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.

13:07 | Permalänk | Comments (0)

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.

14:39 | Permalänk | Comments (1)