June 17, 2023
June 17th
In the drizzle with Ralph
I'm up fairly early and Ralph is too, as he emails me before 8:00 to ask if I want to get out for a ride. It looks a bit wet, but after a couple of messages we concur it's not too bad and fix a time - 9:00 - to meet in town.
It's just about raining as I ride away from home. It's not heavy enough so as for me to stop and put on a cape, but I do stop to get a coffee from a small Louisa in town and arrive at our usual spot beside the river five or so minutes before Ralph does. My coffee is just being finished off by then.
We ponder where to go and soon settle on following the river southeast and know a Starbucks about 30-odd minutes' away where we can reassess the weather situation. Maybe the rain will get worse by then. It's hard to say.
We pass a convenience store after a few minutes and recall that once this is as far as we cycled as it began to pour down. This is no action replay.
It's wet and warm - humidity must be 100 percent. Our clothes are not soaked, just damp, and the spots of rain are spaced enough to make it seem as though it might be possible to dodge them if you were nimple enough. I wonder if it would have been alright to have gone on the trip over to the east coast as I'd wanted this weekend. It's hard to say.
We cruise along the cycle path. There are not many people out. Those that are tend to be elderly and I greet them with a brief 'zǎo' - Chinese for morning - which most seem pleasantly surprised to hear from a white guy riding a bike.
The path soon takes us past rice fields that look about ready to harvest and then leads us to a series of lanes before eventually entering the edge of Yangmei district. We make our way a few blocks to Starbucks, locathed at a junction on Route 1. It's relatively new and is pretty big. Most of the tables are occupied.
ralph has a toastie and I treat myself to a lemon tart and we sit and chat about US politics and sport until we decide it's time to get back on the bikes. The rainfall looks to be about the same. Stepping out of the cool AC into the balmy air makes my glasses steam over.
It's all urban riding for a while. We make our way through a busy market area of Yangmei and keep going southeast. After a while Ralph directs us onto route 71 and we starting climbing. He knows the way.
Before the crest we stop for a breather and wonder what to do. We could turn around or head to Longtan, but opt to keep going and ride to Zhubiei, where we can hop on a train back north.wars
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The 71 crosses into the neighboring county of Hsinchu and after making it up the adecent climb with panoromic views over to our left, we descend at speed down into a wide valley and eventually connect with route 115 before hitting the small town of Xinpu.
Now I know where I am, as I was here a while ago taking snaps of some old buildings. We opt to stop for a drink and settle on 7-Eleven and I have a small salad to keep me going. Zhubei is perhaps 10km away.
When I came here alone, I made a mistake of heading west on the busy 118. It was crap. Ralph directs us to the rougly parallel route 14, then we make a left onto 17 and eventually turn right on the 118 at the east side of Xinpu. It's not very far - maybe 10 minutes - to the train station and we get there just past 12:30. It's a short day but it's been fun.
There's a departure at 12:47, but for some weird reason this commuter train does not allow bikes, even though it's equipped with racks for them. We have to buy tickets for the slightly later 13:02, but that gives us time to buy another cold drink for the 40-minute journey home. There's just one other cyclist who boards the long train, a man who does not seem to be the full shilling.
Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 3,086 km (1,916 miles)
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