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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Blog Posts and Travel Notes


Here are a few interesting travel posts:

Personally, I love the highways in the interior: the northern cross-island highway, the central cross-island highway, and the southern cross-island highway (they’re more roads than highways). The scenery along these roads is wonderful, and you can check out places like the Alishan region. The mountains of Taiwan are, in fact, riddled with narrow and fascinating roads that seem to go everywhere and nowhere. My favorite thing by far in Taiwan is just to hop on my scooter and go driving around the mountains. Most of the roads aren’t even on any maps, and you can just pick a road and see where it goes. You end up having all kinds of adventures.
  • Ronin on a Bike recently visited from Japan and blogged a bit about the experience.
Dropped off my hardhat then started on my journey south. Could quickly get on to Route 193 towards Hualien. Nice empty coastal road, including through a graveyard the size of a small town, with a strong tailwind and speeds up to nearly 60 kph. Just a couple of busy kilometers through Hualien centre, then a couple of punctures before getting back onto Route 193 alongside the River Siouguluan. Almost no cars on this route on this Sunday, but fairly good road quality and frequent "cycle rest stops" where you can fill up with water and use the bike pumps.

Fulong Station marks the start of the Old Caoling Bikeway and as you can see is quite busy.

On the right there you’ve got lunchbox places to eat at and there are numerous bike rental places scattered throughout the immediate vicinity of the station.

If you are riding down to Fulong Station or come by car down Route number 2 along the coast, this is the intersection you want to stop at to turn right;

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Other Links:
  • Red Kite Prayer on accumulating equipment.
  • VeloNews with a look at the impact Highroad had on cycling. Without Taiwanese sponsor HTC, the team folded at the close of the 2011 season.