Deus exmachina

Liu Lu participated in a motorcycle endurance match in Inner Mongolia autonomous region’s Baotou city in August. Photo provided to China Daily

Put that car in the garage and jump on the back of a motorcycle. We're going for a ride. Yang Feiyue reports on a new jet set.

Liu Lu is just as at ease two-wheeling it down the highway as she is ambling down the catwalk.

And for her, motorcycling, just like the finest piece of high fashion, is as much about what you see as what you feel.

Liu, a 25-year-old model who lives in Beijing, is part of a growing band that has renounced the locked-in feel of four-wheeled travel in favor of the freedom they feel two wheels give them.

For Liu that freedom includes being able to hot-foot it to work, zigzagging through the infernal traffic jams that Beijing throws up every day, running down the road to do a bit of shopping and - glory of glories - hitting the great, wide open road and sniffing the breeze on epic journeys of 1,000 kilometers or more.

One person who can claim some of the credit for all this is her boyfriend who introduced her to the two-wheeled life.

"He's is in the motorcycle stunts business, and I always think that when he's on a bike he looks really cool," she says.

After learning the basics of riding, and with a highly adventurous streak, it was not long before her itchy feet were begging her to mount her bike and head into the distance. So three years ago she embarked on a 1,500-kilometer trip that took her from Arxan city in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region to Mohe, the country's northernmost county, in Heilongjiang province.