November 3, 2021
November 3rd
south to Zhubei
The ride that Ralph and I toyed with doing is on my agenda today. It'll be solo, going south to a town called Zhubei and once there I'll hop on a train to come back north, so before heading off, I check the railway's website and jot down the afternoon departures of the 'bike trains'. It'd be a pain to miss one by a few minutes as they only run roughly once an hour.
It's gone 10:00 when I set off and the sky is mostly overcast, but I'm dressed in summer gear as usual. It's about 25 degrees.
The route takes me on the very familiar one towards Longtan and there's not much to photograph that I haven't already, but a large poster on the end of a school building is seriously faded and cracked from the summer sun and looks worth stopping for. As soon as I have a women aged about 40 appears in the kindergarten's yard and purposefully walks over and asks me what's happened and I tell her the poster has aged.
A bit further up the road a fern is enjoying a bit of sunshine between the front seats of a clapped out Mini that's sitting near the edge of the road outside a ramshackle car repair place. Where it gets water from is a mystery. The rear broken window allows me to get a clear snap of it.
Five minutes later, a truck parked outside a workshop has lots of shiny steel discs about 20cm in diameter arranged on sheet covering the back. It's a strange sight and looks like what you'd do if you wanted to dry something wet, like vegetables. The guy inside the large shed notices me and smiles and after I take a shot of the discs, it seems he'll be happy enough to let me take his photo while he uses some cutting gear. He is.
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I get to the southern edge of Longtan and call in at a 7-Eleven, as some drinks are needed. There are no other shops for a while and I'm heading into the hills. Two decent climbs await.
Ten minutes later and it's Route 3, which climbs persistently albeit gently before I make a left onto a small lane. It's countryside for a while now and zero traffic.
After a kilometre the lane starts going up and there are tall ferns and trees lining the route, which twists up into the hills for about three or four kilometres.
It's a while since I rode this way and I think the last time was with Ralph, g and Debbie. We posed for a photo at the top and when I get there I make do with one of me reflected in a convex mirror where a farm track branches off. A vehicle has knocked the thing and consequently the image is distorted, but that's what attracted me.
Most of the drink I bought at 7-Eleven has gone. It's humid.
The drop seems longer than the climb and the narrow lane has bends that are tight for the first couple of kilometres. My speed is sensible and my ears listen out for any oncoming traffic, but it's very quiet. No cars or scooters travel either way.
I cross over into Hsinchu County and the number of the road changes. Farms are here and there and the road gets wider and eventually connects to the wide, highway-like Route 3.
This straight road drops for quite a while and I'm pedaling in my biggest gear, but it's not that big because I prefer to have smaller ones for climbing. Freewheeling down for a kilometre or more gets me to a crossroads where there's a set of lights and a 7-Eleven. It's lunch time.
I get a carton of soya milk and another cold drink as there's a climb of about 5 km not far ahead and my early lunch is a microwaved noodle dish with clams and pesto sauce. I finish it off with an energy bar I bought from the first 7-Eleven and tell myself the calories will get burnt off soon enough.
Just as the 3 goes over a small river, I make a sharp right and the countryside welcomes me straight away. Hills are on both sides of the road, which is more like a lane, and it climbs quite slowly. Isolated houses are here and there and no doubt each has a parcel of land. Rice is growing in some fields, but others are empty at this time of year.
Water is gushing from a 50 mm plastic pipe into a shallow, rectangular concrete container outside one house and I decide to set up the tripod and capture myself riding by. It's a bit awkward because there's a deep gully next to it, but after adjusting the legs the view on the screen seems about right and I set the camera's programmable timer to take three shots after 15 seconds and press the shutter release, but then notice a man has appeared from out of nowhere and is now facing the camera.
My initial reaction is WTF and he senses he's made a mistake and disappears back inside while I take the photo of myself. He reappears and we smile and he's carrying a pair of black rubber boots that he washes in the flow of cold water. It surprises me he only does the insides.
The climb weaves up through thick forest and the fields get smaller and eventually disappear. Not too many people live around here. I will only see one or maybe two vehicles on the whole route.
Aesthetics don't get a high priority in Taiwan and one dwelling with corrugated cladding has number 50 painted on it and I stop and take a photo and two dogs that are guarding the place bark at me like crazy. They're both chained up.
My face mask came off a while ago and it's just as well the temperature is just mid twenties as I'm sweating like crazy and my damp, cotton cap gets put in my bar-bag. The small pub towel that's hung over my handlebars gets used to wipe my face and I stop to do this quite often. I'm out of shape.
The view is consistent: large leaves and ferns and dense foliage line the lane, but at some spots there's a small gap and there's a glimpse of the surrounding slopes. It's quite a jungle.
The crest finally comes at about the 5.5 km marker. It'd be nice to sit down for a minute but there's nothing around here so I start freewheeling and let the rush of cool air wash over me and dry my damp cycling top a bit.
The lower section has a few industrial buildings and outside one that looks to manufacture car parts is a colourful collage of signs and I quickly take a photo of it and after soon get to a one-street village that hugs a narrow but deep-sided stream the end of which has a big junction. I ride straight over.
There are a few more houses, but I'm on quiet routes today and this lane takes me towards a wide river. There's a concrete flood wall blocking my view of it and in the past I've tried cycling along the top of the wall, but there are lots of obstacles so I stick to the quiet lane.
The route comes to a rudimentary bridge that lacks rails or any safety features and after that I follow it east towards Taiwan's west coast.
Maybe it's the same river as before, but probably not. This one is pretty wide and the banks are flat and consist of gravel beds. It's out of sight again with another serious flood barrier blocking the view and the lane that runs below it is a bit boring as there's not a lot to see.
Houses get more frequent. They are farms and there are some factories and a gravel processing plant. Large trucks use a section of the route and my guess is they haul material that's dredged the river. A small wood yard emits a wonderful smell and I pause to take a snap of the strips stacked on a pallet that have just been sawn. I can hear the machine at work.
The numerous tall apartment buildings of Zhubei appear and the lane takes me to where I have to carry my bike over another floor barrier to get on the road into town. There's a bike path along it, but it's paved with small concrete tiles and makes it a shaky ride. The road is OK.
My Casio tells me it'll be really hard to get the next train, so I decide to just chill out in a local Louisa for 20 minutes then catch the 3:24 departure home.
From the coffee shop it's just five minutes to the train station and getting a ticket with the bike isn't an issue. The two cost me NT$74 for the 35-minute journey. That's less than US$3.
The train doesn't have hangers as it's an older model and my bike gets strapped to a metal rail.
Those two stiff climbs makes it feel like I've been on a proper bike ride.
Today's ride: 62 km (39 miles)
Total: 789 km (490 miles)
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