Drove with the bikes to Hualien (me and one other forumosan, our wives and one kid each). Here’s the car, bike and child in Taroko Gorge, on the way. Bought hte rack for this ride; wanted a fork mount one but they’re very hard to find in Taiwan, but this worked fine.
We started riding at 7 am. The wives and kids then got up and went to the amusement park in Hualien (Ocean Park). They met us at the hotel in Hchipen.
Lots of beautiful coastline along the way
Our lunch stop (brought all our food)
Rice fields and mist-shrouded hills
More coastline
The destination/reward
It was great fun and I’m eager to get back out there again.
Nice pics. Did you ride through the tunnels (the ones about 20km out of Hualien) or try the old road that runs alongside - was wondering if that was still rideable or not. You had good weather too, not hot at all.
Thanks. We did ride through the tunnels. We rode quickly through them to get out ASAP, but they weren’t so bad, perhaps because we rode on a Monday so traffic was extremely light. I wasn’t bothered by fumes in the tunnels and didn’t have or feel a need for a headlight (they were fairly well lit inside; brighter than my regular 5:30 am rides). I don’t know if one can bypass the tunnels, but it didn’t matter to me. Maybe on a Saturday it might be an issue.
Yea, the weather was fine. Mostly cloudy and overcast, except for some clearing here and there, but the temp was perfect (started in short sleeve jersey and a very light windbreaker; shed the windbreaker after a while) and the most precip we encountered was some light mist at one point, but no real rain.
You can get coaches thru them on weekends, but no, they’re not that bad to ride through. The old road is a fair bit up and down, so as you were on a big day, made sense to skip it. Might be a nice alternative for a shorter ride.
There’s a small hill climb event coming up in May, an ascent of the 21 from Shui-li uptowards Yu Shan (this is the climb that feiren posted abt earlier). http://www.tpe-bike.org.tw/20090517/index_eng.html
Here’s the route profile. I like the vertical step at 41km.
Anyone else doing this ride? They’ve only gone and brought the start time fwd by 2 hours, from 7:15 to 5:15 :loco:. Because the weather higher up can be “very changeable”. Can’t argue with that, but it’s not like something that’s just happened. The organisers knew that months ago.
So how the hey do you get ready for a monster long climb starting at dawn, without getting up at 3.30? .
just did this ride on sunday - Shuili to Tatajia. I was thinking about 100-200 riders, that was very naive, they had an entry of 5,000. Pre-dawn Shuili, 04.30, was a wondrous sight - like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn. The town was dark and quiet, but from hotel holes all over town poured hundreds of cyclists, rolling silently up to form en masse at the local guo xiao.
The route was a rolling 1st 40km, then a steep climb for the rest, and was really well run. True to their word, the organisers managed to keep most traffic off the road going up, leaving us loads of room. Lots of fancy high-end road bikes with skinny tires, couple of recumbents, several fold-ups, and a selection of battered mountain bikes whose owners just kept on hammering away at the flat pedals.
Only saw 2 crashes, 1 rider did a weird fall across the road into the face of a slow-moving blue truck (not blue truck fault ) and then higher up I saw a guy cradling a broken collar-bone.
Once at the top, the turnaround and descent was fast and furious. Don’t know why so many people just wanted to load their bikes into vehicles and drive down. Earning the right to break your neck on the descent is half the fun, no?
You mean get the truck UP? Understand. On my way down as I was swooping past those still struggling on the climb, I came round a hairpin and there was one dude who was now passing all the rest, he was holding a rope with one hand and taking a long tow from a mate on a scooter :bravo:.
Dangerous? Not all. Except when I was riding onehanded round steep curving turns with a dropoff to the ocean, because I was holding my video camera in the other hand. Other than that no problem at all. Except that I did suffer from a sore butt by the end of the ride. But traffic definitely was not a problem. Of course, we did the ride on a Monday, which is probably better than a weekend, but I call BS (or one bad experience).
Were those who warned you Taiwanese? I rode with a fellow forumosan and his Taiwanese wife said beforehand that she spoke with a few of her friends who are cyclists and they said it’s impossible to ride Hualien to Taidong in one day. We easily did it in a day, sitting in our Chiphen hotel sipping beers by 4 pm. We also encountered a couple of Taiwanese cyclists near Hualien who had ridden up from Kaohsiung and strangely enough they told us the same thing: “one day!!! wow, no way!”
So, take it with a grain of salt. It’s a fantastic ride. No problem at all. It would be dangerous and unpleasant to ride from Yilan to Hualien, but south of that it’s smooth sailing. Go for it. Good luck. Keep us posted.
The #11 is a lovely coastal road, not at all dangerous. Though would recommend you doing at least some of the #193 instead of the #9 in the Huadong valley - it’s a lovely country ride, whereas the 9# can be busy and is not that exciting. It runs parallel to the 9# from around Yuli up to Hualien. Well worth the few extra kms.
[quote=“astroboy”]I would like to ride Hualian to Taidong. #9 one way and #11 the way back.
A couple of friends warned me that the East Coast Road #11 is actually very dangerous. Crazy drivers and fast drivers who might take you out.
But no one here has really talked about this being a dangerous route.
For those who have ridden Hualian to Taidong…
Question: Is it dangerous or not?
Sincerely Astroboy[/quote]
Highway 11 from Hualien to Taidong is not dangerous. Even on a weekend, the tarffic’s not bad and there are nice wide shoulders for cyclists most of the way.
I think your friends are confused and are warning you about the coastal highway between Yilan and Hualien. That section is dangerous.
hill climb event coming up in May, an ascent of the 21 from Shui-li uptowards Yu Shan (this is the climb that feiren posted abt earlier).
) and then higher up I saw a guy cradling a broken collar-bone.