How was your ride today?

5 posts were split to a new topic: N+1: Specialized Aethos:

Helen’s by full moon light, up from ShiZhr side has a lovely 5% gradient most of the way, nice and cool around 9 pm to 11 pm. then down past Palace Museum and the roads have mostly quietened down. Just watch for dogs in the shadows…

was a regular ride back in the day. literally, turn off your headlights and let the full moon do its thing.

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Xi Wan Road is pretty amazing , but I haven’t done it at night. It’s now lit to the pagoda after the long bridge, which I think is around halfway. After that it’s not lit until Feng Gui Zui, which is fully lit all the way down to NPM.

I regularly did FGZ at night. I’m hearing due to reduction in traffic it’s got new tarmac. Which can be both good and bad…

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Only 14km/h winds but certain sections the headwinds made me feel like I was going backwards…like I was in the movie Tenet.

Heading east had some monster headwinds/sidewinds…so I’m real lucky I did not wear my skirt tonight and stuck with the bib shorts. One thing I noticed is that there are moments where the punishing wind just disappears maybe due to some trees or a barrier…and there’s a calm: no noise, no wind, no resistance. It’s just a for a second or two, but it’s almost like you’re floating. I guess what I’m trying to say that I now know what it is like to float in space. One more thing off my bucket list.

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Sounds dreamlike, i look forward to enjoying it one day

A post was merged into an existing topic: N+1: Specialized Aethos:

If you didn’t go around the duck head, you could’ve gone to Keelung (just follow Keelung river upstream) and back. Well, maybe not all the way to the harbor, but certainly into Keelung city limit, which you’ll cross inside a bike tunnel. Look for the marker on the floor. Much more interesting than staying in Taipei city.

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Thanks, I need more night routes…weather permitting will give that a try tomorrow night.

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If you want to try a climb in that night route of yours, you can give Jian Nan Rd a try. It’s about 1km up the road from the DaZhi river entrance with minimal traffic. The climb itself is short, has new(er) tarmac and well lit.

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Yahtzee!!! thanks, if not too wet tonight will skip duckhead and go up there to explore.

If you are feeling up to it, there’s an alternate road up to an amazing look out. The road is well paved, but narrow and has no street lights! If your front light is not at least 400 lumines, I would not attempt it at night.

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My front light has a several settings but will have to research how many lumines. :grinning: I might check out the narrow part during daylight if seems like it is too sketchy.

Hmm. Never knew that existed. Funny, I rode around those parts for many years and was always surprised by how many tiny little tracks went every which way and I never found them all. Them and all those 1000s of tiny roads east of Taipei, between Keelung and Ruifang. Great way to explore by getting lost, as long as you still have some elevation left in the legs.

Night time that seems like a good place to find plenty of snakes as well, so factor that into your light choices…

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The second half of that road/look out could be new, but maybe before it was industrial road surface for the back entrance to the military installment on Jian Nan Rd.

I still can’t believe you were hammering those tiny roads on the gearing you had. I have ridden the climb up to this spot by Gong Liao and it was probably the hardest climb I have ever done in Taipei.

God no! I have more than one bike, you know! the SS steel frame Colnago was good for riding Balaka and so on, but the exploring days in the mountains were on a good old TCR with carbon wheels and Record compact 50-34 with a 10-27 cassette, thank you very much. As light as possible, and enough gearing to climb whatever i found.

How many times a week do you guys ride?

Still a pretty godly set up for Taipei mountains. I am crying on 52/36 with 11-30. I see a huge difference when I swap out the crank set for 50/34, but I just haven’t had the time to make the swap ever since level 3.

I try to get on the bike 3x a week. Anymore than that and the SO gets a bit unhappy.

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Before the Level 3 covid restrictions I only rode once a week. But without the ability to play sports after work (and now working from home) I’m riding 3-4 times a week.

It’ll be interesting, how I might divide my time once things start to open up and if I am back in the office until 6pm.

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Try some of the back roads between Mudan and Huotong Cat Village. download a good scale Google map before you go because reception is very bad there in places. there’s also a tenuous connection over to Luodong and/or Fulong. You might want to catch the bus home…