Another spectacular day of riding, plus we met two men riding Azub trikes.
We have had a good stay here in our first ever Korean Love Hotel in Yansang. It certainly has its quirks and a few extras, but it is basically just a hotel with oversized rooms, very private parking and unique amenities. The women who run this hotel are lovely and make it special. In small towns, we usually see a collection of Love Hotels grouped together and only a few regular hotels, if any. Its location is excellent, in the centre of town and surrounded by restaurants.
From the street, a tell tale sign that it is a love hotel is that the entrance to the property features garage doors masking the entrance with the the doors partially closed. Privacy is key.
We are having fantastic weather…clear skies and comfortable warm temperatures. From our time here, we have loved Korea’s landscape of lush, forested mountains and impressive rivers.
Today, we have seen people along the route, crouched down and cutting off leaves from native plants…perhaps for cooking or medicinal reasons. Not sure. Guess it is harvest time for whatever these plants are.
It is such a beautiful day. Something we aren’t taking for granted. Especially since we know that at home the weather is very cold with heavy rain, freezing and dare I say, a possibility of snow! Yikes.
The bicycle route has wonderful infrastructure. You can count on bathrooms like this positioned regularly along the trail. They are always clean and well maintained.
Each rest stop has this popular feature…pressurized air nozzles. We think that the intended use is for cleaning your bike, but we mostly see locals using it for cleaning their shoes. Okay..when in Korea, do as the Koreans do.
This one’s for you Leslie…before we left, Leslie our trainer and friend, helped us set up some easy exercises that we can do daily with a small stretchy strap. We focus on our problems areas…which are increasing with every year. It really helps. Today is shaping up to be a long ride, so we try to fit this in when we take a break.
Wow. What a lovely surprise to meet these two fellows riding the same make and model as our trikes. While travelling, we rarely see trikes on the road , and we have never seen others riding our model, the Azub TiFly . It was fun to have a visit with kindred spirits.
It turns out we have much in common with these fellows. First we love to ride trikes and wonder why everybody doesn’t ride one. We share a love of long distance touring by bike. And third, the man on the right, Jer is a radiologist…as is Barry’s brother. Small world.
This is one of their TiFly trikes…exact model as ours except he chose to have 26” wheels on the front and 29” on the rear. We have three 20”wheels. Both choices are good. We like the smaller wheels for stability and a smaller folded size (good for flying) whereas the larger wheels provide a faster ride.
Jer , the radiologist has the same colour TiFly as Barry. He opted for 20” wheels on the front and 26” on the rear. Recumbent enthusiasts and especially, recumbent trike lovers, are a niche group. We were thrilled to meet these fellows who share and understand our passion.
Heaven for cyclists…miles and miles of unending dedicated cycling routes like this taking one from coast to coast to coast. Sometimes, cyclists share the road with cars, but there is good signage and a blue line painted on the road to signify the cyclist’s space on the road.
This photo shows the dedication that the developers of these routes have for cyclists and their safety. Two bridges were already in place…one for a highway and the other for local traffic. Yet, they still created a separate crossing in the middle which issused by cyclists, walkers and local fishers.
We met this woman and her husband when we pulled up to a gazebo by the river to have some lunch. They were have a break as well. . Before I could show her some tips on how to get on the trike,, she jumped at the chance of trying my trike and she was seated and smiling.
We had a great conversation with this couple, shared the gazebo for lunch and shared my trike! What a good sport she is, especially trying my trike wearing white paints.
Today we saw cattle farms for the first time. And, right next to the trail, the farmer was letting this bull have some quality time rubbing his head on the ground and rolling around.
Barry went for a walk to a Convenience store and he bought the only bento boxes they carried. They looked good, but we could only eat the rice. The rest was too spicy and that’s saying something where Barry is involved. He’ll try anything…once?
Barry did eat the tamago (egg) but not the fried spam,
