Miaoli 23 and Me: The DNA of Cycling in Taiwan (苗23, 苗119, 苗38)

With Lunar New Year coming to a close, I thought I needed to get out and put one last exclamation point on my winter of riding. I can't stand repletion in my riding, and therefore, I am always looking for new roads and routes to try. Taiwan seems to have an unlimited number of combinations of the most incredible roads to choose from, and experience has taught me, that no matter how messed up Miaoli has been with most everything else, when it comes to marking roads for cycling, they know what they have some imagination.

Last year I pressed my luck for a wild ride along the CPC Petroleum Rd. that runs along the spine of Miaoli's foothills. For the past year I have been eying the hills to the north of the Highway 6, which runs to Gongguan (公館), and every time I drive the No.3 Freeway or take the HSR, I keep looking out over those hills to figure out where they might be so I can ride them. I have already ridded the 苗26-2, and I have done the 苗22. Both are fine roads. The 苗124 to the Shitan Reservoir is a favorite. But those roads simply flop over the hills one side to the other. I was looking to cut the hill right down the middle. The answer could be found in the 苗23.



I headed out along the Highway 3, my usual corridor into Miaoli County, and kept things on autopilot as I made my way over each familiar roller before Dahu. I stopped to refuel at the 7-11, just on the northern edge of Dahu where the Highway 6 connects to Gongguan. It wasn't too much further that I read the fine print on a series of inconveniently bent and twisted signs, that I found my 苗23 at 八角坑.



I could hear dogs barking not too far off, so I gingerly made my way into the hills on full alert. Luckily, the dogs were all tied up (You can never be too cautious) and I slid quietly along some wonderfully paved roadway.



The opening salvo sounded more like a whimper and I thought I may have picked a disappointing low spot in the topography. A few fields here and there and a little bamboo amounted to the best of the treats at the lower end.



I soon realized I was having to work a bit harder beneath a gray and green lichen covered rock.



It was about this point that the climbing began.



It first started out with a tease. A ramp here, a pitched climb there followed by a levelled bend and then repeat.



The foreplay soon came to an end as the hill was simply going to throw introductions to the wayside and simply dive into it without even a handshake.



I stomped on the pedals and slowly heaved my way higher toward the summit. It was unrelenting.



Unlike most roads that promise a reprieve behind the next bend, this road just threw another dose of steepness.



I slithered upward through bamboo groves and tall forest. I would occasionally catch a glimpse of the mountains in the distance, then the road would loop back into itself and I would disappear under the shade of the forest.


The weather had threatened to rain all morning and would spit raindrops in annoying spurts of indecisiveness. But as I humped my bike up that hill, the weather seemed to clean up.



At last I hit the summit and took some time to enjoy the scenery. I noticed the road has been marked as part of the Gongguan Challenge and deservedly so. That is a fantastic hill for those interested in testing their climbing chops.



At the top there are several options. I continued for a minute or two and hooked up to Bo-ai Agricultural Rd. Apparently the 24-1 goes to the same place. But the 24-1 does not go past a Taiwanese hillbilly shack and all the fun that entails... with the cat calls.


Bo-ai was a less refined road, but it was fine. It follows the ridge line through fruit orchards for almost a kilometer before plunging downward.



The road cuts through the skinny cedars and deep pink cherry blossoms as it traverses between peaks.



The descent is enough to cook BBQ of the rims. A safe descent and a quick descent shall never be paired on this road.



Much, much too soon, I tumbled out onto the Highway 6 near one of Taiwan's few oil wells and was keeping an even pace toward Gongguan.



My plan had only been as far as Gongguan. I didn't know what kind of shape I'd be in by the time I hit bottom, so I kept my options open. I thought I might try one of the 3X roads that slice through the hills of Miaoli and empty out by the strait. I looked up and down the map and finally decided the Route 38 had enough shape to hold my interest. and I rolled along the 119 to the foot of the hill across the bridge from Gongguan.



The first ramp just about tore my quads from the bone, but luckily it was a short climb with confusing enough signage to give me a moment to rest and argue with a local over the correct way to go (I was right). I hoped in the Route 38-2 toward Jiuhushan and the low altitude tea fields.



This climb was as bad, if not worse than the last one. Holy unrelenting pain, Batman! I couldn't believe this too had been designated for bicycles. Most cars were struggling to make it to the top. It was an essay in vertical. What a work out. Climbers, come.... This is your road.



I reached the summit and after some meandering through the farms and through the crowd of a tourist temple, I arrived at another feast for the senses.



Western Taiwan has never looked so wild. All the way to the ocean, green, knife-edged hills lined up in rows.



The descent is a remarkable feat of technical descending. I probably would have had a little more fun, but the road was still quite wet, so I kept things sane. This is an awesome hill to attack from either side.

I slung myself past the Flying Cow farm and onto the Highway 1. I was very conscious that I hadn't been on the Highway 1 for good reason and couldn't imagine why the government had insisted it become the keystone of the round-island route. I just tried to take the industrial wasteland in stride and my mind wandered toward taboo subjects, such as, how I had been over so many gnarly roads recently without a flat.

Then I had a flat in Dajia. I was able to pull a shard or tetnus infused steel out of my tired before changing the tube and heading out.



My legs were about as dead as they have been in a very long time. So I rewarded them with one last climb up the back way into Taichung beneath the No.3 and No.4 Freeway interchange. That was mainly so I could privately suffer up the last hill into Taichung without an audience.

Just as I started the climb, the sky opened up and I got soaked.

Yes, if not for that flat tire near Dajia, I would have made it home dry. Curse that Highway 1. It is an abomination.

Create Routes or Search for a route from millions at MapMyRide

Gas Giants?: A Crude Ride Along Taiwan's Petroleum Parkway (中油專用道路)

Cycling and fossil fuels seem to go together like oil and... er....

Anyway, for my first ride of the Lunar New Year holiday I decided to take my quest for the little road northward into Miaoli County for a chance to bisect the range of hills between the Highway 3 and the coast.

I have taken most of the major and minor routes that traverse these ridges-- the 130, the 60, 24, 26, and the others.... But I wanted to see if it was possible to climb to the top and follow the ridge line for the length of the hills. It looked like a project. Now that I have completed this ride and reported on it, I have saved any of you curious souls out there from having to unnecessarily tempt fate. If you have ever chugged up the Highway 3 between Jhuolan and Dahu, and wondered what kind of roads might be etched along those emerald peaks... look no further for I have come down the mountain with such knowledge.



The day started out clear and promising, but Miaoli is the meteorological gateway to Taipei and can quickly transition from sunny and clear to gloomy, cold and wet.



As I passed Dahu, I saw a road that might provide an early ascent to the ridge I was gunning for. I crossed the Bi'an Bridge and immediately launched myself upward along never-ending ramp of high percentage pain. The ramps never seemed to end.

Eventually I slumped over my handlebars at the top, only to find a monastery and a walking path in the direction I had hoped to take. Sometimes Google Maps is too optimistic and Apple Maps too pessimistic. It can be a coin toss as to whether a road is actually passable by road bike or merely a hiking trail.



I had wasted a tremendous amount of glycogen on a gamble that didn't pay off and I did;t need any more dead ends complicating my ride. I was about to enter the unknown and I needed a little more assurance that I was not about to commit precious time and fuel on discovering Taiwan's best, lost dead end.



My hope was that the CPC Industrial Road (中油專用道路) would be my ticket to a hilltop tour of Miaoli County and a rendezvous with the Route 60 that would lead me out to a number of familiar roads that I could use to get home with the wind at my back.

The CPC Industrial Road starts just off the Highway 6 past Dahu at the point where the 72 Expressway disappears into the mountain below Gong Guan.

The road follows a terrestrial vein of liquid oil for the entire length of the hills between the Houlong and Da-an Rivers.

Oil was first discovered at the site in the 1860's and later exploited by the Japanese colonial administration. Today, Taiwan pumps 22,000 barrels of oil per day and refines its crude oil in four different refineries. This explains the refineries and petrochemical plants I have seen between Gong-guan and Toufen.



I knew I needed to be mindful of the road and there could be several service roads that lead to oil wells or other industrial sites. This kept me busy at my phone GPS and put a real drain on my battery life.



This really started out as a strange road. Aside from the hissing and steaming trees that had been rigged with misting nozzles to create an otherworldly effect similar to Tim the Enchanter, there were massive luxury properties with massive gates, a few imposing hostels, tiny farming shacks and several fenced off oil wells quietly littering the roadside.

I wondered if this road might be a total dud.



I nervously checked and rechecked my location and at the top of the hill I made the fateful decision to continue southward... just as a thick blanket of fog doused the area in a quiet, swirling chill.



The feeling was otherworldly as I slowly rolled forward into the clouds. The landscape seemed to have closed in on me and the forest ebbed and floated in and out of focus. I tried to stay glued to the road and not mistake the void for a rare patch of smooth tarmac.



Visibility was between 6 to 10 meters at most times. At one point I almost ran straight into a line of four ghosts hovering in a patch of brightly lit fog-- ghosts that turned out to be men from a work crew who had lost their truck in the fog. I was surprised a d relieved to see other human beings up there in those conditions and they were all so silent. I finally broke the eerie quiet with a question about the road conditions and was informed that the roads ahead are technically passable to Tongluo, but not recommended.

I have heard that before and found beautiful roads and brushed off the comment as something from a person who underestimates the powers of a bicycle.



Even more fog sifted through the tangled canopy above as I disappeared into a chunky path of fragmented cement, mud and ground cover. I dismounted a few timed to walk down descents that were too steep and degraded to ride safely. The last thing I needed was a broken collarbone in an area like that.



Somewhere in the tunnel of shadow and light, I surprised a true of macaques that woofed at me as I passed. It was enough to make me start whistling in the dark to ward off any more surprises. To make matters worse, my constant GPS checks had sucked my battery life down to 20% and I was still a long way from the familiar Route 60.



As soon as I turned a corner and thought I was getting somewhere, I found I was on the wrong road. My GPS was unstable in the terrain and I had plotted the wrong road. That led to a hike  through some orchard or another and up another road. I soon found I my road was blocked by a pack of angry dogs. Being true to Taiwan, the most aggressive of the bunch were a chihuahua that wanted a piece of my heel, and an ill tempered corgi. I was in no position to turn back and had to face off with a pack of unruly hounds. The owner came out and simply ignored the situation as he got into his truck. 

I was soon dropping off down the back of the hill in zero visibility with the hope that any more dogs would not come charging through the orchards to rip me apart in an area so desolate nobody would hear my screams. 

I saw an arrow spray painted on the road and followed it in the direction of the bigger road. It led me deeper and deeper into an eroding creek bed that I hoped would not be the only way out. After sparingly checking my GPS, I concluded that I had missed the real road and had to hike back up into the fogged-in orchard if I was going to have any hope of escaping before dark. 



I emerged from the forest and back out into orchard land. I could hear a chainsaw somewhere in the whiteout and felt some relief before a hellhound burst out of a hidden driveway to send me into a panicked sprint toward the unknown up ahead. 

Boom! I rolled across the path of the rest stop at the top on the Route 60. I knew where I was. Just as the fog became a wet fog, I was in familiar territory. 

I slid down the hill toward the Route 119 and the Route 49 until I was limping along through Sanyi on the Highway 13 toward home. 

I am sure there were some fantastic views from up there. The roads were horrendous and a complete safety hazard. A road bike does not belong up there at all... and it was a hell of an adventure... in retrospect. 

And now I know what is up on that hilltop.