Zhang celebrates reaching the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic Ocean in South Africa. [Photo/China Daily]

The 37-year-old co-founded Sungy Mobile Ltd with two classmates at Peking University in 2003 and developed it into China's first NASDAQ-listed mobile Internet company in 2013.

However, ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange was not the highlight of his career, the company's president says. It was the 10 years of hard work before that moment.

"I have vanity and enjoy such moments too," Zhang said during a public lecture at Fang Suo Commune in Guangzhou on July 8. "But if glorious moments are all an entrepreneur wants, he or she won't be able to bear the inevitable hardships on the road toward these moments.

"Only when you can enjoy the fun of going up the slope will you truly fall in love with cycling."

In Zhang's small home village in Fengxiang county, Shaanxi province, learning to ride a bicycle was a given for both young children and teenagers. Primary school graduates would mount their fathers' 28-inch bikes and spend the summer vacation before middle school cycling back and forth on the broad road outside the village.

In those days, learning how to ride a bicycle was as significant as getting a driving license today. And what a 28-inch bike meant to Zhang's family in the early 1990s is "much more than what a car means to an American family today", he says.

Riding the bike, Zhang's father shuttled between his factory and home 10 kilometers apart. The worn-out bike was later passed on to Zhang for him to ride to his boarding high school.

Now the cycling enthusiast owns eight valuable bicycles - and has named each one.

"Pegasus" is a product of Italy's Bianchi, the world's oldest bicycle-making company. It was named after the winged horse in Greek mythology, and the bike was Zhang's reliable companion during his cycling tours in South Africa and Australia.