body{background-attachment: fixed ! important; }

Monday, March 29, 2010

Ba Gua Shan--139 (大彰路)


Often, when a person first starts cycling, they go through a complex and passive aggressive relationship with hills. You start out realizing that hills were so easy to climb when you were an eight-year-old and now, as an adult, the mild rollers are laboriously difficult. We all harbor our secret shames on hills we failed at that now seem to melt away beneath us. I know my shames and elevation failures. I have to pass them all the time. It is not uncommon to start out avoiding hill climbs to avoid the pain and the shame of walking a bike up a climb as cars pass. No 加油s and garlands from passing cars. You so badly want to climb, and dream about going to the far-off hilly places, but you know you would just fail and hobble home. As you get a little stronger you start attacking hills with more success and rather than avoiding the hill climbs, you look for every opportunity to make a climb. Every ride must have a hill or there is an empty feeling for the lack of accomplishment. Then, once this phase passes and you gain confidence that you can take ANY climb, you become more at ease with any type of ride with more mixed terrain. One such even route around Changhua is the 139 over Ba Gua Shan 八卦山.

Changhua Bank

With this ride I always start at the base in Changhua city near the banking district of Japanese Era Changhua. There is an old Kendo dojo near the start of the climb which has recently been restored. During the latter part of the Japanese colonial period, Japanese and Taiwanese boys were often trained in Kendo to learn how to better incorporate themselves into the militarist vision of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Kendo Dojo

The climb starts out steep, but it doesn't last too long. You can ride past the gaudy temple at the top with the gigantic buddha. This was formerly a major Shinto shrine that, like most Shinto shrines, was transformed under the Chinese Nationalists into something far less threatening. Also along the route for a true Sunday In Hell, is the Taoist Hell amusement park; a funhouse-like walk through the horrors of Taoist Hell.



Sprawling Family Farm

The road crests and there is a nice descent past scrapped military surplus and scenic lookout stations. At the bottom take the left turn and it leads to a long, straight, sustained climb that goes past a home for geriatric soldiers who followed the Kuomintang to Taiwan. Be careful because ambulances rush in and out of that place on a regular basis.

A Strange Taiwanese Insect

At the top of the hill there is an intersection that either heads Right, to Changhua, or Left to the crest of Ba Gua Shan. The left turn has a nice descent along a shady road and up another hill where you can take a left or right down the 74甲 , which is a great descent if you like speed. It is straight and steep. Left goes right back to Taichung and left empties out into the Changhua plain. I like to go straight.

A Pineapple

The Changhua-139 undulates along the ridge top past scenic tea and pineapple farms. This is road has been designated as a recreational cycling road and there are bike supply stores that pop up infrequently along the route.

Bike Route

There are a couple places to abandon the ride early, but the road continues until it empties out into Nantou from Song Bo Ling (松柏嶺). The right turn down Feng bai Rd. (豐柏路). A gorgeous treelined descent into some little tea village where they like to come out and gawk at foreigners. Don't stop. Keep going down the hill. This is a speedy gem of switchback heaven.

Tea Farms of Songboling

At the bottom of the hill you can turn right and trace the base of the hill all the way back to Changhua. Another option is to go straight to Yuan lin and take the Highway 1 back.

Either way it is easy to make this a substantial ride. Easily over 120km if you go all the way. It can also make a quick route if you have other things to do later. You can abandon the ride at several points along the way and come back on the Highway 3 through Wufeng or Caotun.
The Spanish Inquisition!!!

The whole ride on top of the hill offers scenery galore and enough variation to mix things up. The return is flat and speedy for a little bit of everything.

9 comments:

  1. I seem to remember a steep road that goes up Baiguoshan from Shetou in Chanhua Cty and down the other side toward Nantou. Seemed pretty dicey on a scooter, but would probably be awesome on a bike.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Those are some great roads back there. There are a couple I have yet to ride that look awesome. Real forearm busters.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've been to countless Shinto shrines, in Japan of course, as well as vestiges of them in Taiwan, and with the exception of the notorious Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo, I can't say that I've ever come across one that was even remotely "threatening".

    ReplyDelete
  4. Blast! There goes my first guess. You are obviously not Chiang Kai-shecks who was known to suffer from horrible night terrors involving bloodthirsty Shinto shrines hiding in the closet, ready to devour his supply line of Lent-Lease graft. Booga Booga Booga!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. From I understand, a good many of the Shinto shrines in Taiwan remained more or less in their original states until 1972 (when Japan switched diplomatic recognition to the PRC), after which a number of them were converted into Martyrs' Shrines. Now that's scary!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Many of the major ones were destroyed circa 1950. The minor ones were turned into Martyrs' Shrines when the localities had the money. The ones that survived were generally in places that couldn't raise the funding to replace the old shrines with any alternative. They still managed to deface most references to the Japanese Emperor.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ah, like this one:
    http://kaminoge.livejournal.com/48437.html
    or this one:
    http://kaminoge.livejournal.com/26246.html
    or this one:
    http://kaminoge.livejournal.com/121283.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. Exactly!

    The Tong Hiao Shrine is fantastic. If you go into the inner courtyard of the Longshan Temple in Lukang, you can find the old Japanese lanterns. I always consider this to be the most interesting feature.

    Somewhere I have a picture of the Shinto shrine on Orchid Island. I have to go biking out there so I can have an excuse to write about it.

    I have a fantastic article somewhere about this and the effort the KMT went through to ensure Japanese sites could not be protected as "historical relics and antiquities". They places a 100 year limit on historical structures to explicitly exclude the Japanese structures. I found it highly ironic how they violated this construct in defending CKS Memorial Hall.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The large Matsu temple here in downtown Fengyuan also has several of those lanterns in the front, as well as a torii gate at the back.

    If you could post that article, or at least a link to it, that would be great!

    ReplyDelete