Old report of a bike ride I made in Taiwan long time ago.
That can be seen by the title itself.
Kind of photo intensive so that be too difficult for me to cut and paste into here.
Might amuse you.
Recorded in my Livejournal.
Taiwan Bike ride May 2002 from WulingNongChang/Lishan down to Yilan
Oh for sure it does. One of the best downhills on the island, I think.
Oh for sure it does. One of the best downhills on the island, I think.[/quote]
A very interesting write up. You rarely hear of people taking the car up and ride down instead of the opposite. I got nothing against it! I just feel like I’ve cheated myself in some way by driving up and riding down 
I’ve always wanted to do that climb to Wu Ling Farm, but I do not think I’ve ever thought about descending on it. Definitely on my bucket list now.
I think it’s a lot more common than you realize. You probably just don’t ride with people who do that. For mountain bikers especially, I see them getting a lift up to tops of mountains and then put their bikes together for a ride down.
I’ve still only ridden uphill from Yilan to Lishan, but I’d love to try the downhill trip sometime. It was a nice steady incline going up, so I imagine going down would be awesome.
I think it’s a lot more common than you realize. You probably just don’t ride with people who do that. For mountain bikers especially, I see them getting a lift up to tops of mountains and then put their bikes together for a ride down.
I’ve still only ridden uphill from Yilan to Lishan, but I’d love to try the downhill trip sometime. It was a nice steady incline going up, so I imagine going down would be awesome.[/quote]
Hmmmm, I may have worded my post wrong because I know my mtn bike friends take shuttles from bottom of the mtn to the top. When you are rolling down the mtn trails that take over an hour, the last thing you want to do is ride back up…especially on a full suspension mtn bike.
scomargo, I think it’s time we road together. We both have never done that route going down.
Oh for sure it does. One of the best downhills on the island, I think.[/quote]
A very interesting write up. You rarely hear of people taking the car up and ride down instead of the opposite. I got nothing against it! I just feel like I’ve cheated myself in some way by driving up and riding down
I’ve always wanted to do that climb to Wu Ling Farm, but I do not think I’ve ever thought about descending on it. Definitely on my bucket list now.[/quote]
I thought I had confessed at the very beginning.
Taiwan has very beautiful and very high mountains. I liked riding for the pleasure. Bursting my lungs and driving my legs into cramps by very hard cycling did not enter my mind. I found it a lot easier to ride down mountains than to ride up the mountains.
So I cheated. I would take the bike up the bus going up the mountain, and then ride down. Elevation drop of 2000++ meters and a long long road.
Or I hired a car , drive the car up with the Giant Iguana, ride the bike down escorted by the car.
That being said, I am full of awe and admirations at those who went up especially loaded with side panniers and stuff.
I would be shouting JiahYio JiahYio! to encourage them on doing what I never did or want to do.
(from Tinkerbell Summertime2011 Wuling Nong Chang & leaving Taiwan shanlung.livejournal.com/129541.html )
extract from above
[i]I smiled as we passed the cyclists cycling up and up that mountain road.
We waved and shouted encouragements to them.
[/i]
I smiled more as I recollect the time I cycled on that road. Except I headed the other way, down from top of mountain. I found cycling down is a lot less stressful than cycling up. So in 2003, I drove to Wuling Non Chang with my mountain bike strapped to rack of the car. And I rode the bike down. That same Giant Iguana I fell off from a few weeks ago.
It was a pity I never wrote about my cycling trips when I was in Taiwan. I wrote far far more on my parrot Tinkerbell and our travels there in Taiwan.
I came into this forum kind of accidentally(you see that in Getting into Chinese) , and stumbled onto this section.
But now none of you can hope to challenge me in cycling or even want to think of challenging me in cycling.
I wrote an intro to my current cycling expertise in Nov 2012, and which dragged that riding down WulinNongchang from the mist of distant memories.
That intro in a Singapore Bike forum and why you never will dream of challenging me on 2 wheels (unless I on a motorbike and we all going uphill)
[i]
This was the first MB forum I joined, in about mid Oct this year.
I then joined togoparts where I wrote an intro of myself.
I thought I should do that intro here too. Especially as it was through SMB that I found and bought my replacement Lycra shorts from Owen’s place at Whampoa Drive. Very satisfied with what I bought.
Hi folks,
I like cycling. Being over weight jogging hurt my knees and my body build up heat very fast because I am overweight.
I guess you can classify me as a newbie. Experts learned it all, and I am still learning even as a 60++ Ahpek. Even if I had cycled far and fast before. That was when I was working and living in Taiwan. And I was younger and more crazy then.
I can tell you it was a lot easier to cycle down YangMingShan & Lishan or any high mountains than to cycle up. I normally avoided cycling up mountian by getting a car or bus to take us up 2000++ meters high and then pray like crazy while coming down. The stretch of road can be anything up to 40 km ++ long. And squeezing and squeezing on the brakes. The strange part was that I did not know how fast I was going. I was too busy praying and squeezing on the brakes and dared not take my eyes from the road even for a quick glance on the speedometer.
But I can tell you that was very fast.
I am a self professed wimp, and quite proud of that.
Now in Singapore with no high mountains to ride down from, I managed 25 kph or so on my MTB(only if road slope downwards). Normally I do a lot less. As a retiree, what is the hurry?
I did not have the best of MTB. A good MTB, Giant Iguana, I brought back from Taiwan was stolen this year in Feb when I rode that to Boon Lay MRT. With that bike, a lot of wonderful memories were stolen as well.
An even better MTB was stolen when I left it nicely locked up in Taipei. Cannot remember the make, but that cost me about USD2000 in 2001.
Those curious as to life in Taiwan can read a bit of that in my
Fragments of earlier memories of Taiwan
shanlung.livejournal.com/111670.html
I decided since Singapore did not have the mountains of Taiwan and the crazy trails of Taiwan, and as I am a lot more cowardly now then before, I need not get myself a good MTB.
I bought a cheapo 135 Sing$ MTB Andes Spider (that was the most expensive bike in the shop to replace my Giant Iguana and with hope of finding my Giant back. Needless to say, the feel of a Sin$135 bike was very different from the Giant.
Then a couple of weeks ago, that cheapo Andes Spider got stolen when I was having a swim at Jurong West Swimming pool.
I went to my old bike shop who went upmarket and his most expensive bike was now twice the price at Sin$ 315 , a Raleigh M20.
I liked that so much that I wish that Andes Spider got stolen a lot earlier.
I live now in Jurong West. Retired until some company might want to have me again.
So I cycle largely in the day time, on pavements and PCNs. I happily go at 13-15kph. So those doing 25-30 kph, go find some one else to bully. I promise those doing 10-13 kph will not be bullied by me. I will happily ride even slower for the company.
I do about 40-60 km, about 3 times a week. A few days back, I was thinking of trying to reach Changi. I turned back at Kallang Stadium. I did about 70km on this day.
If I started earlier that morning instead of 1030am, I might have enough time to get to changi and back, or at least reach East Coast Park Hawker center to have my bak kut teh and get back.
So that is the long and the short of me and my cycling.
And maybe if got yuen feng, we might meet over a cup of coffee.[/i]
Since declaring of my retirement back then, I was dragged out of retirement about 3 times before being kicked back into retirement.
The last time was in Aug 2015 when I decided I had better things to do than to keep making money in Riyadh, KSA and with no time to spend that on myself and which will go to my wife boyfriend or toyboys at the end when I finally go.
So I retired myself once more.
You did make that clear, I was just sharing my opinion and in no means meant it’s wrong. No need to be defensive about it. How I see it, going down hill takes much more skill than going up it. So you figured, just skip the easy part and go straight to the hard part. 
I can’t believe your bike(s) have been stolen that many times! That’s really unfortunate. Hope you have better luck in the future.
[quote=“ranlee”][quote=“shanlung”]
I thought I had confessed at the very beginning.
[/quote]
You did make that clear, I was just sharing my opinion and in no means meant it’s wrong. No need to be defensive about it. How I see it, going down hill takes much more skill than going up it. So you figured, just skip the easy part and go straight to the hard part.
I can’t believe your bike(s) have been stolen that many times! That’s really unfortunate. Hope you have better luck in the future.[/quote]
Not at all. I never felt your writing to me was anything I need to feel defensive about.
Guess if you seen enough of me, you will get to know half the time I write tongue in cheek and the other half the time foot in mouth.
I am happy enough to have found this group with folks riding and enjoying Taiwan even if I am no longer in Taiwan. When I started in 1990s, no Internet or even grandfather of Internet around then.
Only lonely me (other than Chinese tutors) with other Taiwanese friends more keen to climb mountains than to ride bikes.
Going downhill not that hard and can be safe if you squeeze and squeeze brakes often enough together with lots of prayers to gods that you know and to gods that you do not know 
and having faith that only the good and heroic die young and bad cowardly guys (like me) more likely to live on and on.
Yes, Shanlung, I think that is an absolutely gorgeous route. I haven’t ridden down it yet. I was one of those with the panniers going up to Dayuling from Yilan. I rode down to Hualien.
It was an awesome climb. I had no idea when I started it, you see, I got lost, missed my turning to Longtan up Hwy 7 and I ended up in Wuling by accident. The next morning I went on up to Lishan and topped out at Dayuling, then I froze descending to Taroko.
Ticked it off my list. I have a ton of pix and video of the trip. Here’s one of me at Wuling:
[quote=“mathpro”]It was an awesome climb. I had no idea when I started it, you see, I got lost, missed my turning to Longtan up Hwy 7 and I ended up in Wuling by accident. The next morning I went on up to Lishan and topped out at Dayuling, then I froze descending to Taroko.
[/quote]
That’s quite a diversion! 
[quote=“march”][quote=“mathpro”]It was an awesome climb. I had no idea when I started it, you see, I got lost, missed my turning to Longtan up Hwy 7 and I ended up in Wuling by accident. The next morning I went on up to Lishan and topped out at Dayuling, then I froze descending to Taroko.
[/quote]
That’s quite a diversion! [/quote]
I was lucky. I sure as hell wouldn’t have planned it that way. No clothes, February in mountains at 10,000 feet - that’s life-threatening foolishness most times. This year it might have been fatal with the temps and snow the way it was during CNY.
The gods look after idiots, drunks and little children. I know which one I am.