The Pinglin loop with a twist
Still chasing our 2,000km for the year, we did another ride to Pinglin, yesterday, this time together with Ho Yi, Xiao Yi, Peggy and her bf. We met at Muzha Zoo as always and made it past Huafan Uni and down to Pinglin in one piece, despite the good weather. Good weather brings out the big motorbikes, and going down the narrow and winding road from the top of 106 down to Pinglin, there is a constant stream of 1000cc-plus motorbikes coming up from Pinglin as they seem to really enjoy this road. The problem is that many try to straighten the line by cutting through the curves. At one particularly sharp bend yesterday, a motorbike came through far in to my side of the road because he was cutting inside one of the other bikers in his gang and thus had to do a pretty sharp break when he saw me coming. Luckily, the bend was so sharp that we were almost at a standstill going through it anyway. Had it been a straighter curve, that could have been ugly. Motorbikes are definitely worse than cars when you're on a bicycle.
On the way down, Peggy had a flat because the back tire on her bike was so worn that it ripped a hole of 2cm or so. That tire should have been changed months ago. They managed to fix it somehow, but sitting at Vanilla Sky, it died again. In the end, they started talking to a guy from Taipei who had a big van and he offered to drive the two of them back in to Taipei, bikes and all, so it all worked out in the end.
The weather was good all morning, and we were a bit late and lazy, so I decided not to go into the paper and instead spend the rest of the day slowly moseying our way back into Taipei. A call or two later and that was all taken care of. So, about 1.5km after Vanilla Sky toward Taipei on the 9, there is something called the Jingualiao Fish and Bikeway or something strange like that. Take it. It follows the Jingualiao River about 3km along the stream straight into the green hills and tea growing district of Pinglin. When you reach the end, you can either go back the way you came or take a left for the 6km long Riverside ride which brings you back onto the 9 a couple of kilometers ahead of Pinglin. I recommend continuing along the riverside road. This is a beautiful loop through Pinglin tea country and green hill sides. The second part is somewhat hilly, but the inclines aren't too bad.
After reaching Xiaogetou, we took a second food and coffee break because it is very difficult to resist the tea oil fried rice with crushed tea leaves from the restaurant next to Helen's Coffee. In the end, we had clocked up 91km, so all that is needed now is another 21km to break through 2000km. No problem.
Technorati tags: Taiwan, Taipei, biking in Taipei, biking, biking tours, cycling
