How was your ride today?

Recreation Cycling
421

Best as in…scenic? Not a lot of people? Easy?

I personally don’t like the Roahe to Tamsui route because after the Beitou area, the path narrows and if it’s later in the day, you tend to get a bit paranoid of wether people will stay riding (or walking) in a straight line.

Personally, I like the route from Raohe Night Market → SheZhi peninsula (the duck head) https://goo.gl/maps/JPRvDzaCrXM2 → double back and cross SheZhi bridge (https://goo.gl/maps/YnEevhL3WG12) → head back southeast towards Grand Hotel → XiZhi where the bike path ends (https://goo.gl/maps/kET5Z7b2aNJ2) → Rao He

I haven’t done the math for the above route, but it should be enough.

You can give these roads a try (ranked top to bottom, easy to difficult).

Jian Nan Rd - JianNan heading north | Strava Ride Segment in 中山區, 台北市, Taiwan - this climb will be over before you know it. We normally use it to skip going through the tunnel during busy hours.

Zhong She/Shooter’s Hill - 中社路 full climb | Strava Ride Segment in 士林區, 台北市, Taiwan - one of the most ridden roads in Taipei, it’s a great beginner road since there’s only one section where the gradient kicks up to to a higher gradient, but only lasts 50m or so.

Feng Gui Zui (FGZ) - TAS: WanLi Bridge-FongGueiZuei (5.4k) | Strava Ride Segment in Shilin District, Taipei, TW - FGZ is actually one of the most famous climbs in all of Taiwan. People have come all the way up from Tainan just to ride FGZ. Why though? My bet is FGZ has every type of climb all thrown into one 6km segment. If you’re looking for something a bit longer/difficult than Jian Nan and Zhong She, FGZ is your best bet.

Wu Zhi Shan - WZS:大湖街上五指山(拉瓦那咖啡) | Strava Ride Segment in 內湖區, 台北市, Taiwan - The start of this climb is the closest to Rao He, but you will have to ride through Neihu to get to the base. It’s longer than the FGZ segment, but personally, I don’t think it’s as difficult as FGZ. You’ll start the climb with a few kickers, but it’ll flatten out halfway and you’ll be riding through lots of hair pins. This climb is one of my favorites because there’s a sweet view at the top with a few coffee shops to choose from.

Any time after 10-1030AM is a good time to descend from the above climbs. You may bump into one or two cars going down, but most of the cars will be going up. We normally descend from FGZ and/or Wu Zhi Shan around that time and it’s a 50/50 chance we descend behind cars. However, for these routes, I wouldn’t be too concerned about actual traffic.

Good luck, have fun, stay safe! Feel free to ask more questions if you have any!

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422

Today during my ride I was attacked by 3 black drongos, and one of them even hit my head. Usually they just hover above be, but that one was after my scalp. Feelsbadman.

423

I heard they are attracted to shiny objects :smiley:

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424

Feelsboldman.

I somehow object to that theory, though, because if that was the case then they should attack people on motorbikes as well.

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425

Birds now they better respect motorcycles and their riders!

426

Rode out to Fulong with Ride Leader @ranlee yesterday to take advantage of the holiday. This time we started at the quite reasonable hour of 7:30, so I was able to “sleep in” until 5:45. I left the house at 7:00, heat and AQI were both not great, but tolerable.

We grouped up at the Shiding 7/11 and set off toward Fulong. It was a group of 10 or 15 riders with all fitness levels present but skewed pretty hard toward fast. There was a little competitive posturing along the 106 as we made our way toward the first meetup spot, Pingxi 7/11. On the road’s first climb, our best climber tooted his hilarious handlebar-mounted blue whale squeaky toy, and off he went. A few of us tried to chase, and failed to varying degrees. But as always happens with climbers, 3 or 4 of us caught him on the following descent.

We hammered toward Pingxi and I pulled in a minute or two behind the uncatchable Dave.

After Pingxi we had a small climb up to the tunnel, and then a long descent and lots of flats with no stops until Fulong. On the descent, a few of us crazies bombed all the way to bottom and then linked up in a 3 man paceline. We traded short pulls for the next 20 or 30km until Fulong. Moving fast and working together, we were pretty sure everyone was far behind us. Then, on the last small rise before the meetup spot in Fulong, 6 riders came sprinting up the hill beating all 3 of us in the last 100m. This was tragically disappointing.

As it turns out, Dave simply pulled them all the way to Fulong. So Dave working alone, beat 3 fairly strong riders working together. Amazing.

After a break in Fulong to re-gather the troops, we coasted down the road to a climb up to a hilltop monastery. This was the most painful, obnoxious, pointless road I’ve ever ridden. Preposterous 30% grade stretches followed by sketchy cobblestone concrete downhills and cha-bu-duo switchbacks that looked handcrafted out of the hillside by some careless toddler. After a few wrong turns we finally got to the top. I walked my bike twice.

It did end up being worth it because dressed inappropriately in tights as we were, we got to put on linen smocks and stumble around the monastery in cycling shoes. Weird. They do have a water machine up there.

Then we descended down to Fulong for the famous lunch boxes, and Dave pulled us all home. Of course.

Overall a great ride and great day. Bit hot, but good fun and nice to ride some flats for once.

2 Likes
427

That was a fun read :slight_smile:

428

You put shame to my write ups man and I thought pictures would get people more interested.

Nonetheless, here’s some pics that I took and borrowed some from friends who were on the ride

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Sorry, but not sorry for the awesome Photoshopping skills. Strava “fixed” my elevation, but then made it twice as much as it should’ve been.

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This was one of few disgusting and forever lasting stingers that we went up. The hair pin on the top right did NOT flatten out after you turned the corner.

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So… @okonomiyaki and I took a wrong turn and ended up with this view. Which we inevitably realized was way better than the view we got going in the right directin.

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This is the monastary we ended up at after the killer steep climb. We were all wearing lycra and not appropriate to enter…so the guard gave us robes to put on. Probably a once in a lifetime experience. There’s more pics, but I don’t want to embarrass anyone.

2 Likes
429

I know the temple and climb. IIRC the road is (or was) a bit fucked up, apart from steep.

430

Huh - I didn’t realize temples in Taiwan ever care about attire. I certainly haven’t seen it very often.

431

There’s two temples on that road. One in which was a nice view overlooking Fulong and the one we ended up at.

Yes…there’s a section after the fork leading to the monastery that sucked. None of us had been up it and Google street view didn’t do a good job depicting the bad conditions. Luckily, the high gradient sections were all well paved.

I’m actually a bit curious as to what the difference between the place we went to and the usual temples we go to are. Other people that were visiting did NOT have to put on those robes since they were in regular street clothes though.

When I asked a teammate, he just said we were not dressed appropriately and then pointed to his crotch.

432

IIRC the first temple is almost at the beginning of the climb, but TBH I’m not sure as last time I went there was at least more than a year ago. The one on the top is a propper monastery with people living and studying there (were they buddhist?), and I find understandable that they don’t want people hanging around there wearing that “sexy”.

433

Ok, so monastery is a place where monks (or what have you) live and learn? Whereas a temple could be a standalone building or building in a monastery, but the monks don’t live there? Maybe there is no difference, but this one is a little more strict on dress code?

434

You can get to a church which is a place where people just go for praying or attending holy mess and still get stopped at the door if you wear in a no appropriate (for the cult or priest or whatever) way.

But if you go to a monastery, where monks and nuns live and study their stuff, you are entering a slightly different place. That’s not a place for “normal” people, but for people who commit their lives to a very special life style. They have to focus on less mundane things like contemplation, meditation, study, praying… whatever they do. Visitors who look too festive or erotic or whatever are kinda disrupting the way things are for the monastery residents.

In plain words, it is “worse” or more “disruptive” to go to a place like a monastery wearing beach clothes than to do the same in the average temple where most of the people are already outsiders.

435

Not my ride, but today there must have been maybe 500 to a thousand riders on highway 11c near shoufeng/jian. Pretty cool to see.

The best part was the chaos moment of the trailing tail end of the pack and a matsu-blue truck procession converging, complete with fireworks.

436

There was an event going on in Hualien this past weekend. Forgot the name, but I think it was a long distance one. Maybe Hualien → Taidong → Hualien all in one go.

437

I’ll follow suit in posting a ride that wasn’t mine.

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A few guys on the team decided to attempt what seemed like the impossible in 24 hours: Taipei → Yilan → Suao → Hualien → Wuling.

11 went and 9 completed the challenge. From their reports, most members suffered mental fatigue after getting into Taroko Gorge. Once elevation was high enough, there was a mix of fatigue and elevation sickness.

What’s most impressive is the two guys that did not dismount once they entered Dayuling in the last 10-15km. With over 200km under their belt, finishing the final boss with no lives lost is quite the feat.

Kids…don’t try this at home without a support van.

3 Likes
438

100kmph max…

439

No doubt in my mind that’s GPS jumping around while in the gorge.

This guy is fast going down hill, but there’s no section on this ride where you can actually go that fast.

440

Depending on how you take some corners, you can potentially reach that speed on you way into the abyss.

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