This morning, I finally summoned the enthusiasm to jump in the car, drive north for about an hour, then get on my bike to ride a road I’d heard about several years ago. It’s a climb with 36 hairpins. Well, they say 36, but I have to take issue with that, more of which shortly.
I think I got wind of the road on the back of some publicity about a fillum about bike racing. ‘Got wind’ is rather a fitting turn of phrase, since the film in question, To the Fore (2015), was from Hong Kong (although filmed on location in Taiwan among other places, and hence the reference to this particular road), and was released under the Chinese name of 破風 (po feng), which translates as break wind. You can see why this grabbed the attention of my inner-teenager. Oh, how I sniggered. In fact, if you are in any way familiar with bike racing, the concept of breaking wind is at the centre of the sport; we just happen to call it drafting. For those not familiar, it is simply the practice of cyclists sheltering behind a rider, or riders, to keep out of the wind, thereby saving precious energy. I think the energy saving is of the order of 30%.
No doubt you are thinking that this is all very interesting, but it was of little import this morning. The benefits of drafting while climbing as slowly as I climbed are limited, but since I was riding solo, there were zero benefits reaped by little old me. I rode early to avoid the traffic, but I did have the chance to experience the full force of the delightful deisel exhaust blasting from just the one concrete mixer that happened to crawl past, probably around half way up. I was rather fortunate. There weren’t even any tourist buses on their way up to the Taiping Suspension Bridge. Surprisingly, I saw no other cyclists until I was on the descent. Evidently, Monday mornings are not really prime time for climbing mountains through the medium of the greatest of man’s inventions. It felt rather wonderful. Just me, a mountain, a few scooters, motorcycles and blue trucks, and that bloody concrete mixer. I’m currently not as fit as I would like, but I still made good (enough) time and it is a climb with no especially long, steep sections. More of a steady ascent, which suits me as I can find a nice rhythm, punctuated by just the odd short, steep pitch here and there.
The road itself is marked with signs on each of the 36 corners. Here’s the first:
Here’s the last:
I adopted a strategy to ease me through the climb, breaking it down into blocks of 12 corners. 36 seems rather a lot, while three batches of 12 is more manageable. I kind of nicked the idea from someone called Wiggins. I recalled him explaining that he broke down his attempt at the Hour record, with five blocks of 12 minutes. I think he knew what he was doing.
Now for the issue with the count. This is bend No. 25:
If that’s not clear enough, here’s the map view, with the little yellow chap in the centre marking the location:
Sorry, but if that’s a hairpin, then I’m Vidal Sassoon.
Here’s what I think happened. Bloke drives up, miscounts 35 as 36. Another bloke drives up installing signs, missing out 25 because he installed 24 and 26 either side of his lunch break and simply forgot where he was in the sequence and couldn’t be arsed to nip back down to check. Gets to top, installs 36, clebrates with a beer and a ciggy, then finds 25 wrapped in bubblewrap, lurking under a sheet of carboard. Oh crap! Boss will have a fit. Meh! Just stick it on that slightly wobbly bit. Nobody will ever know.
So there you have it. As they say in Taiwan 差不多 (chà bù duō). Close enough, innit?
2020 - A Year of Perfect Vision 