How was your ride today?

In Danshui it’s hazed over a little in the past couple of hours - from stunning to just nice. Still, I’ll take it!

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I took the riverside to get home and noticed some pollution by Zhongshan area. A shame, but the mtns are still clear and spectacular.

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Lovely day. Up Balaka from Danshui, felt exhausted, didn’t want to go up Datunshan, sat and drank a cold Pocari Sweat, thought “What the heck, I’ll try, and if I can’t ride, I’ll walk!”, and went up to Datusnhan as well. No need to walk but I did take a break at the viewpoint halfway. The semi-holiday crowd was good: far more cyclists than I normally see on a weekday, but not much car traffic.

Animal sightings very limited, with just one Formosan magpie. I need to learn how to recognize bird calls - heard a lot, but no idea what they were. And a WTF moment for the guy coming down the Dantunshan road on a YouBike. Getting up that hill on that kind of bike must have been a task!

Odd AQI day. 45 and lovely in Danshui this morning. Jumped to 80 around the same time I left. As I look at the site right now, Yangmingshan, of all places, has the worst AQI in the Taipei area!

My Apple Watch’s challenge for the month of April was to burn 27,000 calories for the month. I am now at 25,236, with six hours and 42 minutes left in the day. I don’t think I’m going to make it. That challenge should have been relatively easy, but pollution / weather / my schedule have limited the number of rides; and the Covid vaccine last week reduced exercise to almost nil for a couple of days.

The picture below is nothing special and serves mainly to contrast with the lovely clear skies @ranlee had earlier in the day.

Screen Shot 2021-04-30 at 5.13.07 PM

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Wut duh fuq, how is AQI 100 at the peak, but 60-80 in the city.

Hax.

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Views from Wufen shan weather station were great - visibility in all directions. Traffic coming out of ShengKeng on the 106 was really heavy, though fortunately everyone seemed to turn off the 106 and head towards Shiding. Lots of cyclists heading towards Pingxi, through again after ShiFen the crowd thinned out cycling up Wufen Shan.

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Wow, it’s the showdown between the navigation station and the weather station! You guys couldn’t have picked a better day, despite the 110 AQI on Yangmingshan. That’s just weird. The navigation station wins in terms of elevation and gradient, but the weather station wins in terms of distance. Maybe the total elevation gain surpasses that of the navigation station. :thinking: The one time I rode up to the weather station I actually took a train to Ruifang and began riding from there. I doubt I could have made the round trip starting from Taipei. Bravo to you both!

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From recent rides to both:
Datun Shan (via LengShui Keng): Distance 80km, Elevation Gain 1450m
Wufen Shan (via Pingxi/ShiFen): Distance 113km, Elevation gain 1447m
Since I usually ride in the 50/60km range ~700m elevation both felt equally tiring - that being said, yesterday returning from Wufen Shan towards the end of the ride crossing from Shenkeng to Nangang (an elevation gain of only 162m) really dragged…

Funnily enough, the beer I had after both rides tasted great and really hit the spot🤔

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That’s probably my least favorite climb in the city. Wide roads, but absolutely no shade. It’s actually very short, but with sunlight and cars/motorcycles wizzing by to, it does feel like the distance is 10k.

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When you go back down Balaka do you take it easy or try go fast?

I will go up Balaka tomorrow morning, hopefully I can get my ass up and out of bed around 5am.

Weather says it’s around 23C from 5am to 8am which will be nice.

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It was the “lesser” of two evils to get back to ZhongShan where I live - either, the bike paths around Jingmei and Gongguan (which are really scary on weekends) or a slog over the hill and (wider) bikepaths back from Nangang. Getting to the South of Taipei from the Northern side is a pain. Open to any suggestions…

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Slow? Maybe? I certainly don’t try to go fast, and I’m a fairly timid rider. No cyclists passed me descending Balaka yesterday, nor did I pass anyone, but someone did shoot by me at a pretty clip going down the 101.

I have found that my descents are faster than they used to be. I’ve grown more used to descending, and less nervous about it, especially when I feel like I know the road - but I’m still not fast. Nor do I have any desire to be.

On the Balaka descent, one car was going too slowly and I was thinking about trying to pass him. Then the car behind me in the developing traffic pushed past me and narrowly avoided me when getting back on the right side of the road. At that point I just stopped at the next wider stretch, enjoyed the view for a few minutes to let the little moving bottleneck get well ahead of me, and eventually carried on. Screw that nonsense.

I guess I’ve got a Danshui advantage (?) there: Datunshan is only a 41km round trip for me, elevation gain 1092m. Hm … I think it’s only six actual turns from my apartment gate to the summit. For the 21km back, I probably only need to pedal for about 500m. Everything else is downhill.

So if I’ve got the right place in Google Maps for the Wufenshan Weather Station, going via the 106, that’s … 76km one way for me (gah, careful posting Google Map links, my first attempt included my own detailed address but I think this one is more anonymized). Ha. Maybe one day I’ll be able to do that. But I certainly couldn’t do it now. I’ve really got to figure out how to access that area. I’ve fallen in love with the roads behind Danshui and in Sanzhi and Shimen, but it’d be nice to explore Wulai, Pingxi, all these other areas … but I’ve already got an hour plus on the riverside paths to even start those routes!

He Ping East Rd. aka the road right under Muzha MRT. Turn right and head up the short hill and down towards Liu Zhang Li. From there I would take He Ping >> Fuxing >> Nanjing down to Zhong Shan area.

Try doing the riverside all the way to Nangang and then switching onto the No.5 to Nuan Nuan and heading through the Ji Ping Tunnel towards Shifen to head up Wu Fen Shan from there.

No need to head all the way down to Shenkeng to ride the 106 over to Shi Fen. Lugging through the city in the morning and after is…no fun.

I would take all roads going down YMS on the weekends at a slow pace unless it’s super early in the morning. I’ve ridden Leng Shui Keng more times than I can count, so I’m pretty familiar with the descent, but still take it easy on weekends as there’s a bunch of blind corners.

Be safe!

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You should consider taking the train to Ruifang. I boarded it at Songshan, and it took only 40 minutes. Coming from Danshui, you should probably board at Wanhua (Taipei Main is off limits for bikes.) Riding from Ruifang means you get to use all your fresh energy for heading up Wufenshan. It also means an easier ride back to Taipei as the 106 is mostly downhill after Pingxi. Any serious cyclist should go up to Wufenshan at least once. It’s like a large scale Datunshan with much more manageable gradients. Sure it’s a longer climb, but you’ll be rewarded with some amazing scenery.

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Great Taipei New Town. Elevation 663 m
Photo of my after cycling lunch.


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華城 aka Great Taipei New Town I hear is a great ride. I went the other way towards Lion’s Head Mtn last weekend, but could see New Town across the way.

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Edited; Great Taipei New Town.:grinning:

I was planning to ride up there once and learned that the security guard didn’t let outsiders enter the grounds. I guess that’s no longer the case.

My Saturday ride was something I had never ridden before, but had always heard that it’s one of the steepest roads in Taipei.

https://www.strava.com/segments/21291549

Compared to other steep sections in Taipei, this one holds the trophy for the longest consecutive steep, but not the steepest. I had heard that originally, the road was industrial road conditions, but this time, it was well paved! We got lucky.

@the_bear is probably familiar with this one and could give his :2cents:

If you’re in the south, this is something worth checking out to test yourself.

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That’s one hard ride. Not only are the steep sections consecutive, but they’re mostly exposed to the blazing sun. (That’s when you start missing shaded Balaka.) I never made it to the top. Turned around at the World War II POW camp. Next time I’m going to ride up from the other side (clockwise). I hear the gradient is a bit gentler.

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I have a vague memory of doing that ride but my Strava has lapsed so not even sure if I’m on it. Nasty dogs on that road too.