The Great Ride of China is the story of Buck Perley and Amy Mathieson's 21,000-mile, record-breaking trip around one of the world's oldest and most diverse countries. What started out as an idea for a month long road trip, became a journey that took the couple from the grass plains of Inner Mongolia to the deserts of Xinjiang and up to the Rooftop of the World in the Himalayas.

As the story follows Buck and Amy, two foreigners fluent in Mandarin, through all 33 provinces of Mainland China, the reader will have an opportunity to not just learn about the challenges they encountered along the road, but also about a country in transition. Experiences that include 20-mile traffic jams in the center of coal country, visits to cities whose histories span millennia, and a chat with a resident of a cave dwelling equipped with satellite TV offer a unique view into a country that today is often heard of but rarely understood.