Cycling Around Taiwan
After spending a month and a half around Chiang Mai, me and Chani had gotten quite close. We decided to bike pack around Taiwan. It was a first for me to carry some gear and deal with the logistics of finding a hotel every day and packing/unpacking, but I enjoyed it.
Taiwan is a popular loop that many bikepackers and tours do, however they tend to stick to the coasts or skip some sections via train. They also shortcut across the southern point, saving 120km of hurricane winds.
Since we’re not a bunch of wusses we made a route through the mountains and just casually went over Wuling pass, the world’s longest climb.
Hotel packing is a great compromise to carrying all your camping gear and having to set up camp, find food in remote areas etc. This is pure luxury in comparison.
This was also a first for me to just plan almost nothing and see day-to-day where we want to end depending on the weather and fatigue. We also ate almost exclusively at 7-11 and in case you’re wondering how easy it is to gain weight while cycling 6 hours a day, the answer is: Very. Very easy.
Hope you enjoy this little trip overview!
Food
Always interesting to visit a place and see what sort of food they have, be it what locals eat or what their national/traditional/famous offerings are. For me the best thing in Taiwan was the little jingle that plays when you enter a Family Mart ( a convenience store ).
Day 1 - Into the mountains
We made the detour to get to the km0 marker at Songshan station. Taipei is horrible for riding, do not stay in the city if you plan to ride in Taiwan. Eventually you do get to a nice bike path that lets you roll out town and into the more remote mountainous areas.
Massive climb to end the day with lots of steep sections. Booked the motel while at 7-11 and we arrived there just in time as it was getting dark.
I would not recommend doing hotel bookings day-to-day like this except for the fact that you can’t control the weather or mechanical issues which can destroy carefully laid plans… But sometime sit was tough to find any place to stay in these more remote areas.
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Day 2 - Get to Puli
Beautiful road here with the intent to just get to Puli which is the start of the Wuling Pass climb from the east. I planned to do that while Chani would rest but the weather forecast wasn’t looking great and I broke a spoke on my front wheel…
This is more beautiful scenery and a view of the Great Standing Maitreya Buddha standing at 72m. I enjoy natural beauty as much as the next guy but there’s mountains everywhere on earth and very few enormous statues.
There was also some Chinese holiday/celebration going on with people shooting up fireworks and smokebombs while at graveyards.
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Day 3 - Sun-Moon Lake + Day Off
The weather was looking pretty grim up Wuling Pass that day and I got my wheel fixed in town which would have forced a much later start due to bike shop hours. We just decided to skip it and do the short ride around Sun-Moon lake and into the high mountains close to Yushan peak, Taiwan’s highest point.
Next day was just a day off in this tiny town at the base of an old tourist area with lots of big aged hot spring hotels. It seemed to have peaked in the 1980s. We still walked/hiked for 2 hours with quite a lot of climbing ( 450m ) so we felt that “day off” for the rest of the week… I also lost my phone when it slipped out of my shorts in someone’s car while we were getting a free lift from hitchhiking. I got it back thanks to remembering roughly where she worked and getting someone at a noodle shop to call. Never skip the small talk.
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Day 4 - Yushan - Alishan
Some of the more epic roads, doing a big loop with 2000m of climbing to a viewpoint where you can see Yushan mountain. From there you descend forever back through Alishan with its multitudes of tea plantations.
Found a nice little town near the reservoir to end the day.
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DAY 5 - The long flat coast
Not many options once you’re out of the mountains. We managed a huge day thanks to flat terrain and some tailwinds. Most of the climbing was at the start, near this huge reservoir.
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One cool thing about Taiwan is the trash trucks have a little Ice Cream Truck jingle, training the Taiwanese to associate taking out trash with pleasure.
DAY 6 - Southernmost point Bonus
Most people who cycle around Taiwan cut through the mountain to the east side using the road you see on the map. That saves you about 100km but you don’t get to actually say you biked around Taiwan, you little weiner.
It’s quite flat and windy getting to the tip but then the wind flips and it gets absolutely insane. Chani was fearing for her life as the gusts were threatening to blow her off the bike.
These winds are absolutely no joke, 50hm/h+ the entire way. We got a little bit of a rest going up the final big climb into the mountains but the wind had not died down as we crawled to whatever hotel we could find last-minute, in a tiny remote town. It was a shared living space but thankfully we were the only people and could enjoy the whole house for ourselves.
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DAY 7 - More wind for you
I recommend not taking the coastal route because you will get blasted with strong headwinds the entire way and the ocean views really aren’t that great in general. However we did get to see the Sanxiantai Arch Bridge which is highly recommendable and awesome. Highlight of the day.
It was once again a little difficult to find a place to stay but we ended up staying at a really nice and fancy hotel and the lady even got food delivered to us since there was no nearby restaurant/grocery/convenience store.
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DAY 8 - Chill Capybara day
We finally decided to get away from the coast to see what it would be like. Kept the pace ultra slow in the mountains, all we did was take pictures and make videos. I found so many butterflies. The scenery inland is just better than the coast in general.
Eventually we made it to something I spotted the day before: A capybara cafe! It’s some kind of strange little farm where you get to dress up in traditional … something… and go around feeding carrots to little deer, capybaras and bunnies. Hell yeah.
I’m down for a petting zoo mid-ride.
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DAY 9 - Wuling
Pretty crazy day going up to Wuling pass, world’s longest climb at 85km and 3500m. There was still construction due to previous year earthquakes so we got stopped a few times for 20-30mins during the first 1/3 of the climb but then it was smooth sailing to the top ( for me ). I then went back down to get Chani as she had decided to do the full Wuling ( might as well while you’re there ) but she had underestimated how brutal the finish was. Still, I got her there!
It was starting to get late when she reached the top so the one bad thing of the day was having to descend from wuling to this weird little resort town with very limited hotel options. We made it with about 20 minutes of daylight to spare.
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DAY 10 - Down through Cabbage Valley
The hotel was at 2000m elevation so you’d think it’s just downhill back but there’s still over 1000m of climbing when getting back to the coast. That town and whole area near Wuling is a big cherry blossom destination apparently. We were a bit late for it but you could see hundreds of farmed trees dotting the steep hills.
Further down as the river gets larger it’s endless cabbage fields. I don’t know who’s eating all this cabbage, maybe they feed that to the pigs. Quite a nice ride but nowhere near as beautiful and epic as going up Wuling from Taroko gorge, that is truly a top5 climb in the world no doubt.
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DAY 11 - Unnecessary Detours
Very last day getting back into Taipei. You have a few options here. We took a pretty tough road through the mountains and tried to visit an outlook on a lake but took a wrong turn and just did the world’s dumbest climb up and down. Chani walked most of it. She was not happy. We saw nothing.
Our legs were still itchy from whatever the fuck rubbed on us on Wuling. When we finally got back to KM 0 in Taipei there was some drunk jackoff just hogging the bench. We tried to make him take our picture but he just held the phone for like 30 seconds and did nothing. THANKS FOR RUINING MY LIFE BRO.
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Last Ride
After a day of rest in Taipei, Chani was looking forward to ending the trip with the epic “5 Fingers” ride but the weather was looking grim on the first climb and we didn’t really want to spend all day going in and out of cold rain. She went back into town, kind of sad, and I did some bonus in the south which was actually quite awesome. There are many nice and well frequented climbs on that loop and you get to see the zoo, many temples and the cable cars.
Riding near Taipei unfortunately means having to go through the city, which sucks. I surprised her with her favourite pepper cakes from a streed stand “just” 5km from our hotel and that took like 45 minutes.
Don’t ride in Taipei.
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Last Day :,(
On the last day we took the morning to visit Lungshan temple and the food markets around it. Then uberXL ( very affordable in Taipei ) to the Taipei main station to take the train all the way to Taoyuan Airport. Very convenient and you have space to put large luggage. I accompanied Chani to the airport and saw her off on her flight knowing we wouldn’t see each other for a long time. Sad.
Then I went to my ultra tiny and shit hotel that was just one room with shared bathroom/showers on the floor. It was all clean so perfect. Next morning my flight was overbooked so I volunteered to have Delta buy my seat for 1000USD. They also gave me a free ride to a hotel room they booked where I could wait for a day. Also had free lunch and diner at their fancy Japanese restaurant!
Holy shit I need to find out how to exploit this overbooking loophole some more. It more than paid for my flight and only delayed me a few hours on top of shortening my layovers from 3 down to 2.
Taiwan was awesome, we want to go back and bike around a different route some day. I still have to do Wuling from Puli!
Bonus: Museums
I am always down for a good museum. I visited 3 of them while in Taipei, one with Chani. She does not like museums as it turns out. Lol.
Natural History museum. One of the favourite museums of all time.
National Palace Museum. The one I dragged Chani to. That’s THE museum in Taipei, containing endless fabulous treasures stolen from mainland China. The main two attractions were sadly out for some reason, namely the Jade Cabbage and the rock that looks like pork belly. Fucking awesome really.
