Hey,
Just thought I’d share about a really awesome day today, exploring trails and backroads near Taipei, Taiwan, where I’m over doing product development for KHU. Perks of the job are a chance to take a couple of extra days and explore.
Taipei is a great city for exploring on a uni in that it’s pretty quick to get out of the city core into some chaotic narrow streets on the outskirts, with about a thousand moped riders per city block (OK an exaggeration but you get the point!), then steep hills and jungle just outside the city.
I wanted to find a trail called the “Gas Plant” trail, mentioned on the internet and located beside a highway tunnel and gas plant.
I never did find the official trail but headed up a steep concrete aqueduct that connected with a trail above the road tunnel, climbing up to an amazing view of the city and several small religious shrines (not sure what kind) on really steep terrain overlooking the city. The trail was fairly technical singletrack and really slippery stairs, and led through a ridge, over the tunnels, and back towards the city, where I explored some tiny streets and found a small place for lunch- seafood soup and rice. The other perk of Taipei- easy to find really good, cheap food.
After that I pedalled northeast and ascended some very steep streets heading again up above the city, and by complete fluke ended up on a steep bushwacky trail. I had a vague sense of where it might end up so I kept going, riding as much as possible and hiking where it got too bushy, and emerged an hour later on a small road. The road was beautiful. It lead through a canyon with cliffs on one side and very small farms on the other, winding down to a university campus on the east side of town. It was doubly fun because it was such a surprise, and refreshingly quiet compared to the city. Eventually I emerged back into the chaos of east Taipei, and joined the mopeds for a race back to town, partly on a bikepath beside a large river that skirts the east side of the city.
Just when I thought the ride adventure was over, in a completely random location beside the river with only a few old men for an audience, there was a puppet show playing, mounted on the top of a van, with earsplitting Asian music and 2 puppets fighting each other, complete with loud gun noises and smoke and even flames shooting out of the stage. Totally surreal.
Anyway, just a story of a really cool day.
Kris
I agree it would be nice to see some pictures, especially of the factory, I will ask Egon if he has some pictures of the Qu-Ax factory, I’ve never seen those and that would be pretty cool. Kris, any chance of pics of the KH factory? It sounds like you’re still in Taipei. I wonder how big it would be haha, it can’t be too big can it… (even though it’s probably a huge factory making unicycle and bike parts and welding and stuff like that)