
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 10, 1990                   TAG: 9005100071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BEIJING                                LENGTH: Short

U.S. BICYCLIST READIES GREAT WALL CHALLENGE

Foreigners have ridden horses and danced classical ballet atop China's Great Wall, but on Wednesday a California man set out to become the first person to bicycle from one end to the other, some 3,700 miles.

"Like Mao said, you're not a man until you've reached the top of the Great Wall," Kevin Foster said.

Maybe if the late revolutionary leader Mao Tse-tung were still around, Foster, a 30-year-old part-time actor from Ojai, Calif., might have gotten atop the wall sooner. He spent years trying to persuade Chinese authorities to approve his plan, and several more trying to find financial sponsors in the United States.

The last hitches were smoothed out late last year, and Foster boarded a train Wednesday for the western mountain pass where the wall starts at Jiayuguan, 945 miles from Beijing. He will begin his trek later this week.

From there, the fragmented remains of the more than 2,000-year-old wall snake through desert and mountains before reaching the sea at Shanhaiguan, east of Beijing. Altogether, it covers some 3,700 miles.

Over the years, the wall has attracted foreigners with strange ideas. They have ridden horseback, danced ballet, performed concerts and held cocktail parties on the wall, originally a symbol of China's desire to keep out the world and now simply a symbol of China.

by CNB