Biking in Taiwan

Six days from Taroko Gorge to the Hengchun Peninsula

2010-03-04T04:07:56Z

During the long Lunar New Year's holiday, we joined up with Tim and six of his friends for a long ride from Taroko Gorge and down along the East Rift Valley and the east coast of the Hengchun Peninsula to Kending and then up along the west coast to Checheng.

Taroko Gorge

I'll do a more detailed write up with a Google map of the route when I get time between translation projects, but as an overall outline, we spent the first night in Tianxiang in Taroko Gorge, the second night in Ruisui at the northern end of the East Rift Valley, and then Taidong, Dongyuan and finally Kending.

Rice paddies along the 9 outside Yuli

We took the morning train from Taipei down to Xincheng, the stop closest to Taroko Gorge where we spent the first night. I just realized that since this a short and leisurely ride, it would be possible to do Taroko Gorge as a day trip from Taipei. Take the 7.30 train, arrive in Xincheng at around 10, spend, say, three hours to go up Taroko, and then roll back down again to catch an evening train back to Taipei.

D changes shoes after a wet and rainy morning on the bike

While the weather was better than in Taipei, that didn't mean that it didn't rain, it just rained a bit less than in Taipei. We had rain three days out of six, but every place we stayed had washing machines, so if you give your shoes a good spin in the centrifuge, they'll be dry again in the morning.

The east coast somewhere along the 26

It was great to finally get to test the bikes on a real ride, but because we were gone for a week, we had a rack and panniers which changed the balance of the bike and gave it a fairly high center of gravity. Apart from making the climbs more tiring, the strong sidewinds along the east coast made it quite a wobbly ride. Still, the bikes felt great.

Closer toward Eluanbi at the southern tip of Taiwan

Tride along the 26 down the east coast of the Hengchun Peninsula was beautiful. The rain and the strong winds almost made me nostalgic for the autumn storms along the coast in my hometown in Sweden. Lots and lots of driftwood on the shore, but I think it might be illegal to actually collect it. On the bridges across the rivers coming down from the mountains in Taimali and other places, you could see all the silt and debris that washed down from the mountains during the Morakot disaster in August last year.

Wanlitong

So, that was the short version of the ride. I'll do a better write up as soon as I can with more details and a Google map, but here's a map at bikemap.net. For some reason it doubles the accumulated descent. For more pictures, click the top pic in the left column.

First ride

2010-01-28T05:07:30Z

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.

New bikes

2010-01-16T06:39:45Z

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.

My bike

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.

D's bike

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.

"Car Free, Very 'Jin'"

2009-09-18T12:48:55Z

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 uses of GPS

2009-09-07T04:44:56Z

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.

Kerb your enthusiasm

2009-08-24T03:13:17Z

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.

A bus stop. The bicycle lane runs along the side of the road on the green concrete pavement inside the black and yellow curb (which at random sections separates the bicycle lane from the car lanes) that ends just ahead of the two taxi cabs. Then the bicycle lane turns red and runs between the bus stop and the bus lane, with the text "Pedestrians first." After the bus stop, it turns green again and becomes a bicycle lane where bicycles are supposed to have the right of way. All text and lines are concrete so the ride is all but smooth, and it feels more like riding on cobble stones.

Rain

2009-08-09T05:12:42Z

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.

Typhoon Morakot

2009-08-06T06:47:53Z

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.

Fengguizui revisited - again

2009-08-03T08:41:34Z

D crosses the Fengling Bridge at the foot of Five Finger Mountain

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.

Taipei from a distance

D works her way up a hill on the mountain

The view makes it all worth it. We always end up spending an hour here, sipping our coffee, taking in the view, drinking the very generous servings of fruit juice and talking to the boss

Facts I have covered this route in several earlier posts. Here's a map of how to get there from the Keelung River Park, here's a road description, and here's a description of how to bypass the Ziqiang tunnel and ride over the first mountain instead of through it.

Bike route 266775 - powered by Bikemap

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Bike paths revisited

2009-08-02T07:57:07Z

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.

Small Xindian loop

2009-08-02T06:24:55Z

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.

Xindian sits in the middle of the lush green hills surrounding Taipei as we return to the city from Wulai

Facts: An earlier post can be found here, and another one here

Bike route 265307 - powered by Bikemap

The bicycle: a near perfect machine

2009-08-01T03:35:08Z

Perfection

"They are near-perfect working machines ... They are silent and durable. Tires apart, a well-maintained bicycle will last indefinitely. It is not quite something for nothing since neither nature nor commerce allows such a transaction, but it is pretty damn close ... here is a rare example of a concept so nearly perfect that radical change will never occur.

There's been a lot of links to bicycle-related articles over the past few days, but I just had to share this one in case there really is someone out there who doesn't read the Taipei Times (or the Guardian, where this syndicated article originated).

This article reminds me about the book Around the World on a Bicycle by Thomas Stevens who cycled around the world in 1887 (!), the first person to do so. Links to downloading it from the Gutenberg project can be found in this old post.

Bikes and love hotels

2009-07-31T05:14:53Z

I ran into a story this morning about a guy bringing his expensive bike to a love hotel in Tianmu for a fling, the Feeling Hotel no less, not far from where we used to lived ten years ago. Read it.

Bicycle paths in Taiwan

2009-07-30T11:53:42Z

Day Yeong-tyi, director of the Sustainable Built Environment Research Center at Chung Yuan Christian University had an interesting article about Taiwan's current bicycle craze and the construction of bicycle paths in China Times on Tuesday. The headline translates into something like "Make bicycles a part of daily life and local communities" (讓自行車回歸生活回到社區) and it can be found here.

Day pinpoints several problems and says the main construction concern seems to be the total length of bike paths, how they should be connected to each other, and how conflicts with other types of vehicles should be resolved and so on, while overlooking ecological, local and even cultural problems, as in the case of the Aboriginal Saowac community on the Dahan River which was demolished some time back.

For example, bike paths paved with concrete sever the connection between coastal and riverside ecological systems and inland ecological systems by cutting off the paths for animals living within both types of systems. He also says many alien plants are introdcued for landscaping purposes.

His suggestion is that in addition to looking at the total length of bike paths for commuting to work or school, local governments should look at boroughs, villages and communities as parts of one living space that can be traversed by bicycle, integrating all bicycle paths into one complete system that makes it possible to safely reach all services by bicycle. He ends by saying that it's not a good idea to only build riverside bike paths that radiate from cities into the surrounding countryside.

Historic bike ride

2009-07-29T06:48:18Z

A group of students from National Taiwan Normal University have done a 20-day bicylce tour taking them from Jinmen to Penghu and then via Luermen up to Danshui. What's special about the ride is that they were following the travel journal written by a Qing dynasty official who did the trip in 1697 to map Taiwan's sulphur mines, one of the oldest journals about traveling in Taiwan. Here's the article in the Taipei Times, Bikers follow 1697 travel diary to explore Taiwan, here's a Chinese map of the trip the Qing official did, and here's an article about an English translation of the book, also in the Taipei Times, once again proving that it's the best English language daily in Taiwan. I have both the Chinese book and the translation but haven't managed to read either.