The entire time, I stayed at the Meander Hostel in Ximen, Taipei, which had reasonable rates, a nice open public space for working, and space for me to store my bicycle.

I ended up making videos for most every day of the trip. While most of them are cycling focused, some of them are not since I did want to experience some regular tourist attractions as well. Here they are in order.

#1: Arrival in Taipei, build bike & ride to Tamsui (台北 – 淡水）

#2: Taipei to Fulong, pepper bun & bubble tea (台北、福隆、胡椒餅、波霸奶茶)

#3: GoPro chest mount test on Taipei river paths to southern mountains

#4: Taipei to Shiding, two peaks ride & beef noodles (台北、石碇、牛肉麵)

#5: Mini “velodrome” in Taipei? (likely speed skating track)

#6: Workout at Taipei Wanhua Sports Center (台北市萬華運動中心)

#7: Yangmingshan national park & Tian Yuan Temple (陽明山國家公園,天元宮)

#8: Hiking Elephant Mountain 象山 + New Logo!

#9: Exploring Taipei’s Attractions + Din Tai Fung & Oolong Tea

#10: Spirited Away in Jiufen

#11: Taipei Grand Hotel + Bento + Portable Toilets

#12: Ride to Wulai Falls From Taipei (烏來瀑布)

#13: My Favorite Bubble Tea + Street Art in Ximen

#14: Last Day in Taipei | Ride to Dongyanshan 東眼山

Final Thoughts – Taiwan Cycling Trip

This trip is easily one of the most memorable trips I’ve taken throughout all of my travels. Taiwan is a paradise for cycling, and dare I say I enjoyed the cycling here more than I do living here in Japan (minus the scooter exhaust in the city).

If you are considering traveling to Taiwan for some cycling, I strongly recommend it! Even though I have not really been outside of Taipei area yet, I hear the other areas are also really great and have some big cycling communities.

One of the things that I really enjoyed the most about cycling in Taiwan was seeing the large number of people cycling all over the place. From large group rides of regular cyclists to regular pedestrians riding on their commuter bikes, it was great to see a country full of people using bikes. Another great thing to see was all of the female rides in Taiwan, which is a bit of a rare sight in Japan in comparison.

I’m definitely planning on going back sometime for Taiwan Cycling Trip Part II so I can ride in and experience the cycling in other parts of Taiwan. Heck, if I can get enough vacation time, I might even try and cycling around the whole country 🙂 One day…..

The post Taiwan Cycling Trip – 2 Weeks Riding Around Taipei appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

First step, navigate through the city traffic..

Next step, hop onto the awesome Taipei river cycling path to escape the city to the South.

I proceeded to get lost, as you can see from my cycling route on Strava, but I did eventually find my way to Wulai Waterfall 烏來瀑布.

After making it back to the hostel in Taipei, I met up with my travel buddy, Natalie, and we went exploring around Da Nang Park before grabbing some dinner.

After dinner, we found a craft beer shop and went to town on some great craft beers during the happy hour.

Be sure to watch the video to enjoy all of the fun from this day and great Natalie moments!

Full Taiwan Trip Playlist

The post Cycling From Taipei to Wulai Waterfall 烏來瀑布 appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

Course Profile

The cycling route and course profile from Nagoya to Jurou waterfall in Ena, Japan. Roughly 130 kilometers

Link to ride on strava.

Ride Start

The day started off with a fairly relaxing pace and a nice little early ride snack at Artigiano (アルティジャーノ), a bakery with a beautiful exterior/interior, in Tajimi, Japan.

Never too early for sweets

After eating, we slowly made our way towards Ena. It was an extremely hot day, however, and we both quickly ran out of water. Luckily, we weren’t too far into the country yet, and we were able to find a supermarket to restock on some fluids.

As we approached Jurou waterfall, we found a nice family-run curry shop. By this point, we had already been riding for a few hours and were pretty hungry, so we decided to stop for a quick lunch before continuing the last few km to our goal.

Mountain curry with some locally grown veggies

The staff was very kind and even gave us some free freshly grown tomatoes from their garden! Definitely stopping here again when I ride out this way next.

Arrival at Jurou waterfall (寿老の滝)

We continued on our way for the last few km and finally arrived at the secret Jurou waterfall, where some children were already cooling off in the water.

Cruise at Jurou waterfall (寿老の滝)

After a long, hot day in the saddle, we couldn’t wait to enter the cool water!

Cruise “meditating” under the waterfall

After cooling off in the falls for a bit, we were attacked by some Japanese hornets (スズメバチ), which apparently don’t like when you try to knock them away. When they feel threatened, they call their friends, and will group attack their target, regardless of size. These creatures are actually quite dangerous and getting stung numerous times can lead to death. Not wanting to stick around for more of their friends to come, we quickly departed to start our journey back home to Nagoya.

Random discovery of
道の駅 おばあちゃん市

Bradley’s GPS wasn’t working quite right, and I didn’t have the course loaded, so we randomly were making our way back by just riding Southwest, and then we came across this random tourist spot, which translates to something like Grandma City’s Road Stop (道の駅 おばあちゃん市).

This extremely large watermill caught our attention, so we decided to stop by 道の駅 おばあちゃん市

They were selling one of my favorite Japanese snacks, Gohei-mochi (五平餅), so of course we got some, even though we had to wait 15 minutes (worth it).

I was really impressed with the entire area of Ena (恵那). There were so many beautiful sights and unexpected surprises on this ride.

There was a fairly large dam nearby the shops as well.

Although I started the ride not feeling that great, I was feeling fantastic towards the end. Maybe it had something to do with all of the pastries, curry, and other snacks I ate along the way. In any case, it felt great to be back on the bike again after a few weeks off, and also catch up with my good mate, Bradley.

VLOG / Video for today’s ride

Here’s a video that Bradley put together about our ride.

The post Cycle to Jurou waterfall in Japan, Ena’s hidden Gem (寿老の滝) appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.

We met up at Nagoya Station at 6:30AM to have enough time to mingle and watch the start of the race. Once the race started, we were able to follow behind the sagwagan for a couple kilometers through the neutral start! All good things come to an end and we were kicked off the course once the race started so we made our way to the spectator area. After a couple hours of spectating, eating, and checking out the sponsor booths, we headed back home to Nagoya. All in all, about 140 km with perfect weather. Definitely going to go back next year!

We finished of the day with a stop at Cycles Bike shop and fueled up on some ramen at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Perfect end to a perfect day.

Ride Start

I rolled out from Nagakute at 5:45am to meet up with Dave and Bradley at Nagoya Station at 6:30am. We took a pretty straight and flat route West towards Inabe (in Mie prefecture) and had a lovely cross-headwind most of the way out. We managed to get to the starting area before the start of the race, so I went to find my old teammate Alder for a quick chat before the start.

Cruise and Alder (riding for Attaque Team Gusto)

Alder and I were teammates for our Division 1 college team, Lindsey Wilson College in 2009-2010. We used to clean up at all the local cyclocross races. We then moved on to different collegiate teams and became rivals on the US pro circuit as well. The last time we met was when we were both racing the Joe Martin Stage race in the US in 2013. While I retired from racing to pursue other life experiences, Alder has been getting a lot of international race experience. He spent the last year racing in Australia and this year is now racing in the Asian UCI circuit. Oh what could have been.. Anyway, we wished Alder good luck for the start and then the action began!

Inabe Stage Start!

Arashiro Yukia (the legend of Japan) at the start of the Inabe stage of the 2016 Tour of Japan

Start line – 2016 Tour of Japan Inabe Stage

Once the race started, we were able to follow along behind the sag wagan for the neutral start, which had some awesome local support!

The sides of the roads filled with cheering elementary/pre-school children

Although we were not in the race, literally hundreds of children and other people were passionately cheering for us as we rode through. It was quite the experience which I’ll never forget.

Map for the Inabe stage of Tour of Japan 2016

Once the race officially started, we were no longer able to ride on the course. Luckily, we acquired a course map from another rider who had a spare and we made our way to the finish/spectating area.

Inabe Spectating Area

Spectating area for Inabe Stage

The race finish and spectating area was on top of a mountain and had a really cool atmosphere. They had a large truck TV which was live streaming the race, along with a bunch of vendors selling food and cool products.

The popular Sakura Pork sandwich from the very popular Bucyo Coffee booth

Inabe Finish

The finish line for the Inabe Stage – 2016 Tour of Japan

The long day break of 3 riders which dropped to 2 in the last lap ended up winning the race, which was exciting to see. While those two did not sprint each other, the sprint for 3rd place was quite exciting with a Team United Healthcare rider tearing it up (no surprise there). Anyway, once the race was over, we began the journey back home.

Inabe Stage KOM – Tour of Japan (Bradley, Cruise, Dave)

All in all, it was a fantastic day!

The post 2016 Tour of Japan Stage 4 – Inabe appeared first on Two Wheel Cruise.