Tour de Sun Moon Lake

The last time we were at Sun Moon Lake, Pascal said to me 'It'd be good to come here one day and cycle round the whole lake!' I laughed and said 'Why not!'
So yesterday, after turning down a trip to the local beach; we loaded up the van and drove for over an hour to the southern shore of the beautiful Sun Moon Lake. The evening before I'd stocked up with new bike bag, puncture repair kits, extra helmet padding and most importantly: a bike computer! Yes you heard right; brilliant

We'd looked on a map earlier and figured it was some 30-40 km around the lake plus hills; so we'd allowed ourselves 3-4 hours for the trip. Psyched up and raring to go we set off around 2:30 in the scorching heat. Wanting to avoid a steep mountain ascent; Pascal had discovered a cycle track that hugged the lake shore for a couple of km. Well after 5 minutes down a dodgy track, covered in mud and lucky not to have a puncture, we found the real path... which shortly doubled back up the mountain anyway.
Only in Taiwan are trees planted in the middle of cyclepaths and steps put between steeper paths preventing you from cycling at all!


Once on the road the route was smooth and the hills nothing to write home about: Computer stats!
max speed: 29.8mph, tot av speed 14mph, av flat speed 19mph which is not bad; we were definately feeling it... but you can imagine our surprise when after 1hour 15, we'd completed the loop.


Well, we were happy with the time but i wasnt satisfied with the days exercise done...
... so we went for another ride: this time up a steeper path following yellow flags: now this really did define "beaten track" cause that's all it was.

It wasnt long before we had to push our bikes up... we thought eventually it'll meet a paved path... but no, on it went.

It was about then i noticed the mosquitoes everywhere; not aimlessly flying but attacking us... this is obviously why the path was never finished; the workers had been bitten to death by these hell beasties! I remembered the agony of the bites from Hei Sun Wood and panicked like a man.
I half ran, half skidded down the path dragging my bike with me... all the way to the van. I had a puncture but i didn't care: we agreed that that was quite enough cycling for one day!

On the way back in the van, I discovered a new tool on my camera and took some funky pics.
On the way back Pascal said to me 'Next time we should cycle all the way to Sun Moon Lake, camp the night there and then cycle back on the Sunday!' I laughed and said 'Why not!'