Garmin Activity: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/701652668
124km, 8h16, elevation 2850m
I dedicated this ride to a very special location, called Chuandong road. I had heard from one of my Fengyuan friends that there was a tiny road going from Taichung 47's 10km mark all the way to the Dadong Police station at Daxueshan mountain. I had heard that this road was very steep and super hard core. So I wanted to do it! I had also checked some blogs and I had some basic understanding of what I was about to face. With the Chinese New Year week, I also had time for this ride.
The people in the blogs were riding MTB's but the closest I could get to an MTB would be my Sirus. So I grabbed my flatbar, bike cam and headed out. For this ride, I wanted to do more of recording today. This would a legendary ride! I headed out early in the morning and I cycled from Shalu to Dongshi. I searched for that Family Mart that indicated the beginning of Taichung-47. I used my bike cam for some pictures here. These are snapshots of Taichung-47:
It was tranquil this morning
There were microphones playing music and nationalistic themes here.
Gently this road was ascending and leading to a more tranquil area
Betel nut trees at my right
The road was getting narrower
More uphill
Almost at my checkpoint
This car did not leave a lot of space for me
After ten kilometers I was at the starting point. I saw that giant slope and I was thinking: oh yeah! Let the games begin! The funny part is that I did Taichung-47 just the day before and when I saw that slope I was thinking that I should do it better sooner than later. Nice that it turned out to be the next day.
I switched off the picture mode and got the camera rolling for some nice footage of my conquest of Chuandong road.
I started recording and I faced the challenge. Due to my recording, I only took a few pictures here. However, the first part was doable. It was a super tiny road full of rocks and sand but it was manageable on my flatbar road bike. Btw, you can see all ten clips I made here at my Youtube channel,. Just type 穿棟道路 and it will pop up.
All of the sudden, the road got steep, very STEEP. I could not possible cycle this steep. I am guessing it was somewhere around 35%. It was so steep that even walking was fairly difficult. This is where I realized that this was a hard core road no shit. On top of that, there was no GPS signal here.
124km, 8h16, elevation 2850m
I dedicated this ride to a very special location, called Chuandong road. I had heard from one of my Fengyuan friends that there was a tiny road going from Taichung 47's 10km mark all the way to the Dadong Police station at Daxueshan mountain. I had heard that this road was very steep and super hard core. So I wanted to do it! I had also checked some blogs and I had some basic understanding of what I was about to face. With the Chinese New Year week, I also had time for this ride.
The people in the blogs were riding MTB's but the closest I could get to an MTB would be my Sirus. So I grabbed my flatbar, bike cam and headed out. For this ride, I wanted to do more of recording today. This would a legendary ride! I headed out early in the morning and I cycled from Shalu to Dongshi. I searched for that Family Mart that indicated the beginning of Taichung-47. I used my bike cam for some pictures here. These are snapshots of Taichung-47:
It was tranquil this morning
There were microphones playing music and nationalistic themes here.
Gently this road was ascending and leading to a more tranquil area
Betel nut trees at my right
The road was getting narrower
More uphill
Almost at my checkpoint
This car did not leave a lot of space for me
After ten kilometers I was at the starting point. I saw that giant slope and I was thinking: oh yeah! Let the games begin! The funny part is that I did Taichung-47 just the day before and when I saw that slope I was thinking that I should do it better sooner than later. Nice that it turned out to be the next day.
I switched off the picture mode and got the camera rolling for some nice footage of my conquest of Chuandong road.
I started recording and I faced the challenge. Due to my recording, I only took a few pictures here. However, the first part was doable. It was a super tiny road full of rocks and sand but it was manageable on my flatbar road bike. Btw, you can see all ten clips I made here at my Youtube channel,. Just type 穿棟道路 and it will pop up.
All of the sudden, the road got steep, very STEEP. I could not possible cycle this steep. I am guessing it was somewhere around 35%. It was so steep that even walking was fairly difficult. This is where I realized that this was a hard core road no shit. On top of that, there was no GPS signal here.
This is where it was getting super steep, and I mean incredibly steep! I had never witnessed anything like it.
I could only walk here, and even that turned out to be difficult. But this tranquil little forest road was super cool!
Very strange, there was one blue truck coming down this hill. I hid as far away as I could but it was still difficult. Just look at the picture and you can see how steep it is!
After that steep section, the elevation became doable. It was still a good five km after this slope, but eventually I did make it to the Dadong Police station. It felt like a victory! A genuine discovery on my bike in the Taiwanese hinterland.
I went to the Dadong police station for some drinks. That is where the people from the blog went home, but my ride would only enter its second phase: climbing to 59km with my flatbar. Now that was something else. But honestly, the entire ride was a blessing today. I rarely have such conditions on this mountain.
Admittedly, it felt a lot tougher on my flatbar, especially with these wheels, but then again, I was relaxing not racing. The 20km mark meant that I had 30km of climbing ahead of me.
Man check that weather! It was becoming a fabulous week here.
A view down, quite scary...
The 33km blue bridge. It was a fairy tale day.
My cell phone is obviously not designed for high class pictures, but you get the idea. it was a fabulous day
What a DELIGHT of being out here. Heavenly!
At the 35km mark, I bought my ticket and I entered the third phase of the ride. I had a lunch here.
These leaves were too astonishing to let this picture go by
The last km were harsh but the views are just sooo spectacular here. This is the 45km mark, 5km from the summit. It is Formosa's central mountain range at its finest.
Elevation 2400, nice!
I made it to to 50km mark quite nicely and well ahead of my schedule. Good job. I had time left for some more exploring. I decided to go check at that Shenmu Holy Tree thing.
With my flatbar on the summit of Daxueshan, an achievement indeed. The downhill part with disc brakes would be fun!
Strangely enough, it was a very long descent to this Holy Tree and there were a lot of people. When I went back up, I accidentally hit a giant pothole, which caused my tire to pinch flat. At first I thought, no worries. I brought a spare tire. Let's fix this
But then I noticed that my inner tube was not long enough for it. I could not pump up my tire. In other words, I was fucked. Standing at the top of this mountain and no way to cycle home. SHIT!
Luckily in life you can count on friends. Liao Shijie was kind enough to come and pick me up here. I will never forget that he helped me out that day. I would not have known how to do it otherwise. I did not get to enjoy the downhill section, which ended the day a bit negatively. But the Chuandong part was legend! So all things considered, still a good day to be outside.
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