You are welcome 
Today my legs were like made of wood: tired and heavy from the first pedal stroke. Then the wind…
I don’t want to rush it in the way home, but it’s going to be way faster if the wind doesn’t change direction!
You have no idea how often exactly that happens to me…
Strong headwind: Okinawa’s gift to cyclists. A gift that just keeps on giving.
Yes. 200g as a percentage of 74kg. Not a lot. 200g - what’s that? One third of a bottle of water? You can feel that weight difference?
If you can, I’m impressed (and not a little envious), but I think you’re over thinking this. Or rather, perhaps you are telling yourself that it feels different, perhaps to justify the outlay on the wheels. (Pretty sure we all do that to some extent 
) Of course they feel faster, feel heavier, feel stiffer, feel whatever… That’s what the marketing or bike mag’ review told you. Slightly off topic, but just the other day, I was having a chat about test rides and their worth… someone in the cycle trade for donkey’s years explained that:
“There’s also psychology to test rides. If I hand a customer a bike and say…this thing rides like a jackhammer, they’ll come back and say, “oooo…it was bumpity.” If I say this bike rides like greased velvet, guess what they almost always report about the ride? That’s right…”
I’m with the other guy. Just get out and enjoy your bikes/rides.
I can’t agree more. There’s definitely a psychological reasoning behind me actually thinking that the aero wheels were much more drag than the climbing wheels.
I can’t really justify my statement saying, yah, it’s the make of the wheels and weight and it’s also tough for others to say, “No man, there’s no way you can’t feel 200g or the difference between the wheels.” So, in the end, it’s a moot argument.
I’m still going to weigh the wheels though.
Hey, “the other guy” here. I didn’t want to say it before, but yeah, there’s a big psychological factor to this. Firstly, they CAN feel different, but if you have been told that this component/product has this effect, then you can probably “feel” it, depending on the personality.
My personality is more like to feel the contrary to what I was told hahaha
Sorry to ruin the joke, but doesn’t it pause automatically when you’re cycling?
There used to be a way to control this on runs but don’t seem to be able to find where to control this setting anymore. I usually leave my phone at home when I head to the track to do intervals, but I’m wondering if auto-pause is now a default setting on runs as well. Does anybody know?
I revisited the dreaded west entrance to Wuling/He Huan Shan this past Saturday and I’m happy to say, I’m alive. Two years ago I hit a wall in the last 5-7KM before Kunyang and walked for 40 minutes. This year, I’m happy to say that I only had to dismount to refill on water. And here I am pushing hard up the famous Kunyang stinger…
I highly highly suggest you take some time and do this ride. It’s suggested you get up there before noon, since the weather at the peak usually gets unpredictable after 12PM. Feel free to PM me if you need any tips on travel and the route itself.
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Haha yeah there is a setting for that, but a lot of people have it off on raceday.
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It makes them more badass because they care more about results than the physical condition they are in. 
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The swells were pretty high over along the coast yesterday.
So nice when we you climb hard and got to the peak to be greeted by a nice soothing breeze. Better than arriving into an oven. Fall is in full swing!
@okonomiyaki experienced his first two peak ride and also a first time visit to Wanli and Jinshan districts. We stopped in Jinshan for some breakfast and left quickly after. Everyone regretted it because our breakfast had not digested yet and we had a 13km climb ahead of us. I don’t know about the other guys, but I felt pretty disgusting when I arrived at the top of the second climb.
All in all, loving the weather and hoping it stays like this!
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Great first Jinshan Classic with @ranlee. Oddly, felt terrible after the first climb (FGZ), but great after the second (XYK from Jinshan). Chalk it up to the incredible nourishing power of MyWarmDay Bacon McBagels and Pocali Sweato x2.
Been riding less and less recently. Barely hitting my weekly goal of 150km. Nonetheless, I am 50-60km away from matching my total km from 2016. With still 2 months to go in the year, I’m pretty happy about that!
I mentioned a race going from Balian Rd in Xizhi over to Wuzhishan in the other thread…
I am familiar with the second leg of that race, so a few friends got together to try the first leg. It’s not the easiest of routes, but definitely refreshing to try a new route up a familiar peak.
On my way home, I stopped to take a snap at my…secret spot…
To my surprise, I came home to my Strava Rapha Rising challenge badge in the mail. Pretty cool to receive “Royal Mail”
True story. I used to work for the Royal Mail, to fund the final year of my PhD.
Ain’t that special, TBH, although I’ll still get a very small pension from them in a few years, so can’t really knock 'em. 
I used to ride a Pashley bike, so in theory, I could say I was a semi-pro cyclist. Ha! #nolycra
No long weekend would be complete without an epic ride. At least in my mind it wouldn’t.
Friends and I originally were going to head to Yilan, but it turns out weather wasn’t looking too stable, so we decided to head straight south to La La Shan.
It was a rough ride with the mountain road going up AND down the whole way south. We road 50-60KM before even arriving at the bottom of the actual climb that took us from 500m sea level to 1400m.
The views up there were awesome and so was the weather.
This is my computer at the halfway point. The thought of having to ride the same distance back makes you never want to ride a bike ever again.
At the bottom of the final La La Shan climb. It was hurt locker to the left of this.
That ride must be really nice in good weather. I’ve only ever had epic thunderstorms up there the few times i’ve been riding there.
That’s indeed a very nice ride.
Did it several times, mostly going down on the other side, then back to Ylan, from there the train back to TP.
Doable in a day if you leave early, but never made it to Ylan before the dark.
I had a double header this weekend. Gf wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t letting the perfect weather get away from me.
Day 1
Saturday I saw some Forumosan guys head out to Guan Ying Shan and I thought it was about time I revisited the area. I had a lot of time to kill since I had no plans that day.
I completely took my time on the way there and took some roundabout riverside paths and also ended up at a dead end on the riverside. Tbh, no complaints, I’ve been riding the same roads over and over again and it was about time I got lost for a change.
Extra kudos to @Throwaway for ascending GYS not only once, but TWICE on his first time climbing. No one chooses to suffer twice on their first day out. That’s just unheard of.
I ran into a teammate of mine, who happened to ride the same bike as me at the top. It took him a split second to realize it was me. “What are you doing here?” Was his first reaction haha
Ran into this view on the way home…quite eerie when I couldn’t get anything to focus properly, but I think it works.
Day 2
If you guys have been following the cycling events thread, you know that the year end race in Taipei, the Yangjing 3-peaks has once again, seen a route change. New new Yangjing 3-peaks or Yangjing 3 Peaks Ver. 3, call it what you want, but a good response from most people on the route change…until they’ve ridden it.
The first peak definitely got a bit tougher with the change. The roads behind Beitou tend to be very inconsistent when it comes to gradients. One sec you’re going up a stinger and the next you’re on rolling hills.
Been awhile since I’ve done up to 200km for the week, but I’m loving the weather. I can’t complain too much about the stiffness in the legs this morning.
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Nice bike @ranlee. @Throwaway, for some reason many riders nowadays are “spinners”: they pedal faster than what it would be necessary IMO. You man, are the opposite! try to find your sweet spot, I suspect that it’s somewhere between both extremes 
Air these days is shit. One of the reasons for me to ride is to be healthy, but while this might work for my muscles, endurance and perhaps even mind, it has a pernicious effect on my lungs.
At least I don’t smoke after cycling. Well, kinda.
Yeah I’ve been doing some research trying to find what gearing I’d like to try next, still pretty set on 53/39 with 11-28. I’ll probably try the switch towards the end of next month. There’s just something rewarding about mashing big gears rather than spinning at a high rpm. But I really need to work on my endurance.
I just wanted to comment that I didn’t notice what you meant about air pollution until I got home. Felt like I smoked half a pack of cigarettes, my lungs were very uncomfortable and I kept coughing when breathing in deeply. The air quality really isn’t good, might be looking into an apparatus to use next time.
At any rate I’d like to give a shoutout to @ranlee for setting up the line group. Went from thinking I was a pretty fast person to realizing that there are way more faster people out there. And definitely need to head away from the flats more often.