Guan Dao Shan: Death Climb In-Sanyi-ty!

This time of year is a great time to teach the legs how to climb. With the northern monsoon pushing a steady wind from the north, the hills offer some respite in putting out a strong effort and actually accomplishing something. 

I had been eyeing a road for some time, but I never really had a great opportunity to follow it. I had been down the lower section several times, and each descent I always thought I wouldn't want to try climbing up that very hill. I wouldn't want to try it... until I actually did try it: The Fuxing Agricultural Road. 



The ride out of Taichung was a bit of a sleepwalker, with a group of cyclists rolling out for some mass event or another. 



I hoped to take a bit of a shortcut through the Houfeng Bike Trail, but it was blocked off by a marathon (the current sport dejure of Taiwan). I had to take a couple farm roads back to the Highway 3. 



Eventually I was back up on the Miaoli Route 52-2 along the southern end of the Liyutan Reservoir. This was where the ride really started. 

At the section beneath the dam where the 52-2, Miaoli 49 and 52-3 meet, I launched up the 52-3. Launch it the appropriate word as the road is a single lane of vertical abuse. It is one of those roads where you clip in and then hang about a mile out over the handlebars to keep the front wheel down. 

I bit and spit my way to the top and then, surprisingly, kept going. I did have to dismount once to let a car pass, but I was feeling great. 



The road dishes out a few more bumps before settling down high above a shady wetland that completely transforms the mood into something resembling tranquility. 



After another long, straight climb, I took a breather to orient myself on the GPS as I was heading into new territory. 



I was giddy and the road took an unmerciful leap along a carved out hillside. The whole space seemed ridiculous for a bike ride. I revelled in the obvious absurdity of the image I must have cast to passing farmers as I stomped and shifted my way between the occasional stair step in the paving. 



The higher I hot the more ridiculous the ramps became. I must have hit a dozen or more comically nasty sections. They never lasted too long, but the sense I was getting was that I would eventually be biking up a quarter pipe. 



I hooked into a corner and passed a derelict cemetery eerily blanketed in a soupy grey fog. The fog cleared for just a moment to reveal the reservoir below. 



I was in absolute heaven. Then the landscape shifted on me as rapidly as the click of a Viewmaster. A sloppy string of pavement slid along the side of a persimmon orchard. I couldn't figure out how they lifted so much flat road up the mountain. 



I was again enveloped by the chill of a wet fog that covered me until I was spit out in the middle of a parking area next to a haunted commode at the base of a hiking trail. 



I took the right hand turn and blazed along the dirty concrete path. Suddenly, a large eagle swooped out of the trees above the road just in front of me and swept the road with its talons. It did this two more times before flying off to Salisbury Hill or some other locale. 



I was having more fun on the bike than I had had in a very long time. There was adventure, wonder, absurdity, mystery and silence. 



I finally nailed a steady beat back to Taichung. But not before stopping to take a picture from the warm sunlight of the mountain I had just taken a bite out of. 

A highly recommended road for the local rider looking for something that will surprise. There are several more roads back there that I will be looking into in the near future. 

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