From Tasmanian to Taiwan
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Linda and her husband started with the 2007 Great Tasmanian Bike Ride - and found themselves in Taiwan!
Story by Linda Cash
After our sensational cycle tour of Tasmania in February, we never dreamed that less than 6 months later we would be enthusiastically readying ourselves for the Cycling Taiwan 1000km ride. You just never know where cycling will take you!! Cycling Taiwan 1000km is organized by the Taiwan Cyclist Federation and 2007 was the fifth year the ride has circled this amazing island, taking 11 days to do so.
The ride is intended to assist young university students to broaden their knowledge of Taiwan while promoting fitness. It is possible to join the ride even if you don’t fit into this category (which we obviously didn’t being 40 something’s who left uni behind many years before). The ride gives you to opportunity to enhance your own understanding of Taiwan and its wonderful people by sharing the experience. This year, 100 cyclists took on the challenge; 90 Taiwanese students, seven overseas students, one Danish Diplomat, and two 40 something Aussies.
Taipei is a modern and clean city which has many km of excellent dedicated cycle ways winding along the river where you can get in hours of practice runs, and the road system allows plenty of room for cycling as there is almost always an emergency lane for use. As anywhere, the city traffic can be a bit daunting and it pays to be very cautious is you ride in traffic – take care not to fall of your bike laughing when you first see the animated walk sign at the traffic lights, it’s a crack up when the time to cross is almost up and the little walking figure starts running!
The ride begins in Taipei and heads south along the west coast. The western plains are the industrial backbone of Taiwan, and many of the ride’s sponsors, including Giant Cycles, Kenda Tyres, and Cybertec, have manufacturing facilities in this area which are visited on the ride. Several major cities and towns are also along the route, as are a number of wind farms and nuclear power stations – it makes for an eclectic mix as you trundle along, with no clear demarcation between urban, residential, industrial, or agricultural areas. Although Taiwan has a vast mountain range, with over 200 mountains rising above 3000m, the ride, thankfully, does not cross the range until you reach the easy slopes at the southern end and begin the northward leg up the East coast. The East Coast, where the mountain range extends its reach literally to the edge of the Pacific Ocean is the scenic coast and includes the famous Taroko Gorge in Taroko National Park. The traffic is much less dense on this side of the country, making for very pleasant riding. The ride includes visits to temples of local deities along the way and the chance to visit some of Taiwan’s famous night markets and enjoy the delicious local food in the evenings.
Our ride:
With the love of ceremony typical in Asia, the ride began with flag waving acrobatics, unicycle performers, acrobats, speeches in front of the Presidential Palace and a personal send off by the President of Taiwan. We hardly noticed the 45 deg heat of Taipei as we took in the speeches and posed for the media photographers. After several laps of the presidential driveway, we were off!
The riders were divided into 10 teams – makes the head counts much easier! At the lunch stop on the first day the team members get to know each other and have time to chat. Mandarin is the primary language spoken although all the students have some English, many being fluent, and all eager to practice; you get to brush up on your Mandarin too!
The ride is heavily sponsored and it is only fair that the sponsors get their press coverage, so there are photo shoots complete with company mascots and the naughty nurses at just about every stop on the ride. Any western participants can expect particular attention. Many local County and City Government offices are also visited along the way, with more photo opportunities at each stop. The local officials are extremely welcoming and supportive often providing gifts of water, sports drinks, fruits, chocolate bars etc to the riders at these stops, and often joined the ride for the last leg of the day.
On our first night we were treated by Farglory (one of the major sponsors) to a traditional Taiwanese puppet show with real fire and fireworks on the puppet stage. Even though we did not understand the language, the show was mesmerizing and not to be missed, all performed amongst food and fireworks.
Some of the many stops along the way were:
- The ShanHua brewery, where we were welcomed by the local children’s drumming band and we were given a fantastic demonstration of their drumming skills, as well as being provided with sausages and beer - most welcome.
- An orphanage where a group of 7 year old children from the orphanage had just completed a cycling circuit of Taiwan in 21 days – just amazing … Here, “Backmantony” gave us all a demonstration of his backwards cycling ability. So who is “Backmantony” you ask? He was a mentor for the students on the ride and is a self styled ReversExerciSophist who runs marathons, cycles, and rollerblades; all backwards! Quite a character and an inspiration to us all - and he can run to the top of Taipei 101 in 16mins 44 secs.
- Cybertek, where we were presented with tables of food and drink that were devoured as only 100 hungry uni students can.
August is the monsoon season in Taiwan, and the two typhoons that swept across the Southern part of the Island during our ride certainly brought plenty of rain. The heat of the second afternoon’s ride was broken by a sudden monsoonal down pour that caught us all in the open. You have few choices when the sky opens and you’re not under shelter; you just ride it out. Our only concern was keeping valuables such as passports, wallets, cameras and the like dry. Putting everything into a pair of sealable plastic bags – one inside the other - was found to work after a few failed attempts at waterproofing – yes, we are still drying out the mobile phones !! A real cycling experience for us was when a huge monsoon storm caught us in the open and brought flood water 200mm deep rushing across the road from the right and driving rain from the left with visibility down to 10m or so and lightning cracking over head – what a ride.
The accommodation provided on the ride is generally a good standard; being in three star equivalent hotels (although there were one or two nights where the accommodation was very basic and participants were required to “rough it”). Be warned though; we never encountered a soft mattress… And don’t expect to find yourself on the 4th floor; there won’t be one. You’ll find 3rd, and 5th, and occasionally 3A floors, we were told 4 is unlucky in Taiwan!
The food provided on the ride is a mixture of local and do it yourself. Breakfast usually being a buffet of Taiwanese food, lunch a rice box with meats and veggies added (this did became a little repetitive causing even the quiet and compliant students to grumble on about day 9), and dinner was generally a wonderful Taiwanese banquet or a visit to a night market in the local area. Our team mates were very helpful in identifying the best choices as well as the bits of animals that us westerners don’t usually consider edible…
While not a race, the ride is challenging and fast paced for novice riders. As there is little time for sightseeing along the way, it is not for everyone. It is however a fantastic way to meet the locals and to gain an appreciation of the amazingly friendly Taiwanese people, their modern progressive culture by sharing this ride with them as one of them.
Taiwan is the home of Giant bicycles and with exceptional bargains to be had we decided it was time to treat ourselves to new bikes for the ride. Tim Chen at the 102 Bicycle Co was extremely helpful and gave us a great deal on the bikes and accessories. You can find him on the corner of Da’an Park (Xinyi Rd and Xinsheng Sth Rd). China Air were most helpful with transporting the bike back home for us.
Contact Information: Taiwan Cyclist Federation
