I am now posting to this address: www.bikingintaiwan.com. It’ll take some time to get some kind of design up and going, because I have also changed software from MovableType to WordPress, but I’ll get there in the end.
The old blog at bikingintaiwan.theforgetful.com (yes, it’s long. Now you know why I’ve changed) has a lot of links that I haven’t transplanted to this blog yet.
We had planned to ride up Fengguizui, but as we got closer to the mountains we biked into a constant drizzle. The mountains surrounding the Taipei basin were all enveloped in a grey mist, while the basin was bathed in sunshine and blue skies. We decided to go around Taipei instead. Since they closed the flower exhibition, it is once again possible to bike around a large part of Taipei in the river park.
We entered the river park at MacArthur Bridge, and followed the river park along Jilong River all the way up to Shezi Dao and then back along the Danshui River down to Gongguan. The whole ride from door to door was 47km. When you leave the river park at Shezi Dao, you will run into a road block. Go straight through it, and just before you get to the bridge construction site, there will be a set of stairs where you can lead your bike back into the top of the levee. Zoom in on the map linked to below and you’ll see the spot.
This is in fact a great ride. At least in the weeks, there aren’t many people in the park, and the roads are often quite wide and smooth, so it makes for a great exercise round since you can race against the clock without being afraid to run into a lot of people.
Taiwan in Cycles has a great post with pics on a 200km ride in Central Taiwan: 200k of Central Taiwan: Our Best Cycling Routes in a Day. We’ve done parts of this ride, and we really liked it. Should probably try to cover it all some time. Not in one day though.
Wednesday noon, we packed our bikes in our bike bags and took the 1.20 down to Chishang (池上) for a three-day ride up to Hualien and on to Taroko Gorge together with a few friends who had started their ride in Kaohsiung on the weekend. It was pouring down in Taipei and the CWB forecast rain along the east coast, so we even headed out to Costco to buy some cheap lightweight rain gear we saw when we last went shopping.
It rained around Yuli (玉里) and Fuli (富里) on the train ride down, and our friends were hit just as they rode into Chishang, but that was it. Wonderful weather, 28-30 degrees, blue skies and a fresh breeze. The clouds hung over the mountains, though. The Chishang b&b we found on the internet was also a nice surprise. They picked us up at the train station, and the rooms were nice. They also had a restaurant for breakfast and dinner. If we’re stopping in Chishang again, we know where to stay.
The first day was a short ride, just below 60km, up to Ruisui for a dip in the hot springs at the same hotel we’ve stayed several times before. But first we went to the 7-11 to send our bike bags to a 7 in Hualien. Saves a couple of kilos. The first 20 or so kilometers, we planned to follow the 9 until we hit the 193, but in Dongli (東里) we started talking to the local police and he told us that the old rail track from Dongli through Antong (安通) to Yuli had been paved and now worked as a bike path off the 9. We weren’t going as far as Yuli, but we avoided 5km on the 9 between Dongli and Antong.
We arrived in Ruisui before 2pm and spent the afternoon in the hot spring pools before we walked a few kilometers down the road for a nice Hakka meal. When the owner heard we had walked for sooo long, he offered to drive us back for free, and said that if we had called before, he would have picked us up, too. Pretty good service.
The 193 from Ruisui to Hualien was as beautiful as always. In Hualien we stayed at what seemed a fairly new hotel called Beauty Inn (漂亮), and it really was a fairly beauty stay. Nice fresh rooms, clean, good service, although they sent us to a Japanese restaurant that had been closed for a long time when we asked where we could get some Japanese food.
The ride up Taroko never happened: the whole gorge was closed for a marathon race, and in addition, they still had problems with falling rocks after the heavy rains a few weeks back (up to 1.5m in two days in some places), so the marathon runners had to run with helmets because they several people had been hit along some parts of the road.
Ruisui Hotspring
Telephone： 03-8872170, 03-8870824
No.23, Hongye, Wanrong Township, Hualien County 979
We paid NT$1500 for a double here as well. At least one man there speaks English.
Beauty Inn in Hualien.
A bit more expensive. We paid NT$2900 fora discounted double. Fairly large room and spatious restroom with a big shower cabin. A five minute bike ride from the railway station.
Here is the whole ride on my Garmin page.
A friend bought a new bike, so together with Tim at Tima Bikes, who sold him the bike, we took a shorter ride down the Xindian River Park to Bitan (碧潭) and then across the river along Xintan Road (新潭路) halfway down to Wulai (烏來) so he could try out the bike and Tim could help him with any adjustments. None were needed, but he was impressed that Tim would come along.
Great weather, so we decided to ride up to the foot of Shizaitou Shan (獅仔頭山) and then come back down and return to the river park via Xinwu Rd (新烏路). Once home again, we had clocked up almost 70km instead of the expected 45. That extra trip to the foot of the mountain and cruising around town, I guess.
Next week, we’re joining up with our friend and a few others coming from Kending (墾丁) up the east coast. We’re meeting them at Chishang (池上) and then going via Ruisui (瑞穗) and Hualian (花蓮) up Taroko (太魯閣), before rolling down to Xincheng (新城) and taking the train back to Taipei. Three days of fairly leaisurely riding. That’ll be cool, haven’t had a proper holiday in a year and a half.
By the way, it seems rules for bringing bikes on trains have changed again. We checked with two different people at the TRA information desk, just to make sure, and they both said that one can now bring bikes in bags on all trains, not only those with designated bicycle cars.
Getting back on the bike after a couple of months of spinning classes at the gym is making a huge difference. Today, we did Xiao Getou (小格頭) again, taking the longer route, 47-1 at 9km, rather than the 47 at 7km. To my surprise, I made it all the way to the top without once getting off the bike. Those spinning classes were useful.
Once at the top, we found the new coffee shop that we’d been told about, a couple houses down from Helen’s, which is basically open only at the weekends. Nice, spatious, all wooden furniture, and a refill at half price. Cool.
Facts Here is the map on my Garmin page.
Did a short ride with D and Noah yesterday, the Xindian loop. About It’s a favorite shortie, about 40km, alongside the Xindian River most of the way, almost no traffic apart from the section on Xinwu Rd back into Taipei, but that can be avoided if you go back the you came. An average heart rate of 143, with a max at 183, which is more e or less my max heart rate no matter how hard I work out. That’s how bent out of shape I am.
5.45. Woke up to Philip Glass, The Poet Acts, on my trusted old Android as usual. Followed the list: get up, get dressed, make coffee, have breakfast, take dogs for walk. After that my brain about works the way it should again.
When I got out on Dunhua South with the dogs and looked up, I saw a dark wall of clouds in the east out over the Pacific, slowly rotating northward, from as far as I could see north of Songshan Airport to as far south as I could see down along Dunhua, the sky above the clouds gray and cold. Looking to the west, there were clear blue skies, sunshine and not a cloud. Wonderful pre-typhoon (actually tropical storm) weather, but in all my years in Taiwan, I’ve never seen such a clear division between the incoming weather system and the clear blue skies over land. In the end, the system seems to have moved or rotated north or what it is such systems do, because it still hasn’t started raining tonight. Although I hope it will bring lots of rain, since Taiwan’s reservoirs are drying out and it seems we may be moving toward another summer of water rationing.
Anyway, on to biking. We used this lovely day to ride out to Xiao Getou together with Jin Laoshi, the first ride out there in a long time. Before we hit the Renai circle, D had a flat. We fixed that, and after 10 minutes she had a problem changing gears, it wasn’t smooth at all. We fixed that, and then the battery in my heart rate monitor died. Jin Laoshi had a battery, and then we could finally start biking.
The hills in Shiding past Shenkeng were beautiful, with clusters of white Tong blossoms spread out like wads of cotton on the green slopes. Almost no bikers on the road and no cars, except for 18 huge empty green devil machine gravel trucks coming down the hill. They moved in packs, three or four together. There must be some construction going on somewhere. At least we managed to get back down again from the mountain while only two of them evil things had come back up fully loaded, so, in short, it was a wonderful ride on a wonderful day.
Just as we had decided to go to the gym, we realized that it was a great day and that it really should be spent on the bikes instead of in a stuffy gym, so we decided to go out to Danshui for a late lunch/ early dinner at our new Danshui favorite, the Waterfront, on the Danshui water front. The weather was perfect for it, and I even remembered to put on the heart rate monitor so I could see how bent out of shape I was after the ride.
Going out there was a breeze. Actually, it was more than a breeze, but it came in over the tail, so it made for a smooth, fast ride. Great, since there are so few people in the river park on the week days. I was able to just push on at a pace that was pretty good for me at this stage. I noticed that the balls of my feet went numb some times. I’m not sure if that means that I push down on the pedals more than I pull up, but it probably does, because when I think about it and try to even it out so I work with both legs at an even load, or as even as I can get it, that numbness disappears.
It’s also a great feeling to just feel the rubber on the hoods against the skin, and the FSA cork-infused handle bar tape that I use also has a nice texture to it. I just don’t like to wear bike gloves, I love that feeling of the handle bar against my hands, the flat top, the handlebar tape, the hoods, switching gears, all that. The ride back was a different thing. Thirty km against a fairly strong and gusty head wind slows you down and since we tried to push it a bit and get the training we had been aiming for if we had gone to the gym, I thought I worked quite hard, and toward the end, I was pooped. But that’s just as it should be if I’m to get in shape again after over a year without almost any biking and virtually no visits to the gym.
Yesterday, we took advantage of the nice weather to do a shortish morning ride, halfway down to Wulai, 43km from door to door. This loop is in fact great for exercise. After a few kilometers through the city to get down to the river park entry at Gongguan (公館), the whole ride follows the Xindian river, first through the river park for about 10km or so, and then, after crossing the river on the Bitan (碧潭) suspension bridge, it follows the other bank of the river along Xintan Rd (新潭路) down to Pingguang Rd (平廣路). There you take a left and go out to the Xinwu Rd (新烏路) where you take another left to return to Xindian and the river park back into the city.
It is almost flat, with only four small slopes (although one hits a 21% and another a 15% grade) and a max altitude of about 150m. The fact that it is short makes it a great exercise loop since you can do it on a regular basis without having to take too much time out of your week. And since the inclines are short but quite steep, you could use it to improve your climbing skills as well as your stamina. Just go back down that little hill and hit it again (especially that 21% incline).