November 28, 2014: A Wuling ride with Heinrich, my German class student

Garmin Activity: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/641198632

133 km, 6h52, elevation 3332m

My first ride up to Wuling was less than two weeks ago and there is unmber two! A student of my German class said that he would be riding Wuling on Friday. He asked if I could join him. His father was driving the car back from Nantou to Taichung. I happened to be off work that day, so I accepted his offer.

Heinrich would start cycling as 6 am in Puli and his father told him that he should make it within six hours. If he managed to pull it off, his father would buy him a road bike. So I had to be at the top at twelve, which meant that I would have to be in Puli by let's say seven am. And that again meant that I would have to leave Shalu no later than 4 am. Crazy right? But I still did it! I started cycling at 03:49 am. 

I went from Shalu to Longjing, Dadu, Zhanghua, Fengyuan, Caotun, Guoxing on to Puli. It was a long ride in complete darkness, but the fact that I had done it before did help. I was less afraid. Nevertheless, cycling along Hwy 14 in the night is still a creepy sensation. Here is a picture of what that was like..

Admittedly, it took a lot of dedication to do this. It is eighty km to Puli with elevation gain. Clearly this would not happen every week.

When I was in Puli it was already daylight. I did not repeat my big mistake from last time, i.e. having a way too big breakfast. This time I just ate enough to feel fit, nothing more. It did make a big difference. \Also the fact I now had a 32T cog made a huge difference on the steeper sections. One downside was that it was not completely adjusted yet. It kept swapping between the 28T and 32T cog.

The ride itself went smoother and the feeling was a lot better than the previous ride. I did not make it to Wuilng by twelve, but seven km before the summit, I did run into that student. Funny story actually, he was riding S shapes and swearing that this road was undoable. I approached him and said HI HEINRICH. He was like WHAT!!! Unbelievable. Hahah so funny. I gave him some water and then I continued to the top.

At Kunyang, I stopped for a brake and one of the tourists was kind enough to take a picture of me.

Then I made it to the summit, where I waited for Heinrich. When he showed up we had pictures together.

The guy in the middle was one of his friends, who was already at the top when I arrived.

Heinrich did not make it in six hours, but there is always next time!

Then his father drove the three of us back to Taichung where we had dinner. During the ride we talked a lot about Taiwanese politics and history. He was impressed to learn that I had such a thorough knowledge of this area. After the meal I cycled back to Shalu, which added another 30 km. So in total I still did around 160km today.