I took a bicycle touring trip to Taiwan in early 2014. This blog is to give some practical advice to those who might plan a touring trip from abroad. At the end I’ve pasted in some other links to articles on cycling in Taiwan.
Background to the cycle touring trip
The trip was arranged at short notice in February. I live in England, and left the family at home and travelled alone. I hadn’t travelled to the Far East before – but have done long-haul bicycle touring trips in the past in Africa and the Middle East (both with friends and alone). I flew out from Leeds to Kaohsiung (the “second-city” in the south-west) and returned from Taipei (the capital in the north) two weeks later. I spent three days in each of Kaohsiung and Taipei, and cycled up the east coast and over the mountains in the North.
I have a Cannondale touring bike. The bike isn’t featherlight – but it’s tough. A road bike would also have been fine for the routes I followed. I carried around 16kg of luggage in two panniers. My paranoia about losing the bicycle led me to take two heavy locks – but my advice would be to take just one light lock. There wasn’t much chance of my bike being stolen – the cities and towns are very safe. I had a small rucksack also to make me look normal away from the bicycle.
Flying with a bicycle to Taiwan
There is a lot of advice on this on the web. There were three issues I cared about (a) how much was I going to pay, (b) how would I pack the bicycle, and (c) would it arrive safely? Oddly I was never really worried about whether it would get home safely.
How much? Most airlines take a bike as “excess baggage”. KLM charge for a bike as if it were an extra piece of luggage and at a standard rate for an intercontinental journey of about £60. China Airlines (the national Taiwanese carrier) charges per kg – at a rate that was around $40/kg (ouch). In all cases you pay at check-in so the uncertainty that these rules and tariffs induce is left hanging over you until the day you fly. If you transfer airlines en-route you pay the charges according to the rates of the first carrier on your journey. So whilst my outbound flights involved China Airlines I made sure that the first leg was with KLM. Don’t even think of trying to book over the web. There is no option but to grin and bear looped music, and modestly fraudulent assurances that you’re a valued customer. At least KLM’s Dutch staff understand what a bicycle is, and don’t think you’re barking mad to want to fly with one. The check-in staff at Leeds-Bradford Airport, who had never seen anyone fly to Kaohsiung before, let alone with a bicycle, forgot to charge me anything anyway. So all in all it cost me £60 to get the bicycle there and back.
Packing a bike is also an adventure. The start point is a second-hand cardboard box from the local bike shop. Finding a box before leaving home is easy – coincidentally my local bike shop found a Cannondale box that had come from Taiwan! Finding a bike box in Taipei was an adventure all in itself involving surfing the web and tramping the streets. Eventually I found a shop who understood what I wanted as the owner had just returned from a bike trip to Mount Fuji (the next trip??). Bike boxes do come in different dimensions – my touring bicycle needs a box at least 22cm wide. I took the handlebars, front wheel, pedals, saddle and pannier rack off. I didn’t bother with the superstitious practice of deflating the tyres. I arrived at my hotel in Kaohsiung with the boxed-bike in a standard Taiwan yellow taxi. Re-assembly took two hours – it is very satisfying then to be able to ride out into the city straight away on your own bike. The essential tool not to mislay in assembling the bike is the allen key for the pedals; the essential knowledge in disassembling the bike two weeks later is knowing which way to turn it.
My bicycle suffered no damage on the flights. I had used a plastic spacer between the front forks – which on the return journey was partly smashed so I guess it served its purpose well.
Cycling in Taiwan
Cycling in Cities
The use of bicycles as a means of getting to work in Taiwanese cities is pretty much nonexistent, which seems ironic given that the country makes so many bikes. I imagine that 40 years ago everyone had a bike; the few “working” bikes I saw tended to be used by older people. The commuter bike has been replaced by the ubiquitous scooter, which often also doubles up as a people carrier. The scooter is more friend than foe: it means for example that most towns and cities have wide scooter (and bike) lanes outside the main carriageway, and that many left-hand turns on the busier city streets are designated jug-handles for bikes and scooters. This all worked out very well as the scooters, whilst a little chaotic, tend not to go much faster than 30/40 km/h – and hence it is easier to move at their pace between lights (well almost) which makes for a safer journey. It’s a bit like being a snow-boarder amongst skiers – you get used to it and no one gets hurt.
Roads are good quality and typically very smooth tarmac – no layers of loose chippings. City traffic was more law-abiding than in England, and traffic speeds didn’t exceed more than 50km/h. Kaohsiung was more laid back than Taipei. One needs to be a bit careful where buses, pedestrians, trucks and scooters all mix. My last 20km into dense Taipei suburbs through a darkening dusk, on a wet six-lane arterial road, and after a long day cycling through a soporific damp forest, did cause me to develop owl-like reflexes and be extra alert. Still I’ve always rather liked the adrenaline of riding in cities, with all the usual hazards such as buses moving casually out into traffic, and car doors.
Both Kaohsiung and Taipei have a network of cycle paths aimed at leisure cycling – much of which has developed in the last ten years or so. Kaohsiung has at least one spectacular cycle flyover. I didn’t have chance to explore Taipei as much by bike – but judging from maps these cycle paths offer many good half-day trips. In Kaohsiung the cycle paths follow the river and waterfront and are attractive and busy with families and locals. A good trip in Kaohsiung is to take the ferry across to Qijin Island where a cycle route follows the ocean shoreline. The small ferry is divided between passengers upstairs and scooters downstairs (+ a handful of bikes).
Cycling in the countryside
As in the cities the roads are generally in good condition in the countrside. I used a mix of county roads and the main city-to-city roads – mostly well-engineered and wide two-lane highways. In most cases the latter have generous verges (usually debris-free) that double up as comfortable scooter and bike lanes. On the main highway for 30km south of Kaohsiung there were even separate bicycle and a scooter lanes. On a few short stretches of the main highway (in the South East) the verge was either narrow or non-existent – I found a small cheap mirror on the handle bars quite useful here. Traffic was well behaved – I found tourist coaches to be the worst offenders in getting slightly too close at times.
Cycling in the mountains
The main mountain ranges rise to well over 3000m. The major roads have good verges again; the smaller roads little traffic. The mountain roads slink across some precarious slopes and are well graded – so few nasty little steep sections. There are a number of tunnels on some routes but these presented no real hazard. Most maps do not make it clear that a number of highways are permanently closed through relatively recent earthquake and typhoon damage. All this is to be expected in a geologically young island that has been thrust up from the ocean in the last 7 million years and is still rising at a rate of half a centimetre per year as the Pacific crashes into Asia at over ten times that rate – but the local cartographers haven’t caught up (see Geology of Taiwan).
One morning I discovered my route ahead was blocked by a small landslide after some heavy rain. This caused me deep dismay as I’d just gleefully descended 1000m – and didn’t fancy having to return the same way. I settled down for lunch, and after getting an “all clear”, passed the landslide two hours later. I had rather suspected the local tourist office was making it all up until I came to a point where the hill had clearly just slumped across the road, excavators were still tipping mud and stones over the crash barrier, and where the workers were hastening everyone to move past as quickly as possible.
Maps
I love good maps. I had quite a stock of not-so-good maps in English and Chinese (but rarely bilingual). The English maps were hit and miss – some major places simply weren’t on some of them, and the transliteration of the Chinese is confusing as it follows at least one of three different systems. I am reluctant to admit that Google often bettered the paper maps. I’d print out a load of maps from Google at home before travel if I was doing the trip again. Having said that all the navigation was pretty straightforward, and major roads and city streets are signed in English as well as Chinese. The other map problem I had as a touring cyclist was figuring out the heights of roads and passes. At least twice ambition was quickly tempered by topography after discovering that my route involved an unexpected 500m climb after lunch. My best topographical maps were ones I was able to buy in Taiwan – but even these had quite poor detail. If I was going again I’d research maps a bit more in advance.
Weather
None of the guide books rave about going to Taiwan in February. During my first four days in Kaohsiung the weather was how the tropics should be, i.e. hot; after that I could have been in a damp and misty North Wales. I had ventured an attempt on Wuling Pass (or Hehuanshan c3250m) on my way to Taipei, and blithely ignored a road closed sign and four-by-fours putting chains on at 2600m. I was eventually defeated by snow and verglas on the road just shy of 3000m (after the hard bit as well!). Over the somewhat more modest Sihyuan Pass later that same day I came across a traffic jam of locals who’d stopped to take photos of a thick Christmas-card frost on the trees. In descending in the cloud down what I assume to be a spectacular descent my first hint of civilisation came through the smell of animals and smoke on the mist.
Places to stay
I stayed in hotels – ranging from NTD 1500 to NTD 3000 (about £30 to £60) per night. I was able to book hotels for the following day the night before – often with the very necessary help of the reception staff from the hotel I was staying in. On three occasions I simply found a hotel on the day I needed it. The hotels were all clean and comfortable, all had wi-fi, and most had at least one person who could speak some English. In almost all hotels the staff were relaxed about me keeping the bike in the room – and I returned the favour by carefully cushioning the bike from marking walls by using some small squares of bubble wrap.
People
I found the Taiwanese to be universally friendly and helpful, but in a manner that left you to get on and make your own choices without any pressure or assertion. I came across a few other touring cyclists, notably a group from Taipei (“the Speedy Hawks” cycling club) who were circumnavigating the island during their New Year fortnight. I rode with them on and off for a day and a half. I expect that at a warmer time of year there would be more touring cyclists on the roads. Motorists in the mountain areas would often cheer one on. Language was a challenge – particularly outside Taipei I found that little English was spoken, and try as I might, I found it difficult to get up to speed on Chinese characters.
Cycle touring route from Kaohsiung to Taipei
Taiwan is a very varied island and there are many routes one could follow. I could go on and write a travel blog. As well as the scenery the highlights for me in Taiwan were the New Year’s festivities in Kaohsiung and Taipei, the museums of Taipei, temples, and street food. I loved the evening garbage truck jingles! I cycled for seven days between Kaohsiung and Taipei and covered around 750km – this included one route to c3000m, a pass at c2000m and three passes at c500m from sea level. My route, with a few pictures, was as follows.
To Szchongshi via routes 17, 1, 26 and 199. 20-30km of industrial Kaohsiung followed by great coastal section and green pleasant country road to destination.
To Taitung via routes 199, 9 and 11). Route via Lotus lake and roadside temples to coast and Taitung and its varied night market.
To Rueisuei via routes 11, 23, back roads and 9. Over coastal range of hills into eastern rift valley with rice paddys and crossing of tropic of cancer.
To Tiensiang and Guanyuan via routes 9 and 8. Along rift valley, via Hualien and the Taroko gorge, and into Taiwan’s high mountains. Cycling along the gorge was a real treat.
To Qilan via routes 8 and 7. Over the pass at Tayuling and into Lishan through deeply cut river valleys, pear trees and tea plantations. A very long downhill stretch over 60km from the Shiyuan Pass to Qilan.
To Taipei via route 7 and 9. Via the cabbage fields of Ilan and over one last range of hills into Taipei.
Taipei: Arrival into Taipei at night took me right past the Chang Kai-Shek memorial hall. Apart from the more obvious things to see in Taipei don’t miss the 2-28 Peace Park museum and the Fine Art museum.
A few other references
Some references I found on others who have Taiwanese cycling tales to tell
Taiwan bicycle touring 2012
Why Taiwan deserves a spot on Lonely Planet’s top ten
David’s introduction to cycling in Taiwan
Yorkbadger 