Biking in Taiwan

We finally found the time to try out our new bikes yesterday. A short ride up to the Taipei municipal cemetery at Fudekeng and back again, 20km in all, to try out the position on the bike and make any necessary adjustments to saddle position, handle bar position and the angle of the brifters, ie, the distance from the brifters into the handlebar. It was such a comfortable ride to begin with, but now that the adjustments are made, it's as if you could fly. The next step will be to change pedals and start wearing the bike shoes I bought together with the bike, but I want to get used to the bike before I do that. I haven't had drop handle bars on a bike for 25 years, and I don't want to fall because I forget of unclick my feet.

Ultegra shifts gears so smoothly that you hardly feel it, and the wheels, although they are entry level, are so much smoother than what he got with our off-the-shelf OCR and FCR Giant bikes. It feels as if there's no friction at all, so that no energy is lost in the wheels. Of course there is, but compared to what we had before, this is an amazing difference. The bike just keeps on rolling and rolling and rolling... All we need now is a couple of longer rides before New Year's, and then we'll be ready for a fairly leisurely six day-ride from Taroko Gorge down to Kending.

The biking viking 13:07 | Permalink | Comments (0)
General

Now there are no more excuses for not getting on the bike. After five months of no biking, we went and bought new bicycles this week. We almost got new ones in August, but Tim said the 2010 model of the one I was looking at would be sharper still. So we waited. And forgot. Then Tim called a week or so ago, and Monday we went to look at the bikes. We just couldn't resist. We bought one each, then and there.

It's a German brand, Centurion. The frames are made by Merida to Centurion's design, and it comes with the 2010 Ultegra component group and Mavic Aksium wheels, at the cost of NT$46,000 (US$1450) for my bike, the Hyperdrive 4200 and NT$48,000 for D's, the Eve Road 4300. Those are great prices. If you were to buy the Ultegra group and the wheels indivdually, that alone would be well over NT$40,000, at 32,000 for Ultegra and over 10,000 for the wheels.

We just picked them up, and will not have time to try them out properly until next week some time due to a Hong Kong trip. The only biking we've done on them this far is the ride back home from Tim's shop, but that felt good. The wheels are entrance level wheels at Mavic, but they still felt much smoother and with more "roll" in them than what we had on our Giant bikes. And the responsiveness and exactness of the gear shift is so much better.

So, we'll be back on the road next week, hopefully, and then we have at least three, and hopefullt six day-ride lined up for the Lunar New Year. Can't wait.

The biking viking 14:39 | Permalink | Comments (1)
General

To further manifest its committment to green transportation, the Taipei City Department of Transportation is arranging a car free day event for the eighth consecutive year. Somewhat cryptically, the theme for the event is "Car Free, Very 'Jin'", but then we get the explanation: Different words pronounced "Jin" (actually "jing," to be picky) can mean clean, pretty, competition, path, quiet, photogenic, environment and powerful, so "jing" thus represents eight different meanings supporting this international event, with "clean" being the main idea. Always numerologically aware, the department also tells us that the number eight has a special significance since it is the eighth year Taipei City organizes this international event.

The main event will be launched tomorrow, Sep. 19, with a biking event called "Car Free, Show My Pretty & Cool." It will start at the Meiti riverside park (could find no time on the website) and pass along the Dazhi Bridge, Binjiang Street, Minquan West and Dunhua North down to Zhongxiao East, a distance of 12 km. To top it all off, this car free day even sports a car free section of road, namely part of Zhongxiao Sec 4, between Fuxing and Dunhua, or about 500 meters of car free road in all Taipei to celebrate the event. If you want to go to SOGO, you've gotta use your feet. A grand gesture indeed.

Read the whole "English introduct" on the Dep't of Transportation's web site here, or the Chinese intro here.

The biking viking 21:48 | Permalink | Comments (2)
General

We're having a horrible biking year, so I'm reduced to posting other bicycle-related stuff. This is one of the things you can do with a GPS on your bike. I think it's Toronto.

The biking viking 13:44 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Sorry, just had to steal the Taipei Times subhed for the title. The TT today runs a story on yet another Taipei City failure after the ridiculous ongoing story about the Neihu MRT line (two different train systems on one and the same line!): the Dunhua bicycle lane. Read it here. I've been meaning to rant about for the last month or so, but never got around to doing it. For NT$100 million (US$3 million), it is completely useless. For example, It runs on the road between traffic and bus stops, which means that buses constantly stop on it. All the lines are in concrete instead of painted on the road, so it feels like riding on cobble stones. At places it is about 0.5m wide. Drivers stop on it constantly to get out of the car and run some errand. They should have widened the sidewalk and put the bicycle lane on the side walk, off the road, or done nothing at all. A total waste of my tax money.

The biking viking 12:13 | Permalink | Comments (9)
General

Morakot came and went. In the 60 hours between 2009/08/07, 00:00 and 2009/08/09, 12:00, she dropped well over 2 meters of rain in several places in Jiayi, Gaoxiong, and Pingdong counties. Worst off was Weilaoshan (尾寮山) in Sandimen Township (三地門鄉), Pingdong County, with 2495.0 mm. Haven't seen any of the reports on all the landslides and flooding, but at least the area around Taimali on the southeast coast and parts of the southern link were completely flooded, apparently destroying several hundred meters of both highway 9 and the railway. With these huge amounts of rain, there must have been landslides blocking and destroying roads all over the place, so biking in the mountains may be difficult for a while.

The biking viking 14:12 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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No biking this weekend. I had another ride with Noah planned for tomorrow, but that plan went down the drain together with the rain brought by typhoon Morakot. The winds will probably not get here until tomorow, as the typhoon is currently forecast to make landfall at around 2pm tomorrow. It's currently moving toward Yilan County at a speed of 16km/h, making 22 revolutions/hour. Winds are reaching 38m/s at the center, with gusts topping 48m/s. That's pretty strong.

I hope it brings lots and lots and lots of rain. There's been so little rain this year that there is talk of another round of water rationing, and a typhoon could alleviate that situation. It's no fun to be able to get a shower only every second day when the mercury hits 35-36 degrees.

The biking viking 15:47 | Permalink | Comments (3)
General

Another day with great weather, so we decided to go get a cup of coffee and some fresh fruit juice at Fengguizui (風櫃嘴) on top of Five Finger Mountain (五指山). Great views from the coffee table, and you always wonder what the very talkative and happy boss will say this time. In other words, a perfect place to while away an hour or so after having climbed up to 600+ meters.

Technorati tags: Taiwan, Taipei, biking in Taipei, biking, Fengguizui, cycling

Swedish blogs about: Taiwan, Taipei och biking

The biking viking 17:41 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Taipei

In the Taipei Times today, we ran Julian's translation of the article about bicycle paths that I commented on the other day. Read the whole article in English translation here.

The biking viking 16:57 | Permalink | Comments (0)
General

The weather has been wonderful the past few days, and today we finally had time to get out on our bikes, together with Noah. We decided for a leisurely ride down to Xindian and along the Xindian River to Xiaokeng (小坑) I think it is called, a ride we have done several times lately.

The biking viking 15:24 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Taipei