Royal stage was waiting for me today.
70 kilometers with few 200 meters gain as a warm up in the morning (preferably early morning before it gets real hot)
10 kilometers with 500 meters high mountain as the main task of the day (crossing from east to south coast of Taiwan)
26 kilometers as a final stretching in order to find some accommodation
Shall I climb up there or just run on the beach?
As I was unable to find any drugs (food supplements), the only way of recovering and recharging energy is a good sleep. Means I can either cycle when it’s very hot and sunny (sun is very strong after 9am), or I could possibly start early, but being without energy for lack of sleep… so far I preferred always sleep and today was not an exception, so I started cycling around 8:15am
58 kilometers completed before midday time to relax (it’s really too hot to continue) – lunch, ice cream, sleeping and the most important thing – find a place where to swim in Pacific ocean! Locals are saying the beach is too rocky and the water is too deep for swimming here in east coast, but for me it is a must before getting to southwest coast of Taiwan. I could not make it to Pacific coast 8 years back in USA, neither 3 years back in Mexico, so now, when I came to visit friends met in US is the time to finally jump into this ocean!
During lunch I chat with other cyclists – the reason why everybody goes anti-clockwise is that west coast is pretty flat, so you have some training before you get to mountainous east coast. If I add the strong wind against me (fortunately not as strong as second day, but always blowing against me), I really feel I did not choose the best direction. On the other side they are all the time scared of more difficult second part, while I am completing it now and looking forward the easier second part (eventually I would be, if I just went along the coast, I guess they did not climb Yushan during their journey!)
Other thing we discussed was their clothes. I understand they are covering entire body to protect the skin against sun, but why BLACK colour? I also have long sleeve thermal clothes, but I would never wear it with >35 degrees Celsius and sun, simply because it’s black. Answer is simple – because cycling clothes are always black, there are no other colours available! If anybody looking for great business, come to produce light colour cycling clothes to Taiwan, you will make a fortune 😉
Recommended way of parking your motorcycle?
Most likely I am going to die tomorrow, BUT – human body is an incredible thing! On Monday I did 10km with 700 meters gain in +- 3 hours and most of the time I was walking. Only 5 days of training and today I did same distance with 500 meters gain in less than one hour, did not have to walk even once and I was pretty ok after (and I already did 70km today before the climb, on Monday I was fresh!) We really can achieve everything, we just need to want!
Taiwanese are not really great with traffic sights – I know I need to follow cycling route number 1, but should I turn left or keep going straight? It is like this all the time…
106 kilometers today