Just a couple days after claiming his second crown in, arguably, the world's toughest climb, Team CCN's John Ebsen is organizing a charity ride to support Multiple Myeloma Cancer research on December 7th. You can read up on the heroics and heartbreak amid freezing drizzle high along the slopes of Wuling in Lee Rodger's excellent post as well as in VeloNews. This race really has the potential to be the Paris-Roubaix for the world's climbers. Although this was supposed to be my year for the KOM, I will have to wait until next year to get my suffer on. Cheers to all those men and women who had the guts to even roll up to the starting line.
I started out my morning unsure of where I would be riding. A few factors were in play and with a later start, iffy weather and even less predictable legs, I headed north at a good clip. I felt amazing. I chopped wood all the way to Dongshih and managed to continue at a good clip without leaving the big ring all the way through Dongqi Rd. As I crested the hill above the Da-an River, I felt the allure of the road up Sima Xian Shan; a nasty climb between Zhuolan and Dahu. A section of the main road was completely wiped out last year, and the word was that passage was impossible. I thought I might see if the situation had improved over the past year, and if not... I would just get a shorter ride and enjoy the afternoon. I blazed along and caught up with a couple riding road bikes. I stopped to ask if they had any info on a road crossing the mountain. They both thought the road was closed and were just going up the river, only to return the same way. I passed another group of riders all kitted out on expensive road bikes. When I hollered to see if they had come over the mountain they stopped and looked at me as if I had my hair on fire. Motioning like he might offer me a chocolate bar and a shiny trinket.... "You speak Chinese?" Of course I had just shouted at him in Chinese, so my answer was a resounding "no" while I asked again in Chinese if they had come from the Dahu side. "Where are you going?" one of the guys asked. " I'm going to Dahu fro this side", I replied. "No, you're going the wrong way. You need to turn around. You need to take the Highway 3", he explained. " The road past Tian Gou, do you know if it is open?", I asked again. *look of confusion* "You know, the road that goes past Tian Gou down the other side to Dahu... is that road open. I know it was closed this year..." I continued. "Dahu.... from here.... but that is climbing....", he said with a perplexed tone. I waved them off and found the last police station on the river. The cop, told me the 中像道路 was open and goes from Xiangbi Village to Dahu over the mountain. I was rapidly on my way and eating some serious bitterness on the opening ramps. It is not as majestic or scenic as the old road, but it offers some spectacular ramps and a few vistas worthy of the effort. The Miaoli fog came sweeping in from offstage and the temperatures plummeted. I finally met a few riders coming over the hill and we exchanged info on the road conditions each side could expect. I dropped down some incredible concrete chutes, carful not to pinch flat on the drainage grates that spit the roads every 50 meters. Suddenly I was spit back out onto the river of the Miaoli 61-- as awesome a road as there has ever been or ever will be. After a fuel stop in Dahu, I was again plugging back to Taichung at as high a speed as I could will into my legs. It is one of those days where the accomplishment is the reward. THE ROAD IS OPEN!
This time of year is a great time to teach the legs how to climb. With the northern monsoon pushing a steady wind from the north, the hills offer some respite in putting out a strong effort and actually accomplishing something. I had been eyeing a road for some time, but I never really had a great opportunity to follow it. I had been down the lower section several times, and each descent I always thought I wouldn't want to try climbing up that very hill. I wouldn't want to try it... until I actually did try it: The Fuxing Agricultural Road. The ride out of Taichung was a bit of a sleepwalker, with a group of cyclists rolling out for some mass event or another. I hoped to take a bit of a shortcut through the Houfeng Bike Trail, but it was blocked off by a marathon (the current sport dejure of Taiwan). I had to take a couple farm roads back to the Highway 3. Eventually I was back up on the Miaoli Route 52-2 along the southern end of the Liyutan Reservoir. This was where the ride really started. At the section beneath the dam where the 52-2, Miaoli 49 and 52-3 meet, I launched up the 52-3. Launch it the appropriate word as the road is a single lane of vertical abuse. It is one of those roads where you clip in and then hang about a mile out over the handlebars to keep the front wheel down. I bit and spit my way to the top and then, surprisingly, kept going. I did have to dismount once to let a car pass, but I was feeling great. The road dishes out a few more bumps before settling down high above a shady wetland that completely transforms the mood into something resembling tranquility. After another long, straight climb, I took a breather to orient myself on the GPS as I was heading into new territory. I was giddy and the road took an unmerciful leap along a carved out hillside. The whole space seemed ridiculous for a bike ride. I revelled in the obvious absurdity of the image I must have cast to passing farmers as I stomped and shifted my way between the occasional stair step in the paving. The higher I hot the more ridiculous the ramps became. I must have hit a dozen or more comically nasty sections. They never lasted too long, but the sense I was getting was that I would eventually be biking up a quarter pipe. I hooked into a corner and passed a derelict cemetery eerily blanketed in a soupy grey fog. The fog cleared for just a moment to reveal the reservoir below. I was in absolute heaven. Then the landscape shifted on me as rapidly as the click of a Viewmaster. A sloppy string of pavement slid along the side of a persimmon orchard. I couldn't figure out how they lifted so much flat road up the mountain. I was again enveloped by the chill of a wet fog that covered me until I was spit out in the middle of a parking area next to a haunted commode at the base of a hiking trail. I took the right hand turn and blazed along the dirty concrete path. Suddenly, a large eagle swooped out of the trees above the road just in front of me and swept the road with its talons. It did this two more times before flying off to Salisbury Hill or some other locale. I was having more fun on the bike than I had had in a very long time. There was adventure, wonder, absurdity, mystery and silence. I finally nailed a steady beat back to Taichung. But not before stopping to take a picture from the warm sunlight of the mountain I had just taken a bite out of. A highly recommended road for the local rider looking for something that will surprise. There are several more roads back there that I will be looking into in the near future.
Even after having an embarrassingly disastrous day on Wuling just a few short weeks prior, I unflinchingly signed up for another of Taiwan's notorious hill climbs. This time I would be participating in the Tataka Hill Climb on the back side of Alishan. By 4:30am the riders had already started to fill up the sleepy streets of the small town of Shuili in Taiwan's Nantou County. There was a bit of a chill and everyone nervously clacked around on their cleats making unfunny jokes and taking in gels to break the nervousness. I couldn't decide if a jacket would be overkill or if I would be begging for a layer in a fog bank over Tataka. Having lowered my expectations, I was just happy to be doing a race I had never done before knowing that it might be the last Tataka Hill Climb as the county government would like to take over to funnel money to connected subcontractors. I was finally healthy enough to join T-Mosaic on another campaign. As we all eased out into the road, I was spinning a pretty good gear and found myself at the head of the group that was licking at the heels of the elite riders who had been given the preferential spot on the starting order. My legs started to burn after about 10min. but I was sure I would warm them up in a half-hour or so and I kept on moving with the pack, occasionally losing riders on every arc along the Highway 21. With my legs still failing to shake the burn, I eased up a little and let the group pass as I targeted another group that I thought might give me a chance to save some energy. My legs were still at full burn after two hours amid some magnificent climbs. I hadn't been passed by too many large groups and I hadn't seen my teammates anywhere, so I figured I was still in relatively good position for a decent time. The road wriggles itself all over the lower reaches of mountain before the first tunnels signal the end is nigh. Despite trying to claw up in a 39-27 combo, I still mashed my way past several riders on the lower sections. As I rounded a corner the full, deeply scarred face of the mountain was on full display, menacing riders from above. On the first of the horrible ramps I just bit down and stepped on the pedals until they turned. My legs were on fire. I pulled up next to another rider and offered some small talk to take the mind off the pain, but she wasn't amused. "Three more kilometers left", she said much to my relief. But as she slipped away into the shadows from the trees behind me, there was no sign that the finish was anywhere nearby. I found I was catching more and more riders with a steady churning of my crank. Finally after four kilometres the first sign showed up, "4km" it read. I forced myself to keep the legs in a white hot glow for four more kilometres. I kept climbing up a ladder of exhausted riders toward the finish. As the finish line came into view, I noticed two riders closing in on the finish and I made it my goal to pip them at the line for the cameras. I blitzed on past just before the line and gave an exaggerated fist pump as if I had actually won the whole thing.... but none of my antics or heroics were caught on camera. I had finished in a pedestrian 04:19:27. But to a guy who is still greatly out of shape, it was a much better day on the bike. I managed to be second on the team. The road was an absolute spectacle with clear views of Yushan and other vistas illuminated in the clear morning sunlight. Lots of fun.
The bicycle trail at Sun Moon Lake has been the subject of much attention in the local press, and it is usually cited as an essential part of any cyclists's trip to Taiwan. Taiwan has made no secret about trying to lure more cyclists to Taiwan as part of some cycling tourism junket or another. The Taiwan Tourism Bureau annually invites cyclists to come to Taiwan and publish about their experiences. It is as if the Tourism Bureau has an internal memo reminding its representatives to include biking Sun Moon Lake in all information regarding a tour of Taiwan. And because the bike trail is for bikes, they target the cycling community. I know this because I regularly field requests to fill in some of the missing information. Sun Moon Lake can not be edited out of any article. It can't. Period. This always perplexes me as cycling Sun Moon Lake is really not appropriate for most people who would identify themselves as cyclists--people who own bicycles that they ride semi-regularly. Last month's trip out to Sun Moon Lake provided the perfect opportunity to see what Taiwan is actually selling. It was then that I had an epiphany: This may not be merely a effort to over sell and over deliver.... but rather, it may simply be a failure to communicate. The trail is between 3-4 meters in width. It is covered in mixed surfaces and it bottlenecks in several locations. On my last trip to Sun Moon Lake, the congestion was so bad, several recreational riders threw their bikes over the barrier and into motor traffic to escape the crawl. The Sun Moon Lake bike trail is not a trail for cyclists. It is a trail for NON-cyclists. It is a trail for non-cyclists to rent and ride bikes, make sudden stops, sway the handlebars and forget how they used to stop a bicycle thirty years ago. Sadly, there isn't a lot of space for cyclists at Sun Moon Lake. There is no discernible shoulder along the perimeter of the lake. Motor coaches and other vehicles are usually found pulling a few Gs going into each corner. It is dangerous enough for a local. I would not want to lure out-of-towners into this potential death trap. The Taiwan Tourism Bureau should quit pushing the bike trail on the cycling community, and start pushing it on families, flirting couples and those with a death wish.
