Benefits of cycling involving mountains (random observations)

I’ve never used Strava. I’m afraid that I’ll become part of the Borg if I do…no, I know I’ll have to soon, just to be part of the conversation.

If we are talking about this segment:

https://www.strava.com/segments/638886

I am 692 of 798. I have miraculously only ridden it once! It’s hella scary with those blind corners going up and down so I avoid it as much as I can.

Yeah @urodacus has an horrific story of crashing into a dog on that descent and waking up in hospital several years later…

I love that road. Only ever had three accidents on it. One truck, one BMW SUV, and one dog.

That was my daily ride to work (Academia Sinica).

Best time about 9:20. Before Strava, but after stopwatch was invented. And I think it was when my bike was a single speed, and I was a lot fitter than now.

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A single speed?! I know the grade is gentle but that’s impressive! The danger is the blind corners. That’s why you rely on the mirrors and you ring your bell just when you enter a bend. But still, some scooters really gun it up there, thinking the road is abandoned, and when one is hugging too much into the turn coming up at you as you descend, that’s a disaster waiting to happen.

Mirrors? Bells? What are these abominations you talk of?

207 times…for fatties that’s a nice area to ride.

He must mean the mirrors on the bends of mountain roads. I use them but they’re often dirty and the angle is not always right. I probably rely more on sound than anything. As for bells, I tried that on the riverside paths and found my voice works much better (I typically just say “be careful” and add an “ah” at the end to make it sound nicer but I have yelled when that didn’t work).

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Oh yeah, I forgot about the mirrors.

Those mirrors are good. sometimes moss green and overgrown, but good. they work better at night, if the other person has their lights on.

i don’t recommend to race there at night. that’s “dog sleeping in road in packs” time.

42:17 if i recall correctly.

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Since you’re yelling out loud already, you might as well give some kind of instruction. I usually yell “kao-you-bian” (keep to the right) as I pass them. I’ve found “on your left” to be too hard to understand in Chinese.

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I just let my free hub do the job. Using my voice requires too much extra effort. :smiley:

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Typically, they’re actually already to the right and I just want to give a warning that I’ll be passing soon so don’t do anything stupid. But for the idiots who are all over the place or right in the middle, I’ll definitely ask them to keep to the right.

I once had a friendly competition with this guy on the riverside path. He passed me and then I just kept with him. He was great- letting me know when he was about to slow down a bit, when there was something in the road to watch out for, etc. And the way he handled the other people in the path was with that “xiao shin oh,” and it worked great. So I’ve been doing that ever since. Now this is all on the riverside paths where there’s room to see what’s coming from quite a bit back.