Well that might be overselling it, but it's easily the most incredible day I've had this year.
I mentioned a few days ago that Taipei has rivers all through it and lots of biking trails along them. The picture a few days ago was of the beginning of the mountain trail which completes a 40 mile circle around the city.
I really want to do this trip around the city, but this part is the X factor. I know what it's like around the river, but i have no idea if this mountain road is equally as flat, or if it’s super steep. My plan today was to meet up with a friend who lives in that area and just do that part together. It would be nice to see what it's like, and to have a Taiwanese friend with me in case we get lost. But my friend had to do some cleaning for CNY, so I decided that I would just go along the river instead.
This was a wise decision as the weather was in the 50s (meaning the mountain would be much cooler) and it seemed like it could rain at any moment. So i was more than happy to change my plan.
My new plan was to go west around the south of the city for a bit. I used to live in a few places in that area, and at the time the riverside was still just an ugly mess. So i wanted to go now and see how they beautified it all.
It was lovely to see how it changed. nice big fields, areas with lots of trees, and some monuments (a future post). As i didn't have any urgency, I got off the bike to take pictures and to observe a pack of stray dogs that had several new born puppies in their pack. The riverside is full of packs of stray dogs, but this was the first time that i saw that they were multiplying themselves. I guess this is better than their numbers increasing by more dogs being abandoned.
When I got to the river that runs along the west side of the city, instead of going back home i decided to turn up north. Running along the north part of the city is a river and a few friends live in that area, so i've been curious how conveniently it would be to bike along the river to get there.
While going north I kept paying attention at all the exits to find a shortcut over to the northern river. I could have gotten out and just road on a street, but i was determined to do it all along the river. Eventually I got to a split in the river road and it said to go to the right to go where i wanted to go. However going to the right just took me to a busy street, and there were no other signs to show the way. This was my first taste of how there are no signs to tell bikers where to go when using normal streets to connect bike paths.
I solved this problem by just going towards the high wall that goes next to most of the river, and riding on top of that, eventually finding a way to ride down and on a road next to the river, which finally connected to the bike trail.
It was at this point that I was going east across the top of the city. I hate east. No matter when I go, or where I go, every time I go east, I'm going straight into the wind. it always feels like i'm on a stationary bike. made worse by the people zipping past me going the other way with the wind on their back. Today was made even worse that I had already been biking for quit a distance.
My goal was just to keep pushing through the wind and then i can get to one part that is next to a subway station that is on the same line as my home. However I quickly pushed that thought away and decided that I've gone this far, I should keep going and do the whole loop. Which I knew was a terrible idea as by this time it had been raining on me for awhile now.
I've said before that when it's raining outside and i get a bit wet and it makes me uncomfortable, I just think about soldiers in past wars who were in the rain all day long and just handled it like a champ. I could never get how they could be so ambivalent about the rain and just do what they needed to do while being wet. Well I think today i could finally understand this feeling. I was tired, cold, and knowing that if i completed the loop than I'd have much further to go. All this just made me ignore the rain and I pushed through it.
I was given a small reprieve as the river turned south for a bit, but then it turned back east and the wind was on me again. All i could do was keep my head down, my legs pumping, and look at the km markers very, very slowly pass by.
Eventually I got to the end of the trail and turned out onto a service road which ended at a busy street. I now knew that I had to find the way to go through the mountain and down to the south of the city. Of course there were no signs, so i went down the street one way, and pulled up what little directions the government had on their website as to how to go. This wasn't very good at all, and taking up much needed battery life on my phone, so I decided to ride over to the last stop of the subway to ask for directions.
I went up to the information booth and told the lady that i wanted to get down to the zoo (which is in the south-east part of the city and is where the bike trail starts again along the river down there). She of course looked at me like I was insane, and repeatedly said that it's too far, and suggested that i just take the subway. I eventually explained to her that i was doing a loop around the city and that the government had recently announced a way through the mountain on the city's east side for bikers to use to complete the loop.
She didn't know anything about it, but I didn't think she would, but while I was gearing up to go figure it out on my own, she stopped me and said that she would call somebody to find out. She got the name of two streets that I would need to go down and wrote them down, and then pointed the general way on two maps, both of which didn't have those streets (or really any in the mountain) on them. So I got out my phone and used the map to also try and figure out where to go (using up a ton of battery power).
You can see her hand written note in the picture. It's go down that right street until i get to the other street. At the bottom of it she wrote the name of a place I could stop to ask directions, but this wasn't really useful today as it is Taiwan's biggest holiday so everything was closed and the roads were barren. I don't know how clearly you can see the map but I was trying to go from that last stop on the blue line at the top, down to that first stop on the brown line at the bottom.
Armed with shaky and conflicting directions from the government website, my phone, and the lady, I decided to just go for it. I had come this far and if i didn't do it now, it would haunt me. But I had to hurry as i didn't want to be up in the mountain when the sun went down and it was already begging to be early evening. I basically knew that I was going towards a research institute that is in the mountain, and once there i'd just have to hope and get lucky to find the rest of the way to my destination.
Did I get there, or did I chicken out? Well you’ll have to tune in tomorrow to find out, in Part 2 of the most amazing story ever told!...by me….about my own bike ride around the city...during the CNY holiday.
