January 11, 2019
Return to Taipei
The short story to the day is that we left our hotel in Kaohsiung at 9, biked the short distance to the train station, purchased tickets for the 10 AM Mountain Express train to Taipei, bagged our bikes, boarded our the train with them, rode the train for five hours, arrived at our hotel in Taipei later in the afternoon, began suitcasing the bikes for the flight home, and then went out for a fine meal at a nearby restaurant.
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A somewhat longer version of the story would add the interesting detail that our Bike Fridays unfortunately don’t fit inside our newly purchased bike bags. Even with the frame folded and the front wheel and the saddle post and the handlebar stem removed, they still don’t fit. It’s not even particularly close. With about fifteen minutes of frustrated experimentation, the best we could do with Rachael’s bike was this:
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We hefted this awkward mess over to the the gate attendant and with an appealing look pantomimed a request to board the train with a bike incompletely bagged like this. He nodded, looking as though he saw nothing strange. I’m sure this is quite normal, and happens all the time here.
A somewhat longer version of the story would also add the interesting detail that Rachael’s is the smaller of the two bikes. Mine is enough larger that it wasn’t even close. However, removing the rear rack made a significant difference, and in the end we were able to get my bike partially bagged to roughly the same state as Rachael’s. It made me wonder whether if we had removed her rear rack also it might have actually fit completely.
Also, we might add that we had assistance from the kindness of strangers. Help of the unuseful sort, from a man watching all of this who finally asked why we didn’t just take the bikes over to the baggage station and have them transported as checked baggage. We thanked him for his thoughts, pointed out that we’d had the same thought ourselves, but had been told that it was not permitted.
Help also of the minimally useful but morale building sort, from an elderly woman who had been sitting on the bench next to us as all of this frustrating activity transpired, and at the end reached over and helped hold the bag open while we lifted my bike in for its final packing.
A still longer version would include the interesting and by now probably obvious fact that all of this took long enough that we missed the 10 AM train we had obtained tickets for. Fortunately, Rachael was insistent that this needed attention far enough in advance that we were able to exchange them for the 11 AM Mountain Express. Neither of the two ticket vendors had any idea what she was asking for, but fortunately the gate attendant who had been stoically watching us struggle with our bikes all this long while understood the situation, knew at least enough English that he could mediate the transaction, and could inform us that unfortunately we no longer had assigned seats; but if any were vacant, we could use them.
A longer version would include the fact that our partially biked bags are heavy and very awkward to move around; and that it is QUITE DIFFICULT AND FRUSTRATING AND STRESSFUL to move them, our four panniers and rucksack past the entrance turnstile to the elevator down the hall so we could reach the track level; and then on to the boarding point for our train.
And that we stood there for about a half hour, composing ourselves and strategizing for how to get ourselves, our two partially bagged bikes and the rest of our gear onto the train in the middle of the onboarding and offboarding crowd, in the presumably brief time that train would be in station. And to talk through the contingency plan in the unlikely event that only one of us managed to get on the train.
And that we did manage to get on the train in time, together with all of our belongings, with perhaps a minute to spare.
And that the car we entered was nearly empty, so we found seats near the front of the car where we could keep an eye on our bikes where we had left them in the small free space between the entrance doors of our car and the one before it.
And that the conductor, when he walked by and asked for our tickets, also asked if those were our bikes, and indicated that they were fine where they were.
So, much ado about little. We’re on the train on our way to Taipei, only an hour late and no worse for wear other than a few bruises from banging ourselves against our bikes as we lugged them along, and with only a few grease stains on our clothing which may but likely will not wash clean.
A still longer version would add the interesting detail that our nearly empty train car picked up new passengers at each stop, and the car gradually filled up. And that after three hours, two men boarded and observed that we were occupying their seats. Having nowhere else to sit as the car and the one in front of it were now both full, we joined our bicycles in the small boarding space between the two cars.
Where we joined another man without an assigned seat, who was sitting by my bike intently staring at his phone. After a stop or two, the conductor came by and let us know that there was a single free seat available, which Rachael took while I sat for the next two hours wedged in next to my bike, listening to the noisy rattling and banging of the cars as we rode along, and occasionally standing to let boarding or exiting passengers get by.
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And a yet longer version of the story would point out that when we arrived in Taipei we had less difficulty than we feared in getting our belongings off the train, up the elevator, and to the curbside where our taxi driver unconcernedly started packing the whole catastrophe into his large vehicle and drove us to our hotel.
And we were cheerfully welcomed by the hotel attendants, who remembered and were expecting us, and had already placed our suitcases in our room.
And packing went surprisingly smoothly, given the small space in which it took place. One bike was packed before dinner, and the second can wait for the morning.
And dinner at the nearby Galerie Bistro was excellent, featuring a half bottle of a Sicilian red, a fine Caesar salad, sea bass, spaghetti Amatriciana, a delicious red velvet beetroot cake, and a warm smile and kind words from our hostess when we left.
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Today's ride: 2 miles (3 km)
Total: 731 miles (1,176 km)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 12 |
5 years ago
Have a good trip home. We'll miss reading your journal!
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https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/circles/day-80-sainte-luce/#6312_1744902_DSCN7595_exact_tailoring_zed20131006_215007_40p
5 years ago
My wife and I had similar experiences with trains/bags and our Bike Fridays in Japan. It can be even more difficult in Japan because they won’t even allow unbagged bikes on platforms or through the ticket checkpoint. This meant a lot of lugging heavy bags long distances especially on the bigger stations.
We did have good size bike bags, and tote bags to bundle all the panniers together.
A possible solution which I will try when my son and I take folding bikes to Taiwan, is to take small sets of dolly wheels which can be strapped temporarily to the packed bags.
I’ve bought these wheels at our local DIY store, but am yet to test them out.
They are a bit like removable suitcase wheels.
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5 years ago
I'm also going to experiment with the folding bikes' set-up, and bike packing on this trip. When I have some photos of the bikes, I'll add a page to my journal about the bikes. I might also start a Forum thread on the folding bike/train challenges too when I test out the dolly wheels and soft bags.
We had a lot of folding bike and trains experience on our Japan trip in 2016, but I didn't do a journal as most of the travel was by train. We only used the folding bikes to get around the cities and towns. After this experience I did a lot of thinking about better ways to manage the soft bagging of bikes for trains. The Japanese use a system they call "rinko". It's a combination of bike design, bags and packing they use to combine train and bicycle travel. Very clever.
Have you heard of XOOTR bike bag racks and bags? I've bought a couple of these to test out. An initial try out last weekend was promising. It's quite a different set-up to a traditional pannier and rack system, but I think it might work well on the Taiwan trip.
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