Riding When Sick: I'm Not Woozy... I'm... A ... Princess!

The title of this post was inspired by my friend's little daughter who uttered those priceless words before passing out after getting some medicine and a shot. I still love that story as I think of her eyes rolling into her head, asleep, after declaring herself royalty. That is how I am feeling today. Woozy!

Last weekend I did my first long ride since I returned from Seattle. Periodically I have a little allergy related asthma that a little puff from an inhaler takes care of. Maybe one episode per month tops. Since that last trip it has been every day and many times per day. The inhaler lost its effectiveness and I just felt like crap.

Yesterday I had enough and made a quick appointment with the doctor for after work. I walked in immediately upon entering the hospital and was having a consultation. The doctor prescribed a set of medicine to bring everything back under control, but the side effects are not the greatest for riding. One is a steroid (DOPING), another is an antihistamine. I got a couple of other things too. The side effects are insomnia, dehydration, wooziness, light muscle tremors, possible constipation and all that goodness.

Needless to say, I will still be doing the event this weekend, but I am highly disappointed I will not be feeling very competitive. The doctor says I can ride, but not to over do it. We shall see.

Frankly, I keep dreaming of gnarly climbs and not riding in the flats. I felt so good climbing last weekend. I need more. Hopefully this will all blow over fast and I can get back to my routine. Huh!

The Road In The Air: Taiwan's "Other" Bike Movie

The hit bicycle movie, Island Etude may have served as the spark which ignited the bicycle trend that took Taiwan by storm between 2007-2009, but there was another bicycle movie that hit DVD racks about the same time. The Road in the Air was an aspiring Merchant Ivory film that never had a red carpet opening beyond the front door of the local Blockbuster, and deservedly so. Still, it is worth checking out if only for the satisfaction of seeing places you've biked depicted on film.

David's Review Of The Film

New Research May Lead To Better Cycling Routes in Taiwan

A recent paper published by two researchers from Taiwan's National Cheng Kung University seeks to improve infrastructure planning around popular cycling routes in Taiwan. The researchers analyzed survey data that divided riders by frequency (ability) and evaluated their calculous in choosing routes.

One major problem with the cycling routes the government has plotted around Taiwan has been the manner in which the routes are designed and allocated. Taiwan's cycling routes are often designed without consulting the community the routes are supposed to serve, and often lack many of the features that cyclists look for when choosing routes. Routes are designed in a top-down manner in which the central and local government mandates a route and it is built (often with political considerations in mind).

Another problem is the complete disorganization of cycling advocacy in Taiwan. There are few, if any, organized cycling advocacy groups the government can turn to for advice. It is not surprising in light of Taiwan's recent political history that Taiwan's cyclists avoid joining cycling advocacy groups that could act as a political force or may cross existing lines of political affiliation.

Click on the title for the full paper or simply read the conclusion at the bottom:

Estimating recreational cyclists’

preference on bicycle route facility

-Evidence from Taiwan

Ching-Fu Chen ,National Cheng Kung University

Pei-Chun Chen ,National Cheng Kung University

"CONCLUSION

This paper analyses recreational cyclists’ preference for attributes of bicycle route

facility in Taiwan. The SP method was conducted in which recreational cyclists were

asked to state their choice from three unlabelled bicycle routes’ alternatives on the

basis of their attributes. Choice modeling was applied to the collected data and

recreational cyclists’ preferences for each attribute are estimated. This study used

MNL model which include facility attributes and ASC interaction with recreational

specialization dimensions; the model captures the systematic heterogeneity in

recreational cyclists’ preference. Subsequently, LCM is used to account for

heterogeneity in the preference of bicycle route and facility attributes.

Empirical MNL results indicate that recreational cyclists prefer bicycle routes with

attraction along the route, basic facilities including toilet and simple maintain

equipment, tourist information center, and bike path. In addition, recreational cyclists

who have frequent participation in cycling are more likely to prefer bike route. For the

frequent recreational cyclist, bike route can provide diverse experience. Recreational

cyclists who take long time in cycling are likely to prefer restaurant service, and low

cognitive level in recreational specialization cyclists are more likely to choice leisure

route.

Using LCM with segment membership functions for predicting segment

membership of recreational cyclists, it allows for explicit identification of recreational

specialization concept. Moreover, LCM also improves the model fit to the data, and

allows for testing the impact of recreational specialization variable on segment

membership. As a result, high recreational specialization cyclists are more likely than

low recreational specialization cyclists to choice challenge and endurance grading

route.

From a managerial perspective, bicycle route should be classified according to

different group of recreational cyclist, for instance, riding experience, distance, slope,

etc. In addition, base on safety conscious, roadway type is very important attribute to

consider bicycle route. Bicycle path is separate from general roadway that cyclists can

use exclusively route. It can improve safety considerations for barriers to bicycle use.

From a long term perspective, increasing the number of recreational cyclists would

contribute to efforts to increase the number of commuting cyclists."

Also:

• Check out Bevco's impressions of her Taiwan Bike Festival trip.
• Wallstreet's laws for hit and run. Fund manager gets off on hitting cyclist.
• Mark Blacknell writes on Taiwan's cycling infrastructure.

Joe Knows Cycling: Cycling Around Taiwan

The wife and I went for a little recovery ride up to Dakeng, at the base of the foothills in Taichung. The big tree round-about makes a nice little destination to meet other cyclists.

While circling around the blogs I found this little gem from Oeshoe:

Joe's Cycling Around Taiwan Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5

Lots of great information here for anyone thinking about doing the same and lovely write-up as well.

Merida Cup

Well... I guess I will be doing the Merida Cup ride this Sunday. I haven't had much time to think about it, but it should just be a fun little ride around Changhua with a bunch of fellow cyclists.

Anyone else going to be there?

Link

Nantou 149: Climbing Through The Foothills

Over the past month I have hardly done any riding. Last weekend was a 60km reintroduction to my bike at a leisurely pace. November looks like another month with some limits on my free rides. I will do the Merida Cup next weekend, and then the weekend after that I will be forced to participate in a bit of disguised electioneering for a detestable candidate who happens to be our chairperson.

Therefore, I wanted to make this trip count. I wanted to go some place I had never ridden before.

I had been eyeing this route for a long time as it looked like it went right up a river valley, which, in Taiwan, can often mean some amazing scenery. Michael Turton was keen on the idea and we made a go of it. We decided to roll from Taichung up the 149 out of Zhu Shan in Nantou County.

It was pretty easy going the entire way down to Zhushan, but the traffic on Highway 3 always sucks. You can just see the start of the 149 on a little road off one of the major intersections. The road is also where the 49投 empties out off the Sanlinxi, beyond Lugu. That is a climb for anther day.

The 149 is light on traffic and heavy on scenery. Unfortunately I am still using my Nokia camera while the battle damaged Canon gets repaired.

Another nice thing about the lower end of the 149, is that it has not been transformed into another tourist hole, as it does closer to Gukeng and Meishan. People along the lower 149 are just living and working and doing their thing.

We passed the gate of the Deshan Temple (德山寺), which traces its genealogy to a temple constructed in 1765, has only been based in its current location within recent memory.

At the base of the temple we noticed a strange set of Christian and Han style graves scattered about at odd angles adjacent to another odd collection of graves and memorials. These little discoveries make the long rides worth every long hour of pedaling. I will save my commentary for another post.

What was really noticeable was the economy at work in the foothills. As we rode along the 149, the local economy shifted from rice farming, poultry and light industrial, to forestry products.
By forestry products I mean tea, coffee, fern, palm, betel, timber and other products that can not be easily manufactured on the plain or through wet farming. I think this has as much to do with Taiwan's social history as it does with the natural environment. I might seed the thought a little bit with the question, "How did these people get here to do what they are doing?"

After working our way higher into the foothills that lead up to Alishan, we took a right onto the gorgeous 158甲. The road is a steady incline, but not too steep... persistent. The climb had almost no traffic and was just peaceful climbing bliss... save for the dude in an excavator playing with dirt on the side of a cliff.

We screamed down the other side into Douliu in time for lunch before making our way back up the Highway 3. A nice alternate route is to take the 141 at the base of Bagua Shan and then the 152 to Ming Jian. This is a beautiful, tree-lined route that avoids the cement truck routes.

Unfortunately, in Mingjian we were approached by a pair of Mormon missionaries, who attempted to introduce us to their program and it cast a pall over the afternoon.

I am sure some of my readers will be offended, but in writing about Taiwan and matters that are cultural, I need to point out that missionary work, no matter who is conducting it, IS a colonial enterprise that can not be conducted without casting its object in a pejorative light. You can not seek someone's "transformation" without first determining that that person needs to be transformed or is lacking. It also implies the project of the missionary is capable of transforming their object into something subjectively "better". Furthermore, these projects do not just seek to transform the hearts and minds (souls), but they also contain a political component that seeks to motivate citizens to act on behalf of a larger organization and the goals of that organization. Proposition 8 in California was a very clear expression of that political motivation and it hurt lots of families. Religion is fine. The missionary enterprise is wrong. We should not seek to transform different cultures, but accept their difference.

It took some good hard riding with a group of Taiwanese riders to lift my spirits again.

To Be Continued...

Total distance: Just shy of a Century. 97mi.

*Be sure to check Michael's Ride Report.

Bike route 748774 - powered by Bikemap

Taiwan Customs Makes Us Feel Like Duty

Ozsoapbox has a really great post about ordering bike parts from overseas. Sometimes they tax you and sometimes they don't.

I have blogged before on Giant's competitive advantage, and duties on foreign bike parts (manufactured in Taiwan) contribute to some of the disparity between local and foreign bike prices. In the case of Oz, the government is actually double dipping.

Later investigation revealed that cycling gear above $1000 TWD (a ridiculously stupidly low amount of about $30 AUD) attracted an ‘import duty tax’ of 5%...

...This itself wasn’t too bad but the government then double dips and applies a further ‘business tax’ which was another $420 TWD ($13.80 AUD) in taxes.

Combined, these two taxes brought my total import duty to nearly $826 TWD or $27 AUD, roughly 10% of the order cost.

Additionally, when calculating the import duty and business tax, the idiots at the customs office decided to include the cost of my shipping from Wiggle which was approx $1500 TWD alone ($48.87 AUD).

Also:

Taiwan:

December 4-8 is Taichung Bike Week, for all you who want to look at bike stuff. I will be outdoors riding.

World:

• Does Republican surge mean doom for America's new, progressive stance on transportation funding? For the first time since the Eisenhower initiated the Interstate Highway System, an American administration has shifted the focus of transportation away from the automobile. Now the impact of that change is in doubt as many cycling proponents on Capitol Hill are out of work. Maybe the USA is in for a cyclist revolt, like the one in LA over the city's bike plan.
• If you are not working... ride a bike and volunteer.
• Popo tesitfies!
• UCI President wants 4 year bans, which could be potentially career-ending.
• Training in heat improves cool weather performance. That is not my experience in Seattle. The cold, damp air brought on an asthma attack... and it sucked.