Zhitan-Xintan Rd

We got on the bicycles to go down to the 9B which splits off the old Yilan Road toward Wulai yesterday, but not with the intention to go to Wulai. Instead of going through the city, we went along the Xindian River for the first time. Halfway you have to cross a tributary, but the bridge inside the river park is not yet finished, so we had to follow the tributary toward Muzha for a bit. At the second bridge we crossed the tributary and took a right turn back toward the Xindian River and the Xiulang Bridge (秀朗大橋). There is a side walk that begins at the foot of the bridge on the opposite side, with the oncoming traffic coming off the bridge. Get on that sidewalk and onto the bridge to reach the ramp that brings you back into the river park. We didn’t know the side walk was there, so looking for a way to get back into the river park, we crossed the bridge over to Zhonghe and then back again to get into the park.

They are building a bridge across the tributary so it will not be necessary to leave the river park at all. It was almost finished yesterday, and someone told me that will be opened before the end of this month.

Once on the Wulai Road, we were looking for Yongxing Road (直潭路) to bring us down to Zhitan and then onto Pingguang Road (平廣路) because Vincent had told me it’s a beautiful area with climbs up to about 400-500 meters on lush green roads with an almost total absense of traffic. Yongxing Rd is at the beginning of the Wulai Rd, just after the first descent through a couple of bends. It’s a small asphalt road that goes off the main road. We followed that road for a few kilometers until we connected with a road coming from the lovely little residential area on the river. Take a right and go straight through the community and then take a left, with the river on your right and a wall on your left. Cross the bridge at the end of the road and then take a left to get on the Xintan Rd (新潭路). A bit down that road, just after it starts going into the mountains, there’s supposedly a split that brings you back toward the river and onto Pingguang Rd. The road is clearly visible on Google maps, and I’ve marked it on the map below, but we managed to miss it. We went on for a couple of kilometers until we realized that we’d missed it and decided to turn back to Taipei.

Missing the road was no big deal, because the weather was beautiful with sunny, blue skies and 25 degrees C, and we were going along a river in a cool breeze and not a car in sight. You can’t ask for much else.

On the way back, something weird happened. We’d stopped because I wanted to take a pic of Diane biking down the road, so I parked my bike in the shade somewhere and chose the camera angle. After about five minutes, and all of a sudden, the tube on the back wheel exploded with a loud bang. Weird. The bike was just standing there, in the shade, and all of a sudden the tube exploded.

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