January 2, 2022
January 2nd
out with Ralph
Ralph's email is concise. A ride is on and he'll pick me up and drive us south into neighboring Hsinchu County.
After my bike gets strapped to the rear rack, classic reggae plays on the car's hi-fi and while it's early January, it looks and feels more like a summer morning. We're both wearing shorts.
It's about a 60-minute drive to get us to a central parking area in a town situated on Highway 3 called Zhudong and it's good to finally arrive, offload the bikes and start our ride.
We've unfinished business on a rural, hilly and twisting route in this part of Taiwan. Last time here we took a wrong turn. Redemption beckons.
There's a little bit of urban riding to do first and we cycle with traffic past a large hospital on a section of Highway 3 that runs east-west, then make our way past shops to route 122, which takes us south.
After about five minutes or so we stop to buy bottles of cold drinks from a 7-Eleven before making a right onto small country Lane 588, just where the 122 begins to drop into the hill-lined valley we're riding along. This is a lane you would find hard to spot and it's instantly quieter.
The route initially has a more elevated view of the wide valley, what with there being no buildings on it's southern, sun-facing side, but it's impossible to see the river. It's lost somewhere among a patchwork of flat fields that cover the valley bottom. After passing a temple-monastery complex, we're in proper countryside. It only takes a minute.
There's tall bamboo and trees that I don't know the names of in the distance on our left, on the other side of the narrowing valley, while a steep bank looms up on our right. Signs say we're riding on Route 39, which drops us down at a good old speed and continues to descend all the way to a place called Beipu. We've covered about 10 km when we get there.
The small town has a historic temple and an 'old street' with a couple of interesting traditional houses. I take a photo of the one located at this end of the street as it's convenient. The house looks to be still lived-in, with the wooden gates to the yard being locked, so I poke my camera through the rows of tiles that form a kind of decorative parapet on top of the front wall and take a snap of its front door.
Looking down the 'old street' there are quite a few Sunday day-trippers and we don't bother venturing that way. We simply bear left at Beipu's fire station and ride east for a minute before cycling south on Route 37. It's very green with sporadic banana trees and some huge tree ferns and next to no traffic.
I just keep following Ralph's instructions and we keep to a quiet route that I can recall cycling along, but it's unclear to me where we are exactly on a map (that we don't have) and if we got split up, I'd be screwed.
We pedal on up the 37 and reach a gazebo with an adjacent wooden deck and some chunky marble stools and pause for drinks that have now become lukewarm.
The route continues up and the climb totals about 15 km in all. It's a serious workout and there are pines near the crest and we ride in cool shade at times, with the dim light giving our eyes a nice break.
Eventually, of course, we have a wonderful drop and the 37 has us whizzing down before the road finally flattens and widens and we freewheel for a long time into a town called Nanzhuang where we stop to get a late lunch at a 7-Eleven.
We're ready for it, as it' s getting on for 2:00. Mine's a microwaved pasta.
Nanzhuang is a place I recall riding to with Debbie a while a go. It must have been around Chinese New Year, as it was cram packed with tourists, but was, and still is, a mystery why it's a such popular spot. Ralph and I only get to experience its 7-Eleven.
From a bridge over a shallow stream, there's a view of cloud-topped mountains that are covered in trees where we must have been cycling not too long ago and we head back in the that direction - north - as Nanzhuang marks the point of our return ride.
We pedal for a few minutes and get onto Route 124, then veer off onto the 41, which gives us another climb to do. Thankfully this one only lasts a few kilometres.
The bad news is it eventually T's us into Highway 3 near a place called Emei. We've now done close to 50km and from here there's no real choice but to cycle along the wide route that's busy with weekend traffic back to the car. It's 10 km of hard labour with two lanes of traffic zipping along in both directions. There are no more photo opportunities.
Today's ride: 59 km (37 miles)
Total: 1,171 km (727 miles)
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2 years ago