March 24, 2022
March 24th
south with Ralph (last post)
It's gone all grey, chilly and damp again, but I'm up early and when Ralph emails at nine o'clock to ask about going for a ride, I'm in. We agree to rendezvous at the crack of 9:45 in the same spot as last week - beside the river bicycle path in town.
The road surface is dark as it is when it's rained most of the night and my ride takes about 20 minutes and I have on wear arm-warmers and a light jacket, but the jacket comes off once there because while the temperature is only around 15°C, the humidity makes it feel clammy. In the UK, you don't get cool and sweaty.
I've no idea where we'll ride, but as it's overcast, it seems best to take photos that'll look OK in black and white, which means looking for more contrast. We'll see how they pan out.
Ralph arrives and says he's thought about a route and we head up the bike path just like last week towards route 66 - a road which always makes me think of the United States and music. He's wearing what I think was a pricey Christmas gift to himself - a bottle green, long-sleeved Rapha top.
The path has a few people walking along it, but only a couple of other cyclists - who we overtake as they plod along at a casual, near-pedestrian pace. They look like a retired couple with time on their hands.
Once at the end of the path, where it meets route 66 and crosses over the river, we decide to just ride along the road instead of getting back beside the river.
While this is new to me and is wide enough to make cycling safe, it's a typical nondescript stretch of urban infrastructure without any visual stimuli. Ralph sets a decent pace and we zip past simple cafes, crudely built warehouses and other drab commercial property that lacks photogenic opportunities. I spot a stark, monochrome face of a Michelin Man painted on a roller door of a car workshop, but know that if I stop for a snap it'll be hard work to catch up with Ralph's back wheel.
After a while there's a sense of being here before, and it's not déjà vu. Ralph says he did lead me along this way once, but we can't recall when it was: maybe a year ago. I recall there's a Starbucks in the area and that's where we head. It's a big place on a busy junction.
I order a round thing that's called something like maple syrup pudding bread. The wrapping of Ralph's snack has a simple message: keep fighting. We decide not to engage in any fisticuffs and to just keep riding and twenty minutes later, after a few back streets and a busy traditional market, we're on Highway 1 heading south.
The road is wide - two lanes going each way, plus a shoulder - as you would expect. Over to our left, just about within earshot, is Freeway 1, which is busy with trucks. Beyond the freeway rises a range of low mountains covered in trees. Or perhaps they're just hills. Ralph says we'll turn off eventually and climb them. Our route is slightly down for a few kilometres, then we get to a small junction where we turn off and a sign says it's route 12.
Within a minute we go through a short, square tunnel that carries the freeway and the road continues to go up. We pass a temple complex topped with huge statue of the goddess Guayin, then there are one or two isolated homes and a series of sheet metal units with wooden pallets stacked outside. It's like a mini industrial zone that lasts a couple of hundred metres, after which it's all seriously green and peaceful.
It's also seriously uphill. In summer this climb would be a killer. We're in our lowest gears for a while and getting hot. My helmet comes off, as does my face mask. There's no traffic here and it's like we've entered a parallel universe, one far removed from the densely populated, frantic pace of urban Taiwan. I just wish I'd brought my water bottle with me.
There's nearly five kilometres of climbing to do and in the process we veer on to route 13 before it eases off and there's a gap in the trees that treats to a vast vista off to our left, looking roughly west. Wispy clouds are static on a ridge that forms the horizon in the distance and below it are a few peaks, again with low cloud surrounding them. We imagine anyone over there is getting wet.
The descent is technical and the surface is perhaps slippery. I keep my speed sensible, what with the bends being sharp and all this being unknown and it's all a single-car width and it goes down, then reaches a bigger road with yellow lines down the middle. We continue going south and down for something like a total of six kilometres. I've no idea where we are.
Ralph leads us to a 7-Eleven and I get a drink and take a snap of a horse statue across the road. It's the first photo in a while and its patina is closely toned with the bush behind it, so the snap probably won't look very strong in black and white.
Ralph tells me we're heading to Zhubei. I was thinking it must be a long ride home. It is only 15 minutes to the train station, but it's all urban and there's traffic as always.
It's almost 1:00 and there's a train at five minutes gone, which gives us with just enough time to grab a drumstick from the on-station convenience store.
It's a mostly empty train and there's just us two in the end carriage for most of the 35-minute journey back north and we chat about my upcoming visit to the UK. I fly a week today - on March 31st - and my bags are already packed.
In the UK, cases have increased dramatically during the past couple of weeks, as they have in various other countries. It's anyone's guess as to what the Covid situation will be in Taiwan when I fly back in July. At the moment, foreigners are still not allowed to visit, and anyone who does land has 10 days of quarantine. It's worked.
This will be the blog's last post - at least for a few months.
Today's ride: 44 km (27 miles)
Total: 1,704 km (1,058 miles)
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