May 7, 2023
May 7th
IKEA
On Tuesday morning, Debbie and I rode over to the Giant shop that we used to go to a lot and, sure enough, the mechanic there fitted a new bottom bracket to Debbie's commuter bike while we waited. As her rear brake was totally ineffective, a pair of new pads also got fitted. The total cost including labour came to about $US40... I think the labour alone would be that in the UK. Debbie says it feels like riding a new bike.
It was seriously hot cycling over to the Giant shop and the rest of this week has seen the mercury reach 40°C in the south of Taiwan. The high temperatures mean I've not cycled very far from home, but as we're both free today and - more importantly - last night's rain has cooled things down quite a bit, we decide to ride our commuter bikes over to IKEA. We're not sure why: it's just somewhere different.
It's after 10 o'clock when we set off. The sky is dull and the forecast says it might rain again, but it looks unlikely to me. We head into town on route 114, zip below the rail tracks via a narrow tunnel then go through the centre and get to the river. There's a bike path that'll take us north for a kilometer or more. It's nice to get away from the traffic.
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The shallow river's water level is relatively high after the rain. We're on the east bank and after a while decide to cross over to the opposite one via some large concrete stepping stones and get to the grassy bank only to find that there's a few inches of water flowing over the blocks. We're both wearing Crocs, but the flow appears strong, so that's that idea scrubbed.
The river-side bike path keeps getting extended and it's hard to know just what we'll find. It must be a year or more since we were last here. However, we soon get to its end, so we cycle along a narrow, road-side path for a minute before spotting construction work going on. The reddish topsoil is exposed and diggers are here and there. It looks like a big project and judging from the rough layout, work is underway to build more bike path.
We spot some path already done and we manage to get the bikes under a barrier limbo-style, then ride along a winding section that looks like it was actually completed a year ago. It's marooned in this landscape of construction and when it finally ends, it does so at a hire wire fence. We look around at the muddy tracks close to the river and reckon a bridge is required to get over an adjacent stream, so we ride back 100 metres and lug the bikes over a low barrier to get back to the road. It's a bit of adventure.
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We soon find a junction on the wide road and look at Google Maps and decide to follow a winding lane, as it generally heads in the right direction. It's very rural here and we pass rice fields and old homes made of red brick that look abandoned. At least a few of them do. It's tranquil.
I slow down to get a better look at one home and Debbie does too, but she's still crusing slightly faster than me and hits my back wheel, forcing her off in slow-mo. Her right leg gets a bit of a whack on her frame, but thankfully she's otherwise fine. She silently blames me.
A little bit further along the lane I see an old wooden door to a house that looks interesting and opt to take a quick snap, so make a U-turn. Within a minute, I set off to catch up with Debbie, who's out of sight. She usually waits. At a junction, my guess is she's made a left, but the road rises and I can't see her on it. It's a mystery where she's disappeared to.
I hang around for a minute wondering if she'll appear from somewhere, but she doesn't and it seems best to just head for IKEA and hope she does the same.
As I don't have a phone and access to Google Maps, I ask a few people for directions - everyone here knows IKEA and it isn't too hard to find. It's less than a kilometer away, nestled among a host of new housing, and a main road leads me more or less straight there.
Once there, the sky looks iffy and perhaps the forecast for rain is right, so I opt to wheel my bike into the building's parking area. There's a separate lane for scooters, but rather than going through a barrier, I park my bike on an area close to the entrance and go outside and wait for Debbie.
Her white helmet appears in the distance in under a minute and it turns out she thought I'd doubled back when I made that quick U-turn. She cycled around looking for me while I was taking a photo of the wooden door and old bench. She blames me.
Her bike gets locked to mine, but before we get to leave, a security guy comes over and says we can't park them there. Another guy soon appears and says we can't take them to the main parking area either, but the first guy ignores this and shows us where to go.
You'd think we were carrying a hazardous substance. The scooter parking area is massive and mostly empty. It's a wind-up.
I'm hungry and we soon end up in IKEA's dining area. It's packed. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the company makes more from food than it does from furniture. It takes us 20 minutes to get served and a few minutes to find seats. We both have meatballs.
Our legs are tired from trekking around the maze of furnishings, but I do buy a small s/s bottle than will go into a cage on my bike. After the checkout, we look out the large windows and see rain is falling steadily and decide to wait it out, but after 10 minutes it seems it's not going to stop.
I have a rain cape and Debbie has a jacket and we set off on a route I usually take. Our back lights are on and there's traffic and it's all quite unpleasant. There's no stopping for photos. The raingear isn't up to it and by the time we get home after a 40-minute ride, we're both pretty much soaked to the skin.
Today's ride: 22 km (14 miles)
Total: 2,822 km (1,752 miles)
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