Friday, March 6, 2009

The Tour de Taiwan: Of course I am not racing you idiot

We have all heard of the Tour de France. Did you know that there is a Tour de Taiwan as well? That this may be the 20th year? Or 10th at least? I have been here almost 13 years and I have never heard of it. Never before yesterday, that is. It starts in Kaohsiung, 45 minutes away from me, on Sunday, the day after tomorrow. They’re not big on local publicity. And, no, I wouldn’t have entered had I known. I raced once, that was enough. Michael Rubel always said: “don’t play games you haven’t already won.” I would like to at least watch part of it. I haven’t found out the exact route yet either, just something about 40 laps around the Love Canal over a couple bridges for a total of 88Km. It sounds more like a Tour de Block. I asked ZhiSheng, my bike shop friend about it. He showed me a big poster he had but didn’t put up. He was afraid his customers would ask him for details and the poster not only didn’t give any, it didn’t even say where you could go to find out the answers. No routes were given, just days and cities with vague times. Certainly wouldn’t want any spectators to gum up the works.
Teams are coming from around the world. I hope they get more information. I didn’t see Lance’s name anywhere so I guess he isn’t coming.

I know I look like a racer but I am still not racing.

Crossing the Great Divide, or maybe the Lesser Divide

Well we didn’t leave for the South Cross-Island Highway bike adventure again today. Maybe next week, or the week after. My friend, LaoSu is still having back trouble from his motorcycle accident. As luck would have it (good luck this time) it is raining tonight and may rain more this week. While this gives me more time to do other things first, it would be nice to listen to it rain while sitting in a natural hot spring.
I took a ride on my motorcycle, a trusty Yamaha 150, to see if there was a route over the mountains where everyone says there isn’t. I won’t say everyone is right, but I haven’t found a route yet. It won’t be a paved road, and it might only be a hiking trail, but I will find one. I will probably have to go by myself because I don’t have any friends stupid enough to want to go with me. But I may be able to convince one to drop me off on one side and pick me up on the other side. The route is from SanDiMan to GaoSu or there about. Google implies tracks through the mountain, and I have been on a few. Google doesn’t show a bridge that is necessary for crossing the river/wash. Less necessary if one is hiking than if one wants to drive a van. I did, however, find a bridge. Sorry I forgot my camera. The last time I took my cameras on the motorcycle, in the pizza box, the movie camera smacked against the display on the back of the digital SLR and broke it the same way I broke our flat screen TV. I keep forgetting to mention that to Hsien-Ling remembering the abuse I took over breaking the TV. I was attaching wires to the back of the TV and laid it down on a not-flat-enough something and the screen went crack.
Anyway, back to the bridge. It has seen better days. One could drive a car across it, but at the other side, the approach is gone save a single track just wide enough for an adventurous motorcycle driver. It is about 15 feet long and about two feet wide. It is not a bridge to a bridge but what is left after both sides of the track fell into the river. It is like riding on top of a two foot wide wall. I rode down it before thinking what it would be like to ride back up. Details. The road then of course turned into a track. I followed it a little ways before going back to scale the bridge. One certainly doesn’t want to stop half way up the approach as there would be nowhere to put your feet down. Exciting.
On the way back I tried another road that went up and over the first mountain and was heading down toward the river before I turned back. The road had a lot of powdery clay mixed with sharp rocks. The sky was also clouding up and the thought of riding on the wet clay brought the vision of sliding down the mountain on elephant snot. There was only one bridge anyway. Anybody up for a hike?