A nice long straightaway would be a lovely addition, but that's just nitpicking - as is it's really sweet! It has great pavement, good turns, not too much traffic and generally good visibility of the road ahead. The only bad part are two patches of wetness that, in my experience are always there. (Sample size of 2 - hey if you can't make statistics work for you, what good are they?) Just kidding, today's riding companions bore out my hunch that these wet spots are pretty much permanent.
One of said patches isn't a big deal, as it's visible. The other one is on a tight turn hidden from view, and it's right where you want to be riding if you were carving a great line in the turn. I generally try to ride with more than enough friction in the cornering bank account to cover sudden, unexpected withdrawals or course alterations. Bouncing that check is no fun.
The ride up to the crest from the South is pretty perfect too. It's 10Km or so of nice, consistent grade, switchbacks and also good road surface. I was riding with some guys that are all way fitter and stronger than me, I'm sure they hit the top many minutes before me. They were kind to wait. I think the Tea Eggs they got at the little place at the top may have helped to pass the time.
The rest of the ride was big fun as well, and now I'm happily parked on the sofa. Rides like this one are great for reasonably guilt free laying about and eating too!
We're only 9 weeks into our time here and there are many great and wonderful aspects to Taiwan and our experience of it. But I'm also ready to wager on a number of things that I imagine will be in the 'bummer' column no matter what.
1. The general welfare of dogs here. There are many that are beloved pets, but there are many more that are chained or confined in very small spaces, and many more loose on the streets and roads, including injured and maimed ones. It appears there are gradations between full on feral dogs and ones that seem to have had some human attention - many have collars, but many are clearly fending for themselves to varying degrees of success.
2. The air pollution. Much of the haze we get is really just Marine Layer off the Taiwan Strait, but there's definitely more to it than just that on many days - and even if the air aloft is reasonably good, the street level air can be more than sketchy to my sensitive lungs. It's true, I have tender, oh sooo sensitive lungs. If I could buy air collected from remotest Antarctica, bottled in organic stainless steel vessels lined in recycled, small batch, responsibly manufactured glass and shipped here I would. I'd just buy a boatload of carbon offsets to even it out and sleep like a baby as a result.
3. Garbage everywhere - Littering out the car window or off the scooter or while walking are not uncommon, but there are also people heaving big bags of trash along the side of the road too. It's such a beautiful country, and it's hard to see this so commonplace. It's equally as curious to me to see how fastidious individuals and the government are about cleaning up leaves and twigs and the odd bit of litter while just feet away could be a trainwreck of garbage strewn about that seems unlikely to be cleaned up.
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| A sad 'two-fer' photo - feral dogs and trash strewn about, taken on a different ride, but illustrative |
Of course Taiwan isn't the only place with these problems - way too many dogs in the US and elsewhere are kept in appalling conditions as well. But in America we get to practice that wonderful bit of 'out of sight, out of mind' avoidance since many of our houses set back from the roads, while here many are right close to roads and streets, visible to all who pass. And we've got idiots throwing bags of trash in the US too, and air pollution (like that which helped chase me away from Los Angeles). But both seem to be more commonplace here.
Not trying to be negative about this place, (I'll write more about Taiwan's wonderful things beyond just really good roads to ride!), but I'm just noticing and musing aloud and in type about these challenges as there were glaring examples of all of the above on today's ride. I'll revisit this in the future to see if I was right.... maybe I can work some statistics in to support my confirmation bias as well!
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