Garmin Activity: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/760181198
125km, 5h20, 1546 elevation
Sometimes there are social commitments in life which will prevent you from doing an all-day ride. Today was one of those days. My good Taiwanese friend Liao Shijie's daughter turned six today and there was a little party in the late afternoon. Obviously I had to be present. But I would still have time for a medium-range ride. For me, medium range is everything between 75 and 150km. Today I did exactly 125 km.
I set out from Shalu and took the route via Haifengli to Dajia and continue Hwy 1 to Yuanli (located in Western Miaoli). Please follow my Garmin map and you will understand what I mean.
Haifengli in the early morning. Just like its name implies: Sea wind village: located by the sea and therefore a lot of wind.
Farmers minding their own business
A cute little road, better than Hwy 1 from Qingshui
Wasn't going to get sun burned in this outfit
I had done this ride a couple of times, doing the 130 from Yuanli going east. But today I suddenly decided to alter my course. I saw this sign Miaoli-43 and I decided I wanted to check it out. I had no idea how it would bring me to Sanyi, but that wasn't important. Just wanted to do something new.
Miaoli-43 did not turn out to be a giant discovery, it was a rather plain road going past a few communities and eventually leading to Route 140, the long boring one. That 140 eventually led to Hwy 13 and I did the long climb to Sanyi city.
This is the area near the Longteng broken bridge remains in Sanyi and the Liyutan reservoir.
Liyutan
I was cycling alongside the reservoir, steadily going east, in the direction of Zhuolan.
But I had to do some road checking underway.
The reservoir
This is where the fun of this ride began: I had passed here once before going straight to Zhuolan, but I saw there was another road that led to Zhuolan: Miaoli-52-2. I decided to take that one today. It was a small road going steadily uphill, leading through some beautiful sceneries.
And the temperature was rising
The climb was not super long, and then it went down again. I saw a road sign that indicated Zhuolan.
A cute prehistoric tractor. Should show my brothers this one.
This section was a nice adventure, had never been here before
This was the line between Sanyi and Zhuolan, both part of Miaoli county. Interesting note: Zhuolan used to be part of Taichung county, until they restructured it. At that time, this location would also have been the line between Miaoli and Taichung county. Let's not live in the past though!
I just love relaxing rides like these
A picture of me wielding my flat bar weapon
According to my understanding of the map, eventually I would have to reach Hwy 3 for Zhuolan
Another confirmation if my correct guessing
At first I went right of that bridge and ended up on Route 140. As I knew this was just a relative flat bigger road, I went back and took the smaller road behind me, which would also lead me to where I had to be, but providing me with more adventures.
There was another climb and when I reached this spot, I could see Route 140 in front of me. Instead of taking the plains, I went for an extra climb. I owed it to my rep. as mountain goat!
This turned out to be a lovely day, glad I did this medium-range trip
The end of Miaoli-52-2, it connected with Miaoli-52, which I had ridden before. I knew that this one would connect with Hwy 3. From Hwy 3 i went south and then i took some minor roads through Houli. It was already 14:30, so I was slowly deviating in the direction of Fengyuan.
An image of Houli. From there I took Hwy 13 back south to Fengyuan. I first stopped in a little Hello Kitty shop to buy a little something for the birthday girls. The party could commence!
The pictures below are of the birthday party. Didn't they just look adorable!
What a creative pie haha
Too cute to eat this pie!
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