Biking Yilan to Taipei in one day

on the Taiwan Loop

October 27, 2023

Here, I want to share my experience hiking the Taipei Songshan Railway station, the official starting and ending point of the official No. 1 bicycle route.

The weather report announced some light rain in the morning and otherwise clear weather for this day, so my German friend and I set out at about 7:30 in the morning from Hualian.

We decided to skip bicycling the part between Hualian and Yilan and take a slow train instead. I had biked two small sections of it two days beforeDongaotoNanfangao to Changdend the judgement was that while this part is one of the most scenic areas to bike within the loop, it was just not worth the road safety risk.

Starting from Yilan train station we first set out to pick up my French friend at the small town of Toucheng where he stayed for a few days to wait out the rainy weather and passed the time by learning how to surf waves.

Toucheng is a great place for learning to surf with wonderful beaches. A private surfing lesson for two hours with an extra person to take pictures and videos can be had for about 1.200 TWD per person there. That's the lowest price I have heard of in Taiwan. After picking him up we proceeded to drive along the coastline. While not as stunning as the part between Hualian an Yilan, it is special in its own way as there is big rock formations that go deep into the water with lots of spectacular wave breaking there and few tourists.

Our friend suggested a Bento Box place at Fulong train station that we would reach early at around 11:00am, while not yet really hungry we agreed for the stop since we already had done a lot of kilometers. By some navigational hick-ups, we arrived at the Bento Box place at a small train station and decided to pump up the tubes of our bikes in the small town before heading into the mountains where no such opportunity would exist.

Here we learned that electric compressor machines do not produce enough pressure for racing bike tires (about 8 bar needed). So bike and scooter rental stores will usually be willing to help out, but ultimately cannot. Luckily there was apolice station that gladly lent us their manual bike pump and even handed us a few bottles of drinking water for free!

Biking on provincial highway No. 2

After the one hour rest, we left the Provincial Highway No. 2 )with a sharp left turn and headed into the mountains on Provincial Highway No. 2 Old （2丙). Our French friend insisted that we would take a slightly different route that we originally planned as that way we would go up a beautiful mountain.

On this road we passed the Pingshuangshuidao 平雙隧道

The climb in the beginning was pretty tough, almost down to the speed where you think about pushing the bike instead (which is actually harder than keeping to bike in the lowest gear as you are not used to walking anymore during the loop). However as hard as it was (the German friend and I fell way behind), it is only for a short time and afterwards there is lots of sweet downhill time.

What happened afterwards is what I will call the topping of the cake of the whole Taiwan loop as it is only downhills from there on all the way toKeelung (a part of Taipei).

First you will pass amajestic bridge that spans over a huge valley and then you will enter amountain tunnel (Jiping Suidao 基平隧道） that just never seemed to end. There are no curves in it and when we passed we were the only people there. It's just downhill and it feels surreal!

After you get spit out of the tunnel, you go down a bunch of hairpin curves, arguably the most fun place to bike down and then suddenly you arrive Keelung city and the first MRT station BaDu of Taipei.

The sun was starting to set down, and we agreed to push on for central Taipei to arrive before the sky went black. The navigation system showed 50 km remaining (at that time we already had about 70km on the clock), so it should roughly take 1-2 hours. We were wrong about this estimate and it got dark quickly.

Keelung resembles what I would call a cyber punk city. Building seem old and build in the old 70s style of Hong Kong, theres green nature reclaiming a lot of it and everything is build into the mountains. There's small alleys and bridges everywhere while big trucks thunder next to you. We pretty much got lost in those small alleys, already feeling our energy fading and getting stressed out from all the pollution and noise of the city.

Luckily later we found a walking/bicycling path next to a river that took us almost all the way to Taipei city center. There within thousands of scooters passing by us, we arrived at SongShan station, sawTaipei 101 The 101 was once the highest building in the world, and in my opinion is still one of the prettiest skyscrapers!.

After getting mixed up in all the people coming of work from the office buildings, we found ourselves between the big shopping centers of this metropolis. Quite the contrast to the peaceful mountains with buddhist temples and the coastline we had been just a few hours before!

At about 8:00pm, everyone got to their accommodations and enjoyed a highly deserved shower after 115km of bicycling (a personal record for myself). This night I stayed in the 小角落青旅咖啡 Corner Hostel & Cafe that i can highly recommend for stays in Taipei.

Marina at Toucheng township

Bento box lunch at Fulong train station

Arriving at Keelung City shortly before the sun sets

Ocean view on provincial highway No. 2

Similar as in Thailand, you can see a lot of temples like this along the roads