Saturday, October 19, 2013

Taichung Airport Bike Ride


9-28-13 8:25pm Sat. (1)

      I took a long bike ride this morning and discovered the Taichung Airport terminal. I took the Han River bike path through Tan-Zih to the Sugar Cane bike path to highway #10 west and rode another 5km-3 mi. up a hill to make a right turn to special route 10 to the airport terminal. I chained the bike to a nearby pole and walked a few minutes into the terminal. It took about 1 hour 10 minutes to get there, about 25 km- 15 miles, the same distance as from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn to JFK Airport, but one could never ride a bicycle to the JFK airport; it’s too large and there are no bike paths. The Taichung Airport is one terminal building off a simple four lane two-way street, not a limited access highway. Furthermore, I can chain my bike to a pole and I think it will be still there when I get back; no such luck in Queens, NY.

I will ride the bike to the airport next Saturday morning on my way to take a flight to Hong Kong to visit Ariel. The flight leaves at 8:30am so I should get to the terminal by 7am, I think. I’ll have to be on my bike by 6am to go there. I’m not going by bike to the airport to save money though a taxi would cost perhaps 450NT ($15us) and it’s an 18km (11mi) ride from Taichung Train station and it takes 36min, according to Taxi Auto Fare Website, if they don’t rip you off. I think it would be a nice experience; the bike paths are right-of-way and beautiful. Coming home, I’d be riding at 11pm at night. I have to be careful of the dozen parts of the path they scraped and left raw instead of resurfacing them immediately; typical half-assed Taiwan workmanship.

Today I rode almost three hours on the bike! The longest ride I have ever taken, longer than the 26 mile NYC marathon. I did this with a painful left wrist that made it hard to grip the handlebar. I was exhausted but satisfied when I arrived home. I had a slight headache after a while which could have been from heatstroke or from the trouble with the new dining area ceiling light we were having installed.

 

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