Here are my long winded wrap-up thoughts. 

First, the good stuff, and there's SO much good stuff about cycling in Taiwan:

• Sue and Rick were great touring companions.  Although the rest of the trip was terrific, it wasn't nearly as much fun after they departed.

• The people of Taiwan are delightful: kind, generous, polite and thoughtful.  And also very patient with tourists who can't speak or read their language.  Standout examples include:
  • the SRAM distributor who found me a bike shop and made an appointment there to have my sticky gears fixed
  • the betel nut-chewing scooter guy who helped remove Rick's rear wheel when he had a flat, and the gas station attendant who provided a bowl of soapy water to find the leak in the tube
  • our Sun Moon Lake hosts, who are delightful and run a lovely home stay
  • our Jiji farm stay hosts, who drove us to town for dinner and insisted on paying
  • many people shouting 'jiayou' as encouragement as I pedalled by
  • numerous people who provided free fruit (and a taste of water chestnuts too)
• The landscapes were fabulous - mountains, lakes, oceans, rivers, beaches, dense forests, agriculture, small towns, and modern cities.  There was something interesting to see everyday. 

• Food is delicious, easy to find, and inexpensive by Canadian standards. I was worried that breakfast offerings might be challenging for me to enjoy, but I loved them, and pledge to add more vegetables to my morning meals.  In comparison to some European countries, it was nice to be able to eat early in the evening.  If you'd prefer to eat after 7 pm, that might be a challenge in some smaller centres in Taiwan, because things close pretty early.   If you like nose-to-tail eating, you'll be very happy to see EVERY animal part on the menu. But Taiwan is also very vegetarian-friendly. The night markets are super interesting. 

• Almost all the rental accommodations were great. They were very clean, and I finally started remembering to take my shoes off before entering, and to look for the house slippers.  All were air conditioned. Internet was excellent everywhere except two places where it was a bit slow. The only place I wouldn't book again was the not-very-clean love hotel that we stayed in the first night we left Taipei. 
• There are many bike paths, bike lanes, and shared bike/scooter lanes. The roads were very-well paved, although sometimes the bike paths beside them were a bit lumpy. I don't recall encountering a single pothole, but did have to be aware of places where roads were closed by recent typhoon damage.  Gravel or unpaved paths aren't really a thing in Taiwan, in my experience. 
• My Airolo eSIM was easy to purchase and worked flawlessly.  
• For me, the November temperatures were just about perfect. It was between 20 C and 30 C pretty much the entire trip, dipping barely below 20 during a cold snap at the end. Some people may find it too hot and humid. 
• Once again, I had no flats.  I know people have mixed feelings about cycling with a tubeless setup, but I'm a fan. 
• Navigation using Komoot worked fine. Most of the time I relied on the Garmin Edge 530 for directions, but I use the Komoot app on my phone to see the bigger picture.    
• 7-Eleven is a marvel - it provided breakfast, lunch, beer, snacks (healthy and unhealthy), ATMs, and gallons of Pocari Sweat.  And Family Mart is the same, but with an annoying door jingle that you'll never get out of your head (you've been warned).
• Google Translate is another marvel.  We translated signs, menus, and instructions from Chinese using our cameras.  And frequently people would speak into their phones to translate. What a life saver.  

• Gear-wise, there's not much I'd change. I remembered my spork this year, and was happy to have it.  My chopstick skills are okay, but they don't work for eating yogurt or a roadside custard apple. I carried an umbrella, but was pretty lucky with the weather, and could have gotten away without it.  Many businesses have umbrella stands out front with what look to be umbrellas that can be borrowed. I pared down my normal clothing because I knew it'd be warm, but still brought things I didn't need.  For example, I didn't need rain pants.  On the three rainy days where I biked, my legs just got wet.  It was warm, so that was fine.  I bike in Keen sandals, so it didn't matter that they got wet.

Things to consider if planning a trip to Taiwan:

•  Weather  - I'd say we got pretty lucky with the weather. There was a bit of rain, and a couple days of strong wind, but it was generally pretty nice. If we had arrived a week earlier, we'd have experienced a typhoon. Our one tropical storm dropped most of its rain (110 mm) while we slept.  I've seen a lot more reports of cycling in rain in other peoples' trip reports.  
• Trains are an option if the weather craps out. When booking a train, it helps to know the station number.  I researched schedules on the Taiwan Railways website, then went in person to a station to buy my ticket in advance. 
• Carry a bit of toilet paper, because not all public toilets and 7-Elevens provide it.  They do all have soap though.
• You may want to bring a camp towel and a washcloth.  Pretty much nowhere provided washcloths, and a couple of places had only tiny towels.
• Taiwan still runs on largely on cash, which is readily available from ATMs at convenience stores. I had no troubles using my Canadian bank card.
• I found it useful to buy an EasyCard from a convenience store.  It's a refillable tap-to-pay card useable on the Taipei metro (and I think other public transportation around Taiwan). And if you have money left over on the card, you can spend it at convenience stores too.  The Taipei metro app is really good - you can see travel times and fares to all the stations.
• I had read that booking.com might not have all the available listings, and to download the Agoda app which is more common in Asia.  But we found that the listings on the two apps were pretty much identical, so never used Agoda.  We did have to book via Airbnb one night when there was nothing listed nearby on the other sites.
• Most tourism in Taiwan is internal, so be prepared to pay more on weekends.  And consider booking Saturday nights in advance.  You'll see a lot more road bikers out on weekends, and some hilly routes might be busy with motorbikes on weekends. 
• Most bikes in Taiwan seem to be road bikes equipped with Shimano parts.  There aren't many mountain bikes to be seen.  So depending on your bike components, you may want to carry some spare parts than you might not normally bring. The Giant shops have a computerized inventory system, so one shop can find parts at other nearby stores.  
• For communication with hosts, sometimes I used the booking.com app, sometimes WhatsApp, and sometimes I had to use Line, which is the most common messaging app used by Taiwanese people.  In a couple of cases, Line was the only option, so I'm glad I had downloaded it and signed up. 
• If visiting bars and cafes is critical to you, Taiwan might not be the right destination.  Cold beer is easy to find in convenience stores - they have wine and spirits too. But there aren't people sitting around drinking beer and enjoying the warm weather, except probably in big cities.  We had our post-ride beer and chips back at our hotel room.
• And finally, Cycle Route No. 1 gets a lot of press.  It's cool that there is a designated route around Taiwan, but being on it was not my favourite part of the trip.  It tends to be next to busier roads.  It's the flattest possible option, which is great for people trying to circumnavigate Taiwan in the shortest possible time. That might make some people happy, but I liked the relative solitude of quieter hilly roads.  The flat and busy roads also have loads of traffic lights.  If I was planning my route again, I'd spend even more time in the hills, and less on the flats (the section we did from Chiayi to south of Kaohsiung).

I hope I'll be back in Taiwan some day, because I loved my visit.