Cycling Yunnan: Erhai Lake and the Dianchi Greenway

I packed my Brompton into its bag, boarded a flight to Kunming, and had no particularly strong expectations about the riding. Yunnan was the destination; cycling was just how I’d get around the edges of things. By the time I folded the bike back up at the end of day four, I’d completely revised my opinion of what cycling in China can be.

Dali and Erhai Lake

The trip started in Dali, and Erhai Lake set an immediate tone. The route around the lake is almost entirely car-free — a wide, well-surfaced path that winds past fishing villages, wetland flats, and stretches of open shoreline where the Cangshan mountain range fills the western horizon with snow-dusted peaks.

January turned out to be a fine time to visit. The air was crisp and clear, the light had that low winter quality that makes everything look a little sharper than it should, and the paths weren’t crowded. A handful of local cyclists were out, a few tourists on hire bikes, but nothing that felt like traffic.

At one point the group stopped at a lakeside cafe with a floor-to-ceiling window looking straight out onto the promenade and the water beyond. It was the kind of unplanned break that ends up being the thing you remember most — sitting at the bar counter with a warm drink, watching other cyclists coast past in the sun while the mountains sat still in the background.

Dali itself is well-worn by tourism, but the lake perimeter feels genuinely local. Roadside signs in Chinese only, cafes and restaurants of every kind lining the water, a red signpost near the southern shore that reads “我在大理很想你” — “I miss you so much in Dali” — which doubles as both a photo spot and an accidental summary of how most people feel when they leave.

Dali has a way of making itself feel like somewhere you already know. By the second morning it had stopped feeling like a place I was visiting.

Kunming and the Dianchi Greenway

Kunming was the bigger surprise. I’d expected a city ride — navigating traffic, making compromises, enjoying it in a low-key way. What I got instead was the Dianchi Greenway Forest, and it stopped me in my tracks.

The greenway runs along the eastern shore of Dianchi Lake and passes through a corridor of mature deciduous trees — metasequoias, planted in long deliberate rows — that in January have turned a deep rust-orange. Riding through them feels like moving inside a painting. The canopy closes overhead, the path narrows, and the noise of the city disappears entirely. It is, without question, the best cycling I did on the whole trip.

The broader Dianchi path is well-maintained and generously wide, and the lake itself is enormous — large enough that the far shore disappears into haze. On a clear day you can see the Xishan mountains to the west. The infrastructure is impressive: the whole route is purpose-built for non-motorised travel, and the surface quality on the Brompton’s small wheels was noticeably smooth throughout.

I’d gone in expecting Dali to be the cycling highlight. Kunming quietly disagreed.

Riding a Brompton in Yunnan

The Brompton handled both lake routes without complaint, and the ability to fold it and take it into a cafe or a restaurant without any conversation was genuinely useful. On the Dianchi Greenway especially, where the path sometimes narrowed and the surface changed, a nimble bike felt right.

The small wheels draw attention in China — several locals stopped to ask about it, and at one rest point the group ended up in a long, sign-language-heavy conversation with a man who was convinced the Brompton must be very expensive (he was not entirely wrong).

Practical notes

• Getting around: Both Dali and Kunming are easy to reach by high-speed rail from major Chinese cities.
• When to go: January was excellent — cool, dry, and uncrowded. Yunnan’s altitude (both cities sit above 1,800m) keeps temperatures moderate even in summer.
• The route: The full Erhai Lake loop is around 120km; most people ride a section rather than the full circuit. The Dianchi Greenway Forest section near the lake’s eastern shore is the one not to miss in Kunming.
• Bike hire: Available at multiple points around both lakes if you’re not bringing your own.

Yunnan had been on the list for a while. It won’t be the last visit.