Bump! I’m trying to piece together how to do this route counter-clockwise, but using the graveyard climb rather than 109/Nanshen (南深路): I can see how the start of the graveyard climb (which I’ve never done) connects to the riverside, but once I get to the top, then what should I do to continue the circle?
(Keep in mind I know next to nothing of the routes in that corner of town, apart from two times doing the route above, clockwise.)
Thanks!
Turn left at the top of graveyard no 2. Follow the ridge to next intersection and make a right towards Nangang (I think there’s even a sign for Nangang). That puts you on this segment: Yanjiuyuan Climb | Strava Ride Segment in Nangang District, TW
Follow that down to the university and at the end turn right. Just follow that around through the community there and you’ll be spit back out onto 109.
Sorry, the segment I posted is the uphill version but you’ll obviously be going down in the opposite direction.
You should hit an end to the riverside paths right past Muzha MRT station. Hop onto the road and after the second light, you want to take a left onto this segment:
Once you get to three way intersection at the top, turn left. You’ll go through a lot of s turns, up and down section until you get to another intersection here:
Going straight would lead you to Lin Guang MRT/Liu Zhang Li area. Going right will take you down towards Nangang. Turn right!
Follow the road down to the bottom and turn right. Follow that road another 2km or so and you’ll pass Academia Sinica. You should know where you are by then.
Two rules of thumb: Stay on the main road and always pick the uphill option at intersections, even at the top; the way “down” to Academia Sinica is the uphill option, a sharp right turn.
Inspired by a GCN video, I’ve just designed a 100 km route with as much climbing as possible* without going by the same road twice. I wanted Hongshulin station to be the start and finish for convenience. If convenience is something that can applied to a route of 100km and 2900 meters of elevation. The route should be just under 100km, but Komoot insists on doing a weird thing in Tamsui station.
DISCLAIMER: I have not ridden it. I think I have ridden about 80-90% of the roads sometime in the past. It should be fully rideable, but if anyone tries it, let us know.
*There can be harder routes in the area starting from the same point and following the same criteria to design the route, I don’t know. In the km15.4 of this route, you can do a wall is you want. This is the Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/15250698 I don’t know how it is in reality, but by the looks of it in Google Street and the climbing profiles… It looks like MTB gearing territory.
Maybe you’ve found the answer since you asked the question three years ago, but by chance you haven’t, the “double north” refers to Beiheng (the northern cross island highway, which is Rt. 7) and Beiyi (the Taipei-Yilan highway, Rt. 9), not Taipei and New Taipei, as many mistakenly think.
Bump, and a question about route details on this: it looks like there are a few options when descending from the Fengguizui / 風櫃嘴 summit down to Jinshan. Does it particularly matter which roads one takes, or are they all much the same?
Thanks in advance!
As long as you don’t get lost, they’re all nice roads.
I only ever took the main route. I know there are others but they’re only for the adventurous.
I got lost! Well, not exactly lost - that’s difficult these days with a functioning smartphone - but I certainly wound up on a route too adventurous for me.
I’m too used to the mountain roads in Sanzhi / Danshui / Shimen, where any downhill road will basically always get you to the coast road. So I didn’t bother figuring out a route from Fengguizui and just took a few downhill turns. Eventually I realized I was heading in a wrong direction, so I used Google Maps, and that led me into a maze of narrow farming lanes. Those can be fun if I know the area better, but today there were a bunch of steep hills with way too much wet leaf litter (“Um, I think I can safely get down this” - and I did - “but I have no idea how I’d get up it”). And those are the sorts of lanes where I’ve got in trouble with dogs before: never bitten, but realized “Oh, I can’t get past this one. Time to turn around.” Fortunately that didn’t happen today.
Google amused me, telling me it was 30 minutes to Jinshan this way. Sure, if you can ride straight, but it was a friggin’ maze and I was stopping every minute to figure out which route to take at the many oddly angled intersections of indistinguishable near-abandoned lanes. Eventually I was close enough to another main road - the 北28-1, I think? - and that worked out fine.
So, next time, it’ll be the main route. But … what IS the main route?
There’s two main ways (left or right once you hit this bridge: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BFC7Xb2q6bxbPbxF6 ) and lots of options from those two main options.
For the main routes, left takes you up some pretty steep ramps and then a direct descent into Jinshan. Right is relatively flat/downhill thay will take you down to Wanli, which you’ll have to ride another 10km or so to Jinshan.
I went left because the routes looked more fun. Alas (well, not exactly alas, it was sort of entertaining), at some point I turned off whatever route I should have been on, and that got me in mild trouble.
Wouldn’t have really mattered, but I was worried about getting over Yangmingshan and down Balaka before sunset - and I barely made it.
Once you do it a few more times (based on the route) it starts to make sense. Otherwise, can only say the main route is the quicker way we’ve found to get from FGZ down to Jinshan/Wanli 
It’s a great ride either way. I’m waiting on the new Giant e road bike so I can get up those hills again.
Words I’d never thought you’d say. Ebike riders will get the hero they need, but not one they deserve when you make the switch.
If it gets me up FGZ that’s all I care about.
Darn it, I’m sure I’ve asked about this before, but I can’t find where it was discussed.
Anyway, I’m looking for loops out of Bitan, or somewhere nearby (there-and-back-down-again also OK, but loops preferable). There’s the twenty-year-old blog post for the Xindian loop here, and I’m trying to figure out what the route actually is. If someone could point me to the main Strava segments to use, that’d be awesome.
Background: I do plenty of riding out of Danshui up and around the north coast. Occasionally along the riverside to Fengguizui: but pretty much everything I’ve done has been different angles on the Yangmingshan cluster of peaks, or loops of the Taipei basin. I’d like to start exploring the mountains to the south of the city more. The issue however is that it already takes me around two hours to get to Bitan, so for now I figure a ride that goes into those hills for one-two hours is about right. And after that, I can decide if further exploration is worth the approximately four hours of riverside cycling to get there and back.
I suppose recommended routes up and down Maokong would also work - basically, anything that gets me going into the hills, but not too far yet into the hills, on the southern edge of the city.
Thanks!
Further question about Wufenshan and trying to access it from Taipei (I know, completely different direction from what I just asked about): @Incubus, in this post you talked about going there. Just to make sure I’ve got the route you did right: train from Songshan to Ruifang; south on the 106; taking the side road up to Wufenshan Weather Station (Google Maps link); back down to 106; and on west along the 106, through Pingxi and Shenkeng, and then eventually to Taipei Zoo area and home along the cycling paths?
Actually it looks like there are two ways up to Wufenshan. Is a loop for that recommended?
With the Wufenshan side trip, Google’s telling me that’s 94km, elevation gain 1065m, to get home from Ruifang to Danshui. That’s alright - but getting from Danshui to Songshan first pushes it into a long day for me indeed.
Oh right, further technical question: I’ve never taken my bike on the train. I looked at Songshan Station a few weeks ago and at ground level, there’s a stairway with a little ramp for bikes at the side. Is that the best access, or is there somewhere else I should head into the train station?
Here are the Lion’s head segments going clock-wise. You can take the river path to Bintain, cross over to the Xindian side and follow the road to the start of this segment which is the “gradual uphill” the blog author mentions:
This segment is the main climb, from the top just follow it down to the same road back to Bintan:
The climb is no joke, but its one of my favorites as its very isolated. You likely won’t see another cyclist unless on the weekend and even then maybe not. The views aren’t spectacular like some of the north climbs or even Maokong. The down hill on the north side has a couple of very very steep sections, make sure your breaks are good. There can be dogs on this route. Also, there may be flood damage after large rains…you’ll know to turn around if you run into issues on the warm-up part.
Of course you can ride it counter clock-wise but for some reason I never liked that way as much.
Thanks, that seems pretty clear. So for closing the loop, just going down the 北105 / Xintan 新潭 road, right?
The two climbs have KOMs of around 10 minutes and 20 minutes, so doubling that means around one hour for me - plus a descent. Yeah, that looks like a good distance for me to try out of Bitan.