Insanity.
So they rode the tunnels between Yilan and Hualien?
And I thought top of Wuling was 3700m?
What’s funny is in the elevation profile, the climbs from Xindian to Yilan look like speed bumps. Those who have done the ride know… they are not speed bumps!
They went through the tunnels. Arrived at Suao at around 11PM and got to Xincheng at around 4-5AM. It’s too bad they missed the sunrise, but it’s a tad bit safer at night because there’s no traffic when you go through the one way tunnels.
Not that much safer because there’s downhills and if you go too fast you could go straight over the railing and… gg.
You’re about 575m over 
Happened to a friend of mine back home, he was on the hoods on a descent and hit a dip or hole or something, hand slipped off and he went over the rail. Nearly has his privates de-gloved. I take the lesson as ride in the drops going downhill.
There’s probably very few times where I’m on the hoods while descending. One, at the last 50m of the descent and the first 50m of the descent.
Happened to one of mine too. Despite being a very good descender, he still hit the pavement. He was fine and bike just had some scratches. Didn’t help that his bike was a few months old and also rocking the Dura Ace 9100 group set when it first came out.
Major issue/concern of mine out here. The number of teammates and others I see descending on the hoods scares the crap out of me.
Farewell late starts. Hello 5AM alarms.
This past weekend we saw summer weather and temperatures in May. I thought we had another month before scorching hot weather, but it’s clear Spring was happened for a few days and we immediately jumped to summer.
Saturday, we went up Leng Shui Keng via the satellites and I don’t think I have felt that shitty for a long long time. Not sure if it’s the lack of sleep, heat or poor nutrition, or a combination of all of those, but I haven’t felt great in the saddle for nearly a month.
If it wasn’t for the random guy that was following me for the second half of the route, I’m 100% sure I would’ve finished in 60+ minutes where, normally, when I take it easy, it’s a 53-55 minute effort.
Despite not feeling good from the second I stepped out the door, it was worth getting up and suffering. The weather could not have been more perfect up at 800m with clear blue skies, nearly no pollution and a very nice cool breeze in the air. We had some slower members join the ride, so we sat at the Leng Shui Keng visitor center for 20 minutes or so to bask the glory.
On my way down Zhong Hu I had to stop for this pic:
Unfortunately, Jing Shan side of YMS wasn’t as clear as the LSK side, but still a sight you don’t get to see often.
The next day I met up with a local friend of mine that enjoys exploring new climbs and stopping for a long coffee breaks. Once in awhile, you just need a more relaxed ride where you can chat and explore. Training loses its appeal when it stops being fun and becomes a job.
We made our way over to 北47-1 where we expected a pretty rough 10km long climb, but it really wasn’t as bad as we thought. The only bad part was that the steep sections had the worst road conditions and riding out of the saddle was a bit dangerous as times. There’s a one or two Strava segments for this climb where it’s from the bottom all the way to Helen’s 北47&47-1 / 石碇老街~海倫咖啡 | Strava Ride Segment in New Taipei City, Taiwan and another that ends where the pure climbing ends https://www.strava.com/segments/736456?filter=following
Aside from the lead up via Shenkeng 7-11, the climb is actually very well shaded and good for cycling in the heat of the summer. Highly recommended!
AQI was shite this day, so I didn’t take any pics of nature. Here’s what we had at Helen’s. We followed up by sitting and lounging for 1.5 hours. I like these kinds of rides.
Luckily, the condition that I experienced the day before had settled, but I wasn’t back to 100%. I think it comes down to lack of sleep…which I think I will get plenty of this week. I got an FTP test sometime this week or early next week once I’m fully recovered.
This route we did on Saturday was the outcome of cycling around Taipei for almost 3 years and running out of ideas. I’m ok with sticking to Leng Shui Keng, Feng Gui Zui and Zhong She Rd near NPM on weekdays. Those roads are all well lit and full of cyclists in the evenings, but I really try to stay away from them on the weekends.
The original idea was to ride “The Hand” (Greater Taipei Cycling Routes: A List - #12 by ranlee) , but a few people were concerned about the heat and another had to be home before 2PM. So, we came up with the idea for this route. After a few hours of calculations, it really only cut down 40-50mins of movement time and about 500m of elevation.
I seriously lost sleep the night before because I was so freaked out I would die from heat exhaustion since this route doesn’t get much shade until the final climb back to YMS. Nonetheless, we got extremely lucky. The temps were up, but the sun crept out for a few minutes here and there.
We started out on schedule for the first and second peak, but apparently some of the guys ate something bad at the first rest stop in Jinshan and everyone needed to poop at the second rest stop. Having only one bathroom at the FamilyMart, we got delayed, but I was glad I didn’t need to go.
These are the rides in which I really like going out on because everyone tends to stay together. This is where the banter and gossip levels are at its highest and you could burn more calories laughing than pedaling at some points in the ride.
At one point, we actually had to dismount and carry our bikes across this bridge. It was a good chance to snap some pics since we weren’t riding to too many vantage points along the route.
I never really liked those people that hang stuffed animals on their saddles, but these put another meaning to it.
Left “charm” was previously owned by the right one.
When I arrived at the Er Zi Ping parking lot after my final ascent, my total elevation gain was sitting at around 2850m. I mapped the route for everyone to receive a bit over 3,000m elevation gain and I knew I had a bridge to go over, so I wasn’t concerned I couldn’t hit 3k. A horrible and exhausting descent down Yang De Blvd and a few kms on the riverside and…
Despite how exhausted I was, I wasn’t going to skip out on reaching 3k for elevation gain so I did a bit of extra…going up the ramp of a bridge.
Last Sunday I went up that temple near Fulong and I didn’t remember how steep the road is. It is in better condition than what I remembered, but the steepness is horrible. Kudos to you guys for having climbed it… if you really did it on the bike!
That’s insane. You almost got “the finger.” I personally would like a Spock “live long and prosper” ride. Can’t even imagine 3,000m ascent in one day. That’s Xiding Road almost 8x!
You going to come out and do that if I invite you?
…or one ride up to Wuling from Hualien.
I can only handle one mountain at a time. An LLAP would include at least two! But a ride up a single mountain would be possible definitely if I’m given a little bit of heads-up. Also so that I can invite others. After this weekend (my mom is heading back to the US then).
I don’t recall someone that finished first in their age group have vocabulary such as “I can only handle one mountain at a time”
Ranlee, please keep posting your strava stats. It’s humbling and inspiring. I came home from my 40k ride with next to zero elevation and was very proud of myself. Then I see you did that going uphill, at least.
Who ever wants to post their ride here when @ranlee is putting up BS rides like that? Inspirational and demoralising all at the same time.
Totally different sport and the old man’s age group! I’m really enjoying my slow re-introduction to the mountains, though. My legs are in bad shape.
Keeping true to tour user ID, I see! I’m the same, actually.
I only aim to inspire, not to demoralize.
@Liub you know I ride every weekend and you are capable of doing at least the first peak, but you lazy af and don’t want to relive your glory days in the saddle.
@flatlandr you’re pressed for time and work long hours, you ride what you can!
I swear…after June 24, I’ll be doing quick 1-2 peak rides where everyone can be home before lunch.
My morning glory is of a different nature now 
We did the Rapha Prestige ride a couple weeks back. It was around 165km and 3500m vertical. We (read I) were slow and were out about 11 hours with a couple of long stops for lunch and snacks. I think the ride time was around 9 hours. The only part we really pushed was the return to Chaiyi as it was getting dark.
The ride is intended to be unsupported and you can choose to follow their route (4 checkpoints) or take “short cuts” that usually involved much steeper climbs or missing some of the better sections…choose your poison kind of thing. I think everyone mostly followed Rapha’s route guidance. You also must start and finish as a team of 4 and must have at least one woman rider. There were 40 teams which I think is a record for them and a couple of teams had support cars which seemed against the spirit of the ride, but whatever. Some sections felt quite remote which I really liked. I think there were only a couple teams that didn’t finish for one reason or another, but most made it.
The air was really bad, even in the mountains, so I didn’t feel compelled to take many photos, but here’s a few stolen from others…
The interesting sections of the route were the road (I can’t find a name or route number) around Dadongshan Trail and the 151-1/ 151 circuit over to the Taiping Scenic Area.
my ride today started like this…
https://youtu.be/LrKDmn6-d7Q
…and ended like this.
https://youtu.be/m1BLYh1XjU8
F YA
