When you don’t have much time, lets say on a weekday after work, you feel the tingling in your hand and think ‘lets go for a quick ride, 1-2 hours, just for fun’ - where do you go?
Usually that’s the only time I have: It’s dark already (miss the long northern twilight hours) when I come home and I’ve been in the office all day. My favourite route is trough Shilin to Yangmin Shan, passing by the Palace Museum and at the end of the road turning right uphill towards Wanlin. It’s perfect: Twisty mountain roads up and down with sharp bends, 2. and 3. gear strips of narrow roads and very little traffic. Sure there are the random scooter kids hanging out and playing ‘follow the leader, lets see how far we get this time’ but usually they don’t bother me. There are some interesting spots up there with a pretty view of the city lights in clear nights and another twisty descent down to east of Neihu again. Love that one.
There are a few other routes I like to go but some (like Guanyi-Shan) are really dark, with lots and lots of black dogs lurking in every corner and the roads are rather short which shortens the fun.
So, where do you go? What’s your favorite quick getaway?
The road from YangMing Shan to ChinShan I can only ride alone, anyone else in the car and and I have to drive like I got a grandma in the back seat or people get sick. Alone it is wonderful, lots of lateral movement and tire squeals. Excellent for a great handling car and not nearly as many cars as other parts of YMS.
I take the backside of Shrmen dam when I need a short jaunt (highway 118) about 75km round trip from my place.
Start in Kuanshi, and head up into the mountains. 47km’s later it connects with Beihen right at the entry point. From there I come back down through Fushing, San Ming, Tzhu, Shrmen dam, Longtan, and return home.
It’s a great ride with virtually no traffic during the week (Not that I ever have time to do this anymore )
this morning i went for my favorite loop (when i have a little more time): taipei down to muzha, underpassing highway 3 going to highway 5 (the new one to pinglin and ilan) and then all the way up to pingsi on the 106 and so on. there is a cool cafe’ stop up there, a little after pingsi called the “ing-nei coffee” - great place to hang out and to see awsome bikes. actually, seems most guys only go to there to see and to be seen and thats cool too. a little further down the road towards jioufen there is another lovely spot you should check out. not as crowded as the other one but nice nontheless. great rides there, especially on the leg all the way up to jioufen - ok, that place is usually crowded like hell but most cars tend to take the long way around on the coastal highway (2 i think it is).
and my guess is that there are tons of nice little twisty roads just off the beaten track to explore. anyone interested to have a go-look? let me know, would love to check it out.
I do both the Yangmin-Shilin-Wanli and Pingsi routes almost every week. I live in Neihu so they are both easy access. When I lived near Hoping, I’d drive up past the cemetry to NanGang. Above the cemetry, there is an excellent view of Taipei. I believe you can probably access that road from Hsyni too up behind the bus depot there (not sure of the road). The cemetry is a good place to visit and take a walk around. There are plenty of places to sit and contemplate life’s mysteries.
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