Changhua Route 137 Is History

Liu Family Shrine

After two weeks off the bike, I met up with Michael Turton for a looper around the Tri Mountain Area of Bagua, Hu, and Xiang mountains in Changhua County. They're really more like various parts of one really long hill, but it makes for a nice day of pedaling.

Why Do You Ask, Two Pigs Fucking?

I have spent a lot of time over the past several weeks preparing for the Wuling Challenge, so now that that is over, it was just nice to have a lazier day in the saddle to poke around and find things. The purpose of this ride was more historical than fitness oriented.

Michael to Ershui

We headed out down the ugly part of Highway 3 into Mingjian, where we hooked right toward the town of Ershui. The roads on that end are absolutely wonderful. Lots of fruit farms and treelined lanes.

Christianity is a common sign of an indigenous comminuty

I was interested to make it back to Ershui as I am interested in its history as an indigenous "refuge" village, where the people of Davale (Beinan) would withdraw to in times of war or during headhunting season.

On this occasion I think I may have better located the former bamboo palisade. There are numerous other clues around if one just takes the time to look for them.

Savage Creek

We continued along the Route 137 at the base of the hill and stopped to check out the Liu family compound.

Michael tells it as it is

There are still several fine examples of mid and late Qing architecture and artwork.

The Liu family rides

Although the family shrine has been "restored", a few things remain from earlier days when this large Hakka family was trying its best to eke out a living and negotiate with other local power brokers.

Panels

There are still Liu family members living in the compound, but mainly from older generations.

Longyen Season

We failed to find one of the old kilns near Huatan, but it was a good ride nonetheless despite the steady headwind from all sides.

Double The Fun

We headed back to Taichung, but not before witnessing another amazing display of thinly veiled innuendo.

Kou Yao Ding (The character Yao uses a Jiao in it.. coincidence... or not?)

On my way back I ran into a rider named Paul on his classic Colnago Conic. What a beautiful looking bike. We rode a couple kilometers together to shoot the shit about bikes before I was off for home.

It was just a real nice day for riding despite the heat.

Paul

The 137 to Davale and Back (151km)

In preparation for a lengthy post I have in the works, I decided to push my luck with the weather and make a loop through Douliu in Yunlin County.

I started out having to change my inner tube as the patch I had used last week was slowly leaking. I replaced the tube with another lying around... only to discover it was the leaky tube from Thursday (Lesson: get rid of leaky tubes). I changed the flat less than a kilometer from home and continued on my way.

With all the delays I decided to save time at the expense of a little fatigue by going straight up the Highway 74, which does a direct shot over Bagua Shan, in Changhua. My goal was to hook up with Route 137 on the other side and ride down to an area near Er Shui, which had been known as the village of Davale during the period of Dutch colonization and administration.

I found the area I needed to find and met some locals. After an enlightening discussion with several people, I headed out past one of the few recreational bikeways I really like. The Ershui Bikeway is actually a really nice trail that goes around the base of Xiang Shan to Mingjian. It follows the old railroad through some great farm country.

I still had some work to do on my bike-top ethnographical tour and so I headed toward Douliu 斗六.

In Douliu I cut through town and made my way down Taiping Street; a street of restored Japanese era buildings that has been turned into a shopping district with little boutiques and shops.

What I really enjoyed about this street is that it was a restoration and not a project where they replace the originals with a facsimile and then sell tourist goods.

Aside from the uniform signs outside the shops, the facades were painted and restored to give a glimpse of how Douliu may have looked during the 1920's and 1930's.

The most remarkable part is that these old buildings were allowed to continue to function as living retail space and not as tourist kitsch.

For more on the restoration of Japanese Era Taiwan, you can read an earlier post here.

As I left Douliu, I had to investigate another site under the bridge to Dounan. Nearby a work crew was busy harvesting potatoes.

It was soon time to turn into the wind for a long ride up the Highway 1 back home. Despite the effort, the going was slow. I had to just bear down and take the body blows from the headwind.

Closer to Changhua a very light drizzle began to fall making the ride more unpleasant.

With my research done for the day, I crawled through the door a little worse for wear.

Still, I am looking forward to putting this post together. It should be pretty ok.