Taiwan might be one of the best places in the world for a cycling holiday | Canada Voices

For most of my life, I seized every opportunity to work, study and travel abroad. The freedom of being untethered from routines and the unpredictability of new places shook me out of the monotony of home.

But the once unquestioned joy of travel became complicated. As I questioned what I was really seeking, the richness of home was a stark contrast to the contrived photos of influencers framing out the parts of these destinations that made them interesting and challenging.

Globalized aesthetics made places feel homogeneous. This crystallized for me in Indonesia, where a taco bar in Bali felt indistinguishable from its Mexican surf town namesake. Travel, which I once loved, had grown hollow.

This sentiment is growing, with some calling for an end to travel altogether. I, however, was not quite ready to ground myself for good.

Rethinking how I travel brought me back to cycle touring. The allure began in my early 20s when I was roped into an ambitious trip along the Pacific Coast Highway from Vancouver to Mexico.

Cycling forces you to absorb your surroundings more slowly, with every bump in the road felt under the rider. The physical and mental challenge of self-propelled travel makes the reward of arrival much sweeter.

Unable to complete the trip owing to a serious accident, I gave up bike travel for many years.

Until I was captivated by the idea of Taiwan’s full-island bike route.

The island, slightly larger than Vancouver Island, is home to more than 23 million people. Most often in the news owing to geopolitical tensions with China and its booming semiconductor industry, it is also a bicycle industry powerhouse. Taiwan’s bicycle manufacturing sector started growing after the Second World War and is now home to more than 900 bicycle-related companies, including well-known brands Giant and Merida.

Cycling Route No.1 is a 968-kilometre journey around the island. Along the well-marked route, there are bicycle rest stops, integrated train routes and police stations that offer basic repair tools and tire pumps. When the official journey opened in 2015, former premier Mao Chi-kuo said he envisioned Taiwan as a “cycling paradise.”

On a damp morning in November, my partner and I left Taipei from our hotel near Songshan Station, the route’s official start. We followed a bike path along the Keelung River headed toward the city of Hsinchu, the epicentre of semiconductor production. Along the way, a group of Taiwanese road cyclists decked out in high-end kits whizzed by our clunky touring bicycles weighed down with hefty panniers with a stream of chirpy “good mornings!”

We, like most cyclists, travelled counter-clockwise. This direction allows riders to condition their legs, with fewer hills and a tailwind for the first few days. In the first week on the populous west coast, we passed through all three of Taiwan’s largest cities (New Taipei City, Taichung and Kaohsiung).

The government’s official itinerary lays the route over nine days. We dedicated three weeks to ensure time to recover from jet lag and to take a rest day or two when we wanted. Unless you are a fast cyclist, a day of biking more than 100 km, with time for refuelling, getting lost and washing sweaty clothes leaves little time for exploring.

We also added diversions from the official route to Sun Moon Lake and coastal Kenting National Park, each with unexpected challenges. Mountainous Sun Moon Lake is home to Taiwan’s Indigenous Thao tribe and a popular stop for tourists. Google Maps offered an enticing shortcut but had us peddling steep jungle roads with snarling dogs threatening to knock us off our descents. And then minutes before sunset, still en route, the app directed us to a road closed for maintenance where we required a rescue by a helpful scooter rider. We faced violent gale-force winds while heading to Kenting.

Most cyclists are eager to reach the less populated east side of Taiwan and some elect to exclusively cycle this side of the island. It is more agricultural and offers dramatic vistas from seaside routes. The Suhua Highway north of Taroko National Park is often skipped by cyclists but the safer parts of this route are worth the thrill and offer scenic views over sheer cliffs while cycling along a narrow shoulder.

We often received friendly (if startling) honks from local drivers or would hear an encouraging jiayou! (which roughly translates to “add fuel”) as we pedalled up hills. People would ask if we were doing the huandao (a journey around the island), which is considered a rite of passage for some Taiwanese and can also be taken on foot, scooters, motorcycles or trains.

But even in one of the world’s best cycling destinations, biking can be uncomfortable, at least for me, neither naturally athletic nor hardy. Five days in, I had scabbing saddle sores where I would need to keep sitting for the rest of the trip.

The physical demands are part of the beauty of biking. It has a wonderful way of putting a person directly in contact with daily life: the heat waiting at an urban stop light surrounded by idling vehicles, the faint scent of incense passing an ornate temple, bird calls in the humid jungle and sights of roadside butterflies, Macaque monkeys and waterfalls.

You find yourself in spots you might never see travelling any other way, weaving through pungent fish farms, tiny cemeteries, a remote recycling centre and farmers’ rice fields.

I didn’t love getting lost, particularly when daylight hours were waning and bruised sit bones made it excruciating to be on a bike longer than necessary. (Google Maps mishaps once left us in the middle of a construction site unable to cross a river and hoisting bicycles over barricades.)

However, most times we saw something unique.

There is nothing inherently special about cycle touring. We simply cycled from point A to B, and saw what we saw, no lineups or tour buses. It’s not for everyone, but getting uncomfortable and slowing down are two lessons that could be taken by any traveller looking for more connection to places. Despite the aching legs and the stress of missed turns by the end of the trip, I was already thinking about where to bring my bike next.

If you go

While we brought our bikes from Canada, shops in Taipei will rent an entire kit for the trip. If you are bringing your own bicycle, shops can assemble it for you on arrival or tune it up.

Taiwan has incredible cycling infrastructure, and many places have dedicated cycle paths; snaking along the coast, elevated through farmlands, skirting cities and through dedicated bike tunnels. Elsewhere, cyclists share a half lane with scooters. Drivers were rule-abiding and respectful of cyclists.

Use Google Maps with caution: Navigation was a continuing struggle. The official route often follows main highways leaving the rider on traffic-filled routes. Google Maps takes a creative approach, which led to many beautiful and unexpected moments. However, it was sometimes uninformed about missing bridges and defunct bike lanes.

Pick your timing: Taiwan can be brutally hot and incredibly rainy, and neither are ideal for cycling. We chose November, known as one of the driest months of the year and barely used our rain gear.

Good apps to have: As a non-seasoned cycle tourist, I underestimated how much wind could ruin a day. The Windy app can help plan for wind conditions. The Google Translate app was invaluable for both ordering and communicating with people who did not speak English.

Build in rest days and flexibility: Maybe you are incredibly fit and can cycle 1,000 km in less than a week. However, on our best days, we had time to stop to take pictures and proper lunch breaks along the way, arrived long before dark and had time to explore our destination.