brother Colin began planning their 18,000-kilometer, 65-day journey across China over a foot-long sandwich in New York's Central Park.

Stuck in a boring yet well-paid office job as a currency trader in Toronto, Colin mulled the lack of excitement in their lives before coming up with the idea of riding across China on motorbikes.

Their Guinness World Record-setting China trip in 2010 inspired a documentary and publication of their book The Middle Kingdom Ride: Two Brothers, Two Motorcycles, One Epic Journey Around China earlier this year. In 2012, they returned to the motorcycle saddle to ride across India in an adventure on a similar scale.

Colin has since relocated to London although Ryan still has the "traveling bug," and is jet setting around the world to inspire more restless travelers to pursue their dream journeys.

"The [China] trip is still fresh in me," Ryan, 34, told Metropolitan on the eve of his talk at The Bookworm in Sanlitun recently.

Journey to the East

Ryan, a decade-long Shanghai resident, rode with his brother on the wild side of China, encountering extreme weather including blizzards, hailstorms and torrential downpours. To ensure the journey finished as scheduled, the duo rode for more than 10 hours daily and encountered life-threatening moments on isolated highways.

"When you are traveling in a car, you might be using only 2 percent of your brain. When you're on a bike, you're in your environment and your concentration is 100 percent. Every one of your senses is alert," Ryan explains in the book he co-authored with Colin.

After graduating with a degree in international politics from the University of Toronto in 2001, Ryan traveled solo around China for three months before settling down in Shanghai.

A self-taught photographer, his freelancing career soon took off and his clients included prominent news outlets including Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

With little experience of long-distance riding, the brothers set off from Shanghai on a pair of BMW F800GS motorbikes in August after five months' preparation with their friend Chad Ingraham, who followed and filmed their adventures in an SUV.

With their spirit of adventure still high, the first day dealt a disheartening setback. Besides being snarled in a three-hour traffic jam shortly after riding out of Shanghai, Colin suffered from severe heatstroke and both he and Ryan were stricken by dehydration.

"China has the most dangerous roads in the world. Infrastructure is not yet ready for motorbikes, and there are no toll tickets for motorbikes on highway," said Ryan, whose spoken Chinese allowed him to get on the good side of toll collectors and highway patrol officers from time to time.

Kicks on route G219

Even though the riders braced themselves to handle any mechanical disaster, nothing could prepare them for the wrath of Mother Nature. "She slapped us like children," joked Ryan, a clean-shaven reincarnation of his former disheveled self.

When they weren't sweltering through vicious heat waves, the brothers froze in sub-zero temperatures in damp, icicle-laden clothes.

The most challenging part of the adventure was riding on the G219 National Highway, a 2,000-kilometer expressway with an average altitude of nearly 5,000 meters above sea level. Linking the Tibet and Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous regions, the highway's breathtaking scenic views pose a risky distraction to motorcyclists negotiating steep and narrow mountain climbs. 

To minimize the risk of serious injury, the brothers stopped regularly to stretch and adjust to the inhospitable altitude. Spending 10 hours a day hunched over their handlebars with every muscle aching, the prospect of doing it all again the next day was often discouraging.

"Never in my life had I experienced such isolation and remoteness. Never had I had to tackle such challenging road conditions in such extreme weather conditions at such a high altitude," writes Ryan. "It was the challenge of a lifetime. The headaches from the altitude were sharp."

On multiple occasions the brothers were stopped at checkpoints and ordered to get off National Highway S303 in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Ryan usually appeased young soldiers by following their orders, although Colin was at times in awe at the lack of freedom for those riding the open road in China.

"I've lived my whole life obeying laws and being afraid of the consequences if I didn't, and here I am in an intensely communist country, blatantly disobeying military orders," writes Colin in the book.

Full-throttle fame

Following the success of the China trip, Ryan proposed the similar circumnavigation of India. Fortunately, publicity of their China ride ensured sponsors for the trip.

There were many differences, though, with the brothers finding roads in India in worse condition and crowded with far more motorists - and cows - than remote China.

After back-to-back adventures conquering the world's two most populous countries, Colin has settled down in London with his wife. For his part, Ryan has changed career paths and pursued filmmaking and writing.

While his fame in China might not yet rival compatriot Mark Rowswell, a household name better known as Dashan, Ryan has been well-received at Chinese universities where he delivers motivational talks and helps bridge cultural divides.

"Financial matters always come up first. They (students) want to know if we have made a living out of the trips," he said.

When Ryan reveals to students that his well-off brother sold his house and car to fund their China odyssey, he never fails to get puzzled looks.

"Material things such as a house and car are still what most young people are after. It shows the differences in values," he said.