Taiwanese Cyclist Plods Around The World: 600 Days and Counting

For months I have been wondering what ever happened to Wu Shih-chang, the Taiwanese man who set out to travel the globe by bike on $10 a day.

Wu left Taiwan in June 2010 to begin his journey in Alaska, before heading southward to Argentina. Along his journey the young Taiwanese man miscalculated food supplies, negotiated wild bears in Alaska and finally arrived in Seattle where he was taken in by some of my friends from the Seattle Taiwan Center.

Now, after 20 months on the road, the 30 year-old resurfaces in Paris, where his bike was stolen and he was forced to wait for a replacement.

Here is an excerpt from Focus Taiwan:

He cycled across Alaska, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Belize and Central America before pedaling south to Peru, Chile and Argentina. He flew or traveled by boat when necessary.

He met a snowstorm on a mountain road in Argentina, experienced acute altitude sickness in Peru, and had diarrhea for a week.

Despite all this, he said that after witnessing the beauty of plateaus, experiencing desert weather, and feeling coastal breezes, all the discomfort went away.

Money was a big issue for him and visa fees accounted for the largest expenses on his trip. As Taiwan lacks formal diplomatic ties with many countries, entering other countries can be expensive.

He was due to fly from Argentina to South Africa but was unable to as the South Africa Embassy in Argentina denied him a visa.

He traveled to Europe instead and spent his 30th birthday at an airport in Madrid. His travel turned for the worse Feb 3 when his bicycle, donated by Taiwanese bike maker Giant, was stolen in Paris.

Wu was forced to contact his friends in Taiwan and ask them to send another bike for him so that he could continue his trip.

He said he did not know when he will finish traveling, but said the trip has made him realize the importance of family.

Taiwan's problematic diplomatic situation, combined with a weakening push for international space seems to be taking its toll on Taiwanese travelers who are often misidentified as Chinese.

I hope Wu keeps going, but 600 days is a long time to be on the road.

Also:

The Accell Group has fortified its Taiwan branch with some top talent to better get into the scrum of the growing Asian bicycle market.

In Other News:

• The Dope: What an exciting week it has been off the tarmac. First, the seven time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong is let go by the feds, who have decided not to bring the retired cyclist and accused doper to trial on a list of charges. Lance is still not off the hook. The Wold Anti Doping Agency would still like to look at some of the evidence gathered during the Armstrong case. Meanwhile, Alberto "El Pistolero" Contador, possibly the world's top grand tour specialist, is handed a mathematical 2 year sentence for traces of clenbuterol in his blood. Contador blamed the positive test on "tainted beef". Although the Spanish rider has his victories since the positive test wiped from the records, creative accounting allows him to resume competition in only 6 months.

• Why cycling will make you happy...and not gay as many Americans believe.

• 17,000 Londoners sign up for safe cycling.

• Commute By Bike on The Cycling Opponent.

• Going green gets a little complicated. Crushed glass causing flats?

The Rollers of Bagua Shan

Monday was a day off, so I decided to test the knee out with a ramble over Bagua Shan, the 50km hill that reaches from Changhua to Nantou.

I was joined by the indomitable Chris Bolster, who is becoming increasingly sucked into the addiction of cycling.

For me, it was a trial of fitness. The route consists of one stiff climb followed by dozens upon dozens of rollers. The entire route from Taichung and back is almost exactly 100k, so it would be a distance record for Chris, who is still only in his second month of cycling.

We rolled into Changhua and yucked it up with tales of ribaldry over cheap coffee before punching over the hill to the Changhua Route 139.

The morning was bright, but the haze in the air heralded a spot of bad weather for the afternoon.

We punched along the spine of Bagua Shan through the tunnels of treelined shade.

This route is a local favorite as there are few cars and around every corner there are reminders that the beauty of Taiwan is just a short bike ride away. Too often we get caught up in the ugliness of the city and forget how amazing the countryside really can be. Rows of tea and pineapple can really arouse the imagination into entertaining silly thoughts of retiring in a place like this.

We blasted the descent into Songboling at 68kph. and then turned onto the Route 137 with its seemingly endless pits and rises. That road is great torture on the legs as you try to maintain a constant speed over every bump.

We decided to cap off the ride by climbing the Highway 74 back over Bagua Shan. It makes a nice, torturous climb after a long day in the saddle. For the first time in a long time I was feeling flashes of my old self.

As Chris and I went our separate ways after 100 kilometers of fine riding, I had to remind him that he was only 60km from achieving a standard Century... and with a tailwind to Tainan with no hills... he he he...

Exploring Nantou

I had originally planned to head into Nantou city along along the Route 139, but the route is not marked upon entering downtown Nantou, so I wasted enough time that it just wasn't worth continuing with that plan.

Ordinarily, I would be a little upset without tasting the meat of the ride through the hills to Jiji, but since I rarely spend much time in Nantou, I had seen enough to explore a little.

I crossed the Lumei Bridge. The bridge in its current form was completed in 1997, but was actually a modern conversion of a much older bridge.

Just on the other side of the bridge I noticed the remains of a bamboo palisade with a stone wall inside. It may be the remains of a family compound, military outpost, or even a satellite village of the Hoanya speaking Sarva group of indigenes.

Just around the corner I found the traditional market and a park.

The park is home to a new croquet court.

It is also home to the only remaining segment of the snake kiln from Shuili. The original kiln was destroyed during the 921 earthquake, but one segment was recovered and moved to its current location in Nantou.

On my way home, I stopped to take pictures in a community built from traditional mud bricks. Unlike more famous structures that use fired red brick that arrived in Taiwan as ballast for ships, the majority of Taiwan's Qing era buildings were constructed using sun-baked bricks composed of mud, rice husks, and water buffalo dung. The husks and dung gave the bricks a type of waterproofing while holding the bricks together. The walls were then covered in a lime paste.

Last, I stopped by an old playground to get a picture with one of the antiquated concrete animals that used to be the highlight of Taiwanese playgrounds for earlier generations of children.

Training Again

Most of us have been there. For whatever reason we need to take time off the bike. I have had an overuse injury combined with getting used to being a new dad, so the riding has been on the back burner.

Last night I did my first real training ride in two months. My training loop is a 50k loop of mostly flat roads that I do Wednesday evenings. It seems every club is out Wednesday nights as it is mid-week between weekend races and longer rides.

As I slid out into the cold, windy Taichung night, I could feel my sustained speed was slower than I had hoped. The large muscled in my legs were hungry for oxygen that I couldn't provide. I pushed and eased back, pushed and eased back. It was rough. It was hard. It hurt like hell. It was demoralizing.... It was absolutely marvelous to be back out there.

The endurance is the first thing that fall off when you stop training. Hopefully, if I keep throwing myself out there, everything will come back on line by April.

Sometimes it seems like you'll never get back, but it happens... it just taked longer and longer to get here.

Inside Knowledge: Taiwanese Bike Companies and The Costs of Chinese Manufacturing

Bicycling IQ has a very good article up on the exodus of smaller Taiwanese bicycle component manufacturers from China as structural increases make doing business in China less of a profitable endeavor. The problem for these companies is in finding competing economies of scale.

Courtesy of the China-Taiwan cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), tariffs on bicycle imports between the two countries have dropped from their previous levels of 12%, to 0% this year. The ECFA has been well-received by Taiwan-based makers of higher-end bicycles; but mostly those who had previously added mainland infrastructure to their manufacturing arsenal, years before they caught a whiff of earnest free trade discussions. They can now toggle their operations almost effortlessly between the two countries, depending on demand and client need. Other, smaller, OEM’s may struggle to compete against such flexibility in a declining global market.

The whole article is really intelligently thought out and is worth a read.

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In other news, Giant has apparently won a bid to supply the city of Taipei with a system of bicycle rentals. Details of the winning bid or competing proposals are scant, but it appears Giant has its work cut out for it. This must be good news for Giant's President and Founder, King Liu, who also serves as a special advisor to the Taiwan's president Mr. Ma Ying-jiu.

The You Bike program aims to:

• Promote Taipei City's image as an eco-friendly international metropolis
• Create new tourism opportunities in Taipei
• Improve residential quality of life and citizen satisfaction
• Reduce the use of cars and motorcycles to improve air quality and transportation
• Encourage people to take up cycling
• Transform Taipei into Taiwan's capital of cycling

It is this writer's belief that the Taipei city government will have to do much more in providing city-wide bicycle infrastructure to make this project more than leisure rentals along bike paths. The city will need to provide a safe cycling environment, enforce traffic laws, provide safe storage facilities, retrofit busses and MRT cars for bicycle transit, increase the number of bicycle ONLY lanes and many other projects before this projects can begin to benefit Taipei residents. Lots of work to do before putting bikes on the roads.
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Also:

• Jim's Bike Blog takes a brief look at Taiwan's Cycling Scene.

• Merida's Ike Tseng passes away at 81. Merida is Taiwan's second largest producer of bicycles and a major shareholder in Specialized.

The Ritte Stuff: Taiwanese R&D

Wired Magazine has published a great article on Ritte Van Vlaanderen bikes, and how the company built itself up backwards.

Apparently, the company started as a joke to make a less obnoxious jersey, and then it grew into producing bikes using Taiwan's R&D.

My favorite part is this:

Canon was at Interbike, the annual bike biz bonanza, three years ago when he hooked up with a Taiwanese firm that specializes in carbon fiber bicycle engineering and manufacturing. (Canon refused to name the company because he doesn’t want competitors cribbing from his business plan.)

“They had a prototype frame that was amazing,” Canon said. “I convinced them to build me 20 bikes. I went out and presold them at cost, then presold 50 more.”

Although he concedes his Taiwanese partner designed “95 percent” of the first-gen Bosberg, Canon insists Ritte called the shots on later models.

“We have a lot more control over the design,” he said. “I’ve designed the new Crossberg. We’ve completely redone the tubes.”

And, he argues, Ritte isn’t doing anything many of the bigger companies aren’t doing too – outsourcing to experts. The way he sees it, he can’t match the expertise of a company specializing in carbon fiber design and manufacturing, so why try?

I find his honesty refreshing. You don't get all the marketing junk about the team of Italian engineers or the bestestest most laterally stiff, yet vertically compliant... blah blah blah.

Taiwan has a great reputation for not just producing, but also engineering some of the best frames available. Lots of open moulds out there begging for a brand to stand behind them.

A Little Scrap Of Video

I just discovered a short video of me from the Neverstop Wuling Challenge. It seems there were a few cameras on me at the same spot, so I cobbled together a little video.