A Heavy-Duty Cycling Trip Around the Island, Day 4: Climbing Up to Shouka – The Highest Point of the Nanhui Highway
Cycling Around the Island, Day 4 – Setting Off
Meow meow, hello everyone! Today we’re back to pick up my cycling-around-the-island trip, because the whole experience was honestly so amazing that it’s still fresh in my mind. So let’s get started! I woke up super early today, got my gear sorted out, and then got ready to head off.
The start of today still had some flat road to ride on. My goal was to first get halfway up the climb before the sun hit its peak, because there’s a livelier spot in the middle of the route that serves as a roadside rest stop along the highway. After taking a good rest there, I’d continue on to make my push for the summit. Then I’d meet up with my support van over by Daren and find a place to take a break.
With that mindset, off I went! At the very start I headed downhill along Provincial Highway 1, and since this road is either flat or downhill, the whole way was pretty relaxing and easygoing. Along the way I ran into lots of people grinding it out just like me, and there was even a whole tour bus full of folks on the roadside cheering people on, which was genuinely pretty moving.
One turn later and I was onto a gently uphill stretch of Provincial Highway 9. This section was fairly easy too, mostly gentle slopes with ups and downs, and as I slowly worked the pedals my heart rate climbed right along with it. I don’t know if it was my stamina gradually draining away, but the gentle slopes started to feel steeper, and every push on the pedals felt harder and harder.
I climbed 150 meters along the way and finally reached a convenience store. But when I glanced back, I realized my rear tire pressure was already too low. The thing is, my pump is a big one, not a portable one, and I didn’t want to spend money buying a new one, so I’d just dumped it on the support van, figuring I probably wouldn’t be so unlucky as to need to pump up a tire again.
But the heavens always love to play jokes, so now I had two choices: keep climbing twice the distance up and then descend to find a repair shop to pump it up, or descend right now to a city on the western half of the island to get it fixed, then climb back up all over again. For a moment I was torn between the two.
Luckily, as good fortune would have it, at that mountain convenience store I ran into a fellow cyclist who was also climbing the mountain. He happened to have a pump with him and very kindly helped me out of my jam! I’m so grateful to him – if it weren’t for him I might still be stuck climbing that mountain right now. Anyway, after resting and finishing a meal, I continued on toward the summit. Thanks to the typhoon, the weather was a bit gloomy all day with strong winds blowing, but thankfully it didn’t pour, because otherwise the risks of climbing the mountain would have shot way up.
But I was almost at the top. Even though I kept stopping and starting along the way, I was still nearly there. If you want to imagine what that feeling is like, picture carrying a 15-kilogram backpack and running laps around a track nonstop at 100-meter-sprint speed, all while under time pressure to finish within a set limit. And then… it started raining (ꏿ﹏ꏿ;), with a light drizzle beginning to fall from the sky. I had no choice but to pick up the pace and pedal harder uphill, having to drive every single step down with all the strength in my thigh muscles, like stomping my feet as hard as I could.
It was only when I saw that legendary pillar, standing tall at the highest point of the highway, that I knew I had finally made it. No matter how far or how terrifying the journey was, I made it!
No time to waste – I hadn’t even caught my breath before I immediately set off downhill! Since going downhill doesn’t take any effort, it lets you make good time and rest properly at the same time. But then I discovered that the descent was the start of a whole other nightmare. Going down, I had to keep squeezing the rear brake the entire time, and it still wouldn’t stop me! The moment I let go, I’d instantly shoot way too fast. Descending in this kind of rainy, windy weather is truly the moment a cyclist has to be most on edge – and on top of that, it was a typhoon day! By the time I was halfway down, the rain was coming down so hard it was basically being poured out by the bucket, and there were even huge gusts of wind powerful enough to cancel out my downhill speed entirely, or nearly blow me over and crash my bike.
Cycling Around the Island, Day 4 – Winding Down
And then the scary part happened…
Halfway down the descent, I took a wrong turn at an intersection. It was actually a ridiculous mistake, because that road led to a small residential community, and it was obviously a lot narrower than Provincial Highway 9. I have no idea what I was thinking at the time – maybe I figured I was almost down to flat ground, or maybe I’d glanced at Google Maps and thought the roads connected, so I just went ahead and rode down it. Nothing felt off the whole way, until I came to a three-way fork, where I decided to take a short rest at a roadside pavilion. Since my phone screen was covered in rainwater and I couldn’t operate it anymore, and I wanted to make sure I had the right direction so I wouldn’t go the wrong way (I’d already gone the wrong way), I pulled out a dry towel to wipe down my body and the phone screen. The navigation told me I’d soon have to cross a small river, after which I’d reach the Daren town center – meaning my journey only had one last mile to go.
Right then I heard what sounded like a pack of dogs, the very sound I didn’t want to run into right now… I looked up and around but there was nothing there, yet a bad thought popped into my head: what if they were monkeys? Monkeys would be terrible! I had to get moving fast! So I hurriedly threw my gear on my back and pressed on, but I’d barely gone a few steps when a little black dog suddenly came charging out of nowhere and stopped right beside me, barking. I thought I was about to get bitten, and just as I was getting ready to fight it off, I realized it had stopped next to me, as if it were curious about why I’d shown up here. I couldn’t shoo it away no matter what, so I just let it tag along with me as I continued on.
After getting lost wandering around for a while, I ran into another roadblock: that river I just mentioned having to cross had, because of the heavy rain, turned into a small river running right across the path. In other words, if I wanted to reach the other side, I’d have to wade through the water while pushing my bike.
And as you’d expect, there’s no way I… crossed that stream~ I’m not about to gamble with my own life. So I had no choice but to resign myself and climb back up the mountain. That little black charcoal of a dog followed me everywhere along the way too, and finally, partway up the climb, it quietly slipped away from my side. Honestly, that experience was really special, because it was as if the little black dog understood what I was saying. I’d even go so far as to boldly believe that the little black dog was the mountain god of those hills, protecting me from going any farther ahead.
Anyway, anyway, I finally made it after dark to tonight’s lodging, which was also my first lodging stop on the eastern half of the island. Jinlun~ There are still plenty of stories to come, but I’m running low on time for today, so let’s pick it up again in the next installment. I’m McDonDon, and if you like my posts, feel free to hit follow! Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
