A 520 mile loop in Taiwan with a bus ride skive.

[jameso]

Taiwan's not a place you'd go as a tourist but it's a shame since it's such an interesting and friendly place. As a bivi-biker it's very safe if you can ignore the big spiders, a few snakes and a lot of monkeys in some areas. Getting woken up at 5am by local old folk doing Tai-Chi in the park is about as rowdy as it gets. The geography isn't as varied as the Alps or USA but in places it's truly jaw-dropping and if you're a fan of Chinese painting landscapes you could sit for some time watching the play of light, cloud and mountain framed by Alders or bamboo. Eating at local food places with no menu that I can read is always with a feeling of apprehensive gamble and sometimes it pays off well. Point at some characters and hope, or take the 7-Eleven safe move.







This ride was with Will from WTB who loaned me a set of their new 'Road Plus' Horizon tyres. I know, it's nothing really new and randonneurs have been there before but you can keep your durex-thin casings that many of those tyres use, I got fed up of fixing flats with them. These tyres are great, the extra volume works well. TCS tubeless is a bonus, they're fast, light enough but also tough. They look good too. I wanted to keep them on my bike.

We rode a loop south from Taichung to the west coast, across the island on one of the roads linking the west and east coasts, then up the east coast road to the mouth of the Taroko gorge. The gorge road climbs from sea level to around 3150m over about 50 miles. The descent on the other side down to around 500m is incredible but this time we saw what the weather here can unleash. Riding from 2500m or so upwards the weather got worse towards the top. As we got close to the col the bad weather coming in from the western coast hit us with thick fog and cloud, high winds and rain and temperatures only just above freezing. It shouldn't come as a suprise at that altitude and our clothing was enough to cope with it while pedalling to generate heat but the descent was looking problematic. Having just fitted new, larger tyres I'd taken my guards off and now realised how much that would affect things on the descent. We decided to stay in a hikers hostel near the top rather than descend into the darkness and the 5 hour ride back to the hotel. In the morning the weather was worse, there wasn't much hope of facing up to the windchill of a 2500m descent and the risks of riding that road in thick fog. We got a local bus down to the town on the lower part of the road, bikes piled over the seats and us dripping on the floor. A bale-out option that I'm glad was there. Some pride was salvaged on the wet ride back to Taichung, we could've taken another bus but at 300-400m the temperature was more bearable so we pedalled in the spray and rain for a few hours while thinking of hotel bath tubs and bars.



More pics here.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/67338272@ ... 5642216071

[Bearbonesnorm]

Brilliant, somewhere you'd (I) would never ever think of visiting.

What set-up are you running on your bike in the bottom pic James - 650b still?

EDIT: As you were, after looking at the tyre I've answered my own question

[Bearbonesnorm]

Okay, so I answered my first question but that's obviously opened up a can of worms in my head James, do you know whether the WTB tyre you tried had a taller sidewall than usual? I'm liking the idea of 'Road Plus' and just spotted the 650B x 48mm Compass Switchback Hill Tyre, it's got the width but not sure whether there needs to be an additional increase in height to offset the smaller rim ... same as B+?

[jameso]

The 47c Horizon is around the same OD as a 700x30c according to WTB, Compass 48c would be similar. It adds up to make sense, they're all about 685-690mm OD. You're right, it's a bit like B+ and 29" comparisons. For a while I used 650 x 38-42c tyres that match an average road bike wheel OD and they were good for road riding but bigger tyres felt better for what I wanted the bike to do. Problem has been lack of choice in 45-50c, for a couple of years it's been Vee Speedsters, or Nano 2.1s for more off-road use, but there's not been a really good road/dirt track option until recently.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Thank you James ... I can feel a purchase coming on