I’m going to piggy-back on here… I plan to huandao later this month or early next and have one burning question. Is there any way, any at all, to bring my massive DSLR with me? I’m already resigned to leaving it at home, but it breaks my heart to do so.
Hokwongwei, I also have a DSLR (although presumably much smaller than yours), and I carry it with me on my bike all the time. I used to keep it in a handlebar bag, like this.
If you’ve got enough room on your handlebars and don’t mind using a smaller lens, that’s the way to go. Your other option would be to stick the camera in your panniers. For a summer tour in Taiwan, if you’re not planning to camp (and why would you want to in this hot weather?), you could probably get by with just front panniers, assuming you have rack eyelets on your front fork and can find a front rack. Otherwise, rear racks are easy to find in Taiwan, and they allow you to carry larger panniers–the disadvantage is that it’s a pain to stop and get your camera out. When I was touring in Japan two weeks ago, I rode on some really beautiful roads but took very few pictures of them for that reason. I think the ideal solution would be to have a pocket camera for simple shots and a DSLR for the times you want to invest more time and effort to get better-quality photos.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to ride around the entire island in midsummer, but if you don’t mind the heat, more power to you.
There are so many ways to ride around the island; which one you choose depends on what you want to see, how much time you have, and how strong a rider you are. For example, when you want to go around the north end of Taiwan, you can stay on the coast from Danshui all the way to Yilan (easy but long), ride the 106 from Taipei into Shuangxi and turn onto the farm road to Toucheng (which is rather hilly), take the even hillier Highway 9 (Beiyi) through Pinglin, or climb the mountains of Highway 7 (Beiheng). To get from Yilan to Hualien, you can brave the traffic of the dangerous Suhua Highway or do what Nuit did and climb up to Lishan, which is safer and arguably more scenic but way harder and more time-consuming. And when you go down (or up) the east coast, you can take the 11 down the coast, the 9 through the East Rift Valley, or stay away from both in favor of smaller roads that people more familiar with the east coast can no doubt recommend to you.
If you want distances and road numbers, I’d say Nuit’s table is a good start. It’s possible to ride the whole island in about eight days (if you leave out the northern and southern tips of the island), but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’ll be a lot more fun if you take your time and try to keep your daily distance around 100 km. Avoid the area immediately south of Kaohsiung, as it’s a polluted industrial nightmare. And when you pass through Taoyuan County, I recommend staying close to the mountains. Unless you want to ride along the coast, which is nice in places (Hsinchu, e.g.) and not so nice in other places (the many industrial parks), Highway 3 is a good reference point for planning the western side of your route. And if you want to go to Kending, keep in mind that it’s a long way, maybe 160 km, from Taidong–I wouldn’t recommend riding that whole distance in a day.
far better than lugging a DSLR is just to buy a Lumix LX7 camera. almost no one can tell the difference in the shots… and you save about 2 kg in weight too, which is worth its weight in gold when cycling long distances.
I recently did the east coast of Taiwan and it’s an experience I won’t forget. There’s a lot of information on this forum board, and also in this thread that I’d thought I’d put this in to contribute.
Coming from California, the scenery was reminiscent between a mixture of Big Sur (Northern CA coast) and Hawaii. I documented my travel route in the link below along, with a day by day look. I didn’t plan much of where to stay and like everyone says, it’s very easy to find accomodations. Only thing I would do different next time is to bring a tent and camp outside!
3 day route from Hualien --> Kenting
wp.me/p4orkj-1y
More information about the bike rental and associated equipment
wp.me/p4orkj-R
Nice write up. Thanks for sharing.
I rode around the entire island with my DSLR slung around my neck. It’s a Nikon D3100 with the kit lens, very light but powerful enough for my needs, and I made good use of it.
As for route planning… I had a lot more fun not planning any specific route except where necessary (Suhua highway, obviously, but also the stretch from Kenting to Taidong). I suppose what you need to do is figure out what sort of trip you’d like. Of course I recommend doing your homework and being aware of the options but figuring it out as you go along can be very rewarding IMO.
Another thing I won’t and can’t do haha
This isn’t Huandao. They bisected the island riding along the central mountain range. The distance is shorter than Huandao but the climbs are much bigger.