Been meaning to post on this topic, well, since July began. Time to knock it out.
First off, June was when I returned to cycling after essentially a year of no riding. Part of the catalyst for this return was my desire to run the Ironman 70.3 Taiwan Half-Ironman triathlon in Kenting this October. Cycling is a big piece of any triathlon, so to successfully prepare for it I need to be riding!
I also wanted to use cycling as a way to see parts of Taiwan that I so far I have missed. Up to now, that's been pretty much any place outside Kaohsiung and Taipei. Most of Taiwan!
My first few rides weren't really long enough to see much new ground - Kaohsiung is a large metropolitan area and it takes a while to even get out of town. The other part is that I had to figure out where to go, which roads or routes were more cycling-friendly than others (there aren't a lot that are very good in this regard inside of Kaohsiung, which is why I am glad that I have been able to get out of town on a few recent rides).
I started off with a little bit of hill action out near NSYSU campus and then heading south along the West Harbor bike path to the Dream Mall. This initial ride on June 5 was less than 20 miles, but I was feeling it since I had been off the bike for so long.
The following week I wanted to see if I could
find a way out of the city to the north, and also see if I could find Metropolitan Park, which my family had visited previously but I had yet to visit. (They liked it a lot and mentioned to me that it might be big enough to do some cycling in it.) I didn't manage to find the park (but would later in the month on another ride) and I discovered that the sprawl just goes on and on up that way...pretty much like east of the city (which I would also discover later). This ride was also less than 20 miles, and I didn't stop to take any photos.
On June 17, I decided perhaps south would be better than to the north. Heading south I finally found a crease in the city's defenses and managed to leave not only the city but also Kaohsiung County, crossing the Gaoping River into Pingtung County. I didn't stay long, but here are a couple photos from Sinyuan Township and that day's route:
Later that same week, I logged in my longest ride of the month, heading north and this time
successfully locating and reconnoitering Metropolitan Park. It's certainly a big park, probably twice the size of Kaohsiung's Central Park, but I don't think it is all that great for any sustained cycling - more room is required. (I do think that it would be a good place to do some long runs - the eastern portion is pretty flat with abundant shade, while the western half has some elevation changes (climbing) that would break up the monotony. Might be something I will use the park for later on.) The area just to the north of the park was interesting, though - essentially open streets with little traffic and pretty much no houses or businesses (looks like the area is waiting for development as the city expands, but now a good place to ride with little traffic). I happened upon the very modern and pretty campus of National University of Kaohsiung (looks a lot different than NSYSU!), then pushed on north to see how far I could get before I had to turn back due to time constraints. At some point I'd like to take a crack at riding to Tainan and back along this general path, but I think it would be best to do this by riding the MRT out as far north as possible (to avoid all the city traffic and stop-and-go riding that it requires) and then biking on from there. Problem is on weekdays you can't take a non-collapsible bike on the MRT until after 10AM, so it would have to be on a weekend (no such time restriction on the KMRT then). Developing...
So north was OK, south was good, what about east?
Easily the least-desirable - too many big trucks sharing the road, too much traffic, too much exhaust, although I did manage to find one interesting lead, out on the west bank of the Gaoping River, an actual separate bike path. I didn't have enough time to follow it very far, but I wonder if I kept heading south on it if it would connect with Highway 17 that I took to cross the Gaoping River at Linyuan Township earlier in the month? (the June 17 ride) I might ride back out to the east to check it out sometime, although it would be some pretty cruddy riding until I got back out to the river area.
My final ride of the month was on June 24, and this time I went west again, to Cijin Island. I got some great pics at the south end of the island where the big ships come in and folks like to fish from the breakwaters. Unfortunately, those pretty clouds up above were pregnant with water and
before I made it home they opened up on me. It's not bad, though, to ride half a dozen times over a few weeks and only get rained on once. Plus, it was a warm rain - felt nice!
For the month, it was nearly 12 hours of riding, good for about 157 miles - relatively small numbers that I hope to best in the coming months as I train for the October Half-Ironman! All in all, it was great to get back out on the bike, and I am finding that once I begin to know which way to head to find decent, or, God help me, even good places to ride in Southern Taiwan, I am really enjoying the cycling more and more!
Posted via email from gjsamps's posterous
