Back Roads: Off Snow Mountain

Somewhere around the 14km marker on Xue Shan Rd (雪山路) there is a tiny lane that splits off along side the Changhua Telecom building. I have passed this road numerous times and always wondered about veering off to give it a shot. The usual reasons had always prevented me from doing that route; time...purpose...fuel...water...legs.....

I was out of excuses and figured I would give it a try. Honestly, my greatest fear is that I would be hiking my bike on impossible grades in the heat, without a clear path to civilization. This is a real fear in some parts of Taiwan. Everything may look dandy on a map, but become a totally different can of worms in the field.

I also liked the risk.



I completed the lower sections of lazy mountain switchbacks through the dazzling greens where the fruit orchards meet the forest. I always love the Daxue Shan Rd. for its open views across the Dajia River and alluvial plain. Local spaces that I know as shadowy clumps of concrete shops and townhouses shrink into the landscape. On a clear day Taichung and its surroundings can be seen from the southern side of the mountain. You can even look out into the Taiwan Strait.

The usual route is to keep climbing to the end of the road as the neighborhood practice climb for Wuling Pass or Alishan.

This route has a bit of a different character.



The immediate departure from the main road immediately offers up the goods on a slight descent. The area is shaded by tall trees of the forest that offer sanctuary for wildlife. I almost ran over a pheasant within the first 100m of roadway.



While the roads are not glass smooth, they are not unridable. There is an ultimate sense of quiet. I believe I did not see a car for over an hour of riding.



The road flattens out along cedar lined slopes over Dajia. There are a couple campgrounds along the way and a leisure farm at the end of one spur from the main road, so keep left when you come to an intersection.



This road feels like a portal into another world. One could easily imagine being on a lonely road deep in the forest of some other country. It is hard to believe you are still in Taiwan.

After a couple more kilometers through



The farm areas open up the northern slope of the mountain and reveal the full spectrum of central Taiwanese landscapes. The entire ride provides a 300 degree sweep of the areas below Daxue Shan from Taichung to Dahu and out into the mountains.



Most of the ride is perfectly fine for staying on the bike. Even a road bike can handle the terrain just fine.

The only part that poses a problem is the final descent. I found it to be mostly unrideable. the gradients were simply too steep for too long to feel safe. A short hike and I was back in a rideable location that eventually links to the high point of  the Route 47 (東崎街). The rest is a marvelous ride back to Dongshih for a satisfying day of riding without giving up the entire day. It offers a feeling of having stepped out of normal expectations for a brief vacation in an entirely different place before returning--a get away.

Cycle Route 4173786 - via Bikemap.net

Fighting Da Hsueh Shan: A Study in Taiwan Summer Cycling

Regular readers may know that, for this rider, Da Hsueh Shan, the 28km of climbing out of the Dajia River Valley, is a mountain of disappointment. This is the climb that, on paper, shouldn't be anything extreme... and yet... every time I ride this mountain it seems things go smoothly. This is the climb where my other orange bike cracked the head tube. This it the climb where I ran out of gas while training for Wuling last year. This is the climb where I ran out of water on a surprisingly sweltering winter morning. This is the climb I have never felt I have made to feel "easy". 


After completing this ride I could only reflect upon how typical it was for a ride in the Taiwanese summer. The first thing to know is that the only predictable thing about a Taiwanese summer, is that Taiwanese summers are wildly unpredictable. 


I regularly get requests from riders thinking about visiting Taiwan and wondering if the weather will be suitable in the summer when most people have vacation. It is a hard question to answer as there are dry summers and wet summers. Summers are always hot and humid, but I find it completely manageable as long as I am moving and generating a little self-propelled A/C. 


Here is how this particular summer ride panned out. 



I woke up early to get a jump on the day's extreme temperatures. In the humidity a slow climb can be simply torture in the direct sunlight. 


Summertime really doesn't give a rider much of a choice. You can either fight the climbs or fight the wind. Despite the boon of an eventual tailwind, the flats are a swirl of stiff crosswinds and the dreaded headwind from the south. I find winds to be more demoralizing than the hills because when you eventually get to the top of the hill you feel like you accomplished something. When fighting a wind, you just have a flat hill with no payoff. 


My legs creaked into service and I spent the entire way to Dongshih lamenting my inability to get the legs warmed up. 


As I started to get into rhythm around Dongshih, I turned up the road to Da Hsueh Shan... except it wasn't the road to Da Hsueh Shan. I swear the first few kilometers of Dong-qi Jie ( ) and Dong Keng Rd. look almost identical. It is easy to get sucked into the wrong task. Nothing against Dong-qi Jie, and I even contemplated just continuing to the DaAn River and up to the climbs above Tian Gou Village, but I really had a hankering to mount another campaign on Da Hsueh Shan. 


Of course, it was not lost on me that I had wasted a good chunk of morning coolness retracing my steps back to Dongshih, only to pedal four blocks over to the correct road. On the plus side, my legs were feeling better. 



I kept a good speed on the lower parts of the climb, the sun was getting hot, so I tried to manage my water and keep moving. I wasn't sure how well I was climbing until I passed a group of three riders and they were gone as soon as they appeared. I knew the important parts of the climb, so I managed my energy accordingly with the right balance of soft pedaling and heavy pedal work on the ramps. 


I had stuffed a mini water bottle in my jersey pocket for use if the only water supply up on the mountain  had been closed. Luckily it was open of business and I stopped to refill. After standing in one place for a few minutes I looked down and noticed a growing puddle of perspiration fed by the natural conduits on my arms and legs. I couldn't tell if my stop was a good thing or if the heat was making it unbearable. 



The morning traffic was picking up and the road was beginning to fill with caravans of luxury sedans and VW Transporter vans ferrying hikers up to the higher trails. 



I threw myself onward and upward. Except for a section of harder climbing through the bamboo and cedar groves, most of the painful stuff was over. I was fairly pleased with my progress, but I felt I could have done a better job last year when I was in excellent climbing shape. 


One of the nice things about having a climb like this so close, is that in 10km you can go from thick, steamy jungle, to the cool shade of cedar boughs. It is an entirely different biome and reminds me of my time growing up in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. 



Then, like as it always does, something happened on Da Hsueh Shan to bring my joyride to an end. 


First, I started to feel cramping in my right calf. It could have been the heat. It could have been the fact that the cleat was broken forcing me to ride different. It could have been that I needed to stretch a bit more. Or simply that I am not yet in shape to tackle this climb. But it happened. 


I kept playing with my position to ease the cramp away, but it kept pushing into my bones like a vise. As I tried to find a better angle to bring the cramping down, I guess I made the wrong move and triggered a severe cramp that locked my calf down tight. As I unclipped to straighten my leg out, my lower quad and hip seized up as well. This is not good at any time, but especially bad in the middle of a climb when there you can't seize the momentum to buy time to safely coast to a stop. 


I was a fraction of a fraction of a moment from tipping over onto my side, unable to unclip. Every rider with clip less pedals has had moments like these when you realize you need to unclip. The face is flushed with a wide-eyed expression of panic as the mind and body race for enough balance and poise to safely dismount. 


I straightened my leg out and spent some time to stretch under the shade of the forest. About the time the cicadas grew bold enough to start buzzing away I was back underway up to the 22km mark. My calf was still sore and threatening to flare up again. The goal was to punish my legs, so I was resolute in continuing to the end. 


Then, I noticed the blue sky and puffy clouds had been replaced with a matte grey blanket of cloud cover. It looked like rain, and the last place I wanted to be in the rain was up on a mountain. 



Since something always happens to me on Da Hsueh Shan, I took the cramping and rain clouds as all the evidence I needed to turn tail and go for home. 


Welcome to the Taiwanese summer. It was still morning and I was already charging home in a mad dash to beat the rain. 


I took the descent pretty slow as the oncoming drivers were merciless in their occupation of the entire roadway. Several cars were ferrying bikes up the mountain. I have no clue where they ride when they get there. The road wasn't in really great shape anyways. There were pits, ruts and potholes dotting some of the best sections. I probably had my tires overinflated as well, leading to an amplification of each bump. I read the braille on the roadway with its message to take it a bit slower.


Once I reached Dongshih, I turned back to see the entire mountain had been consumed by an obvious rain cloud that was fast approaching. 


I realized I had to leave everything on the road before Taichung and turned as large a gear as I could manage in my race against a downpour. 


My quads burned white hot as I stayed on the big ring (53) for each climb on the way to and through Hsin She, continually downshifting to test the low end of my engine for enough grunt to outpace the winds. 


I also knew that I was in the red and there wasn't enough raisin bran in the system to keep it up. 


Sprinkles dotted my face and I contemplated calling it quits at a 7-11 where a nice cold ice cream might make the hurt go away, but Taichung looked clear so I kept the wheels on the road. 


I slid down the Route 129 to Dakeng and gave every last bit of energy pushing top speed to Beitun Rd. 


The legs were practically numb with exhaustion. I was done. Cooked. Finished. There was no more. My legs had been running on empty and every last bit of glycogen had been put to work getting me home. 


I ambled through the streets of Taichung no faster than a granny at the market. My legs were pulsating in oscillations between heat and soreness. 


I never did see the rain. It never arrived in Taichung and I have no clue if it drenched the hills over Dongshih or if it simply covered us with just enough spittle to inspire fear of a downpour. 


That is the game we play every summer. Can I bear the heat and get home with a decent ride in my pocket before the skies open up and force me to disassemble the bike to dry the bearings? 


I can't wait for Fall. 

A Hill Too Far: Overreaching On Da Xue Shan

Yesterday I thought I would teach my legs a lesson they'd never forget and I was poised to climb Da-xue Shan (Great Snowy Mountain).

Recently, my training has focused on sustained climbing and endurance building. These two aspects of my cycling seem to have suffered the most during my down time from my injury.

I had a massive day last Sunday climbing in some high heat and then I spent the past few days pushing around boxes of books to move to our new apartment. Physically, I am beat.

My hips and lower back felt tight. My legs felt dead. I went in for a massage, and it helped a little, but my hips still felt wound up tight. I knew I was not up for what I had been envisioning as my assault on Da-xue Shan. It always feels so much easier in the imagination. I hoped after a few kilometers my legs would warm up and maybe that was all I needed. I was wrong.

I pushed along to the Hou-Feng trail feeling ok, but I overinflated my tires, so not as smooth as I would have liked.

The Hou-Feng trail is one of Taichung's showcased leisure bike trails that is coated with a speed-robbing coating that makes it feel like you are riding through Molasses Swamp at maximum effort. Maybe Taiwan is so technologically advanced, they have a secret plan to steal energy from cyclists and use it to power unicorn farms.

I huffed on through to Dong Hshih and began climbing Dongkeng St. toward the top of Da-xue Shan. The cross winds didn't do much to help things either.

I have done this route several times and this time felt only slightly better than the first. I just kept pushing and trying to play mind games so that I wouldn't think about the soreness. I thought Da-xue Shan would be great with its gentler grades than the Route 136.

It was getting late, so I turned around at 3300ft. Nowhere near my goal, but good enough for me. I was riding like crap anyways.

My body had an adverse reaction to all this. I had overreached.

Overreaching is the phenomenon in endurance sports where the body reacts to the repeated stresses of hard training with fatigue.

If the "bonk" is stage 1, and normal fatigue is stage 2, then overreaching is stage 3. The next step in the progression of feeling like crap from exercise is overtraining. Overtraining can last for weeks or even months and can severely limit one's athletic improvement. The body feels under assault and rather than strengthening to combat the physical stresses, it works to conserve and protect itself from those stresses. The last step on the scale may be pathological fatigue and illness.

I will dial it back a little to recover and keep the improvements coming.

Da Xue Shan Climb (大雪山): My Last Ride on My Beloved Steed

For this chilly beginning of the New Year, I thought I would not stray too far in case I got too cold or something. I knew I wanted to do a bit of climbing after a two week lay off from any real riding.

I figured the 5000ft. of Daxue Shan would be perfect. Still, I wasn't sure how cold it would get up on the mountain.

I have done this ride a few times, so it was fun to see the change between seasons.

My first order of business was making sure I'd be warm enough. I bundled up in my cold weather gear and about 10 minutes out the door I was plenty warm.

By the time I got to Dong Shih, where I planned to really start my effort, I was even a bit toasty.

I started up at a pretty good clip, but I tried not to get too enthusiastic. I didn't know how long my legs would hold up.

All my landmarks just buzzed along in no time and I was feeling pretty happy with myself... especially after a period on not riding.

In no time my arm and leg warmers were in my jersey pockets. My long-finger gloves were replaced with my worn short-finger gloves. My jacket came off and I was rolling up my base-layer sleeves.

As I made it up to the 4000ft level I was feeling the climb in my legs, but had plenty left. I still heard a pit of noise coming from my bike and stopped to check out the source.

That is when I noticed a hairline fracture in my Head Tube.

That was the end of my ride. I gingerly paced my descent to avoid any surprise potholes, while I rehearsed breaking the news to my wife and friends.

I was also conscious of the fact that it would be our last ride together and did my best to enjoy it. She has been the perfect steed and it is sad to have ridden our final road together.

For our last 1/2 km home I attempted one more full sprint to the front door.