Category Archives: folding bikes

my Taiwan cycling trip

Cycling from the west cost of Taiwan to Tai Chong. Seeing lots of rice fields, climbing up the slopes, a villege on the highland, passing through the military airport. In Tai Chong I met a friend in his 胡同 cafe– a very nice and relax place. Highly recomeneded.
Later I took a train upto Taipei witnessed the 10-10 protest then MRT to meet my friend in Taipei.

I was taking it easy along the way, many photos and trying different local foods. All in all, a wonderful break from my normal routine 🙂

Let the picture tell the rest of the story…

taiwan_breakfast.JPG

 

taiwan_rice-field.JPG

taiwan_MRT.JPG

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more pictures here:

http://www.jz88.com/copper/thumbnails.php?album=22

this is cool!

the coast-to-middle inoute

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Tomorrow I am going for a relax cycling holiday in Taiwan, visiting friends near the Tai-Chong area. I’ve been exploring Taipei by using a combination of MRT and my folding bike, but this will be the first time I am going to cycle across several towns entirely on bike. A tips from my friend – www.urmap.com, this site is really cool if you want to plan a cycling trip. It’s got large road maps (in Chinese) and satellite images and it’s free. I manage to “screen capture” my entire route at the detail level and assemble them into a huge map. Having the printout of my entire route is a great reassuring factor for places I’ve never been before. The other good one is bikely.com as mentioned in this post, they’ve got more detail satellite images.

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You can even see the elevation of the entire route, (seems a bit challenging at 8km : )

route elevation

Zero foot print in MRT – try this at home first

zero foot print

If I get a seat in the MRT, I can convert my “trolley bike” into “luggage mode” and “slip” the wheels just below my seat.  With my legs on both side of the saddle, the entrie bike take hardly any space.
Today, the lady sitting next to me looked amazed – I managed to convert a bulky “trolley” into almost nothing in a few seconds.
WARNING:
It’s not cool to get stuck half way in a crowded train, do practice at home before you try this in MRT.

Bicycle? no, it’s a shopping trolley

Not many people know the bike I ride to work can be converted into a shopping trolley.

“So what’s the big deal?” my friend once asked. Obviously he doesn’t cycle.

If you love cycling in Singapore, you have to accept the status of a secondary citizen; many places are “restricted zone” and you are simply not welcomed. Not just the 5 stars hotels along Orchard Road, even the heartland Kopitiam would look down on you, if you dare to bring your bicycle along. In order to keep the secondary citizen status undercover, many cyclists have to accept the fate of riding a shitty bike – park anywhere and not to worry too much about bike theft. Or else they have to live with the stress of risking their lovely companion kidnapped as soon as they get into any restricted zone.
I’ve got five bicycles stolen before. The last stolen one is not even nice (I learnt to ride a shitty bike too), and that was the reason I finally got a folding bike.

The last time I remember a security guard in Funan stopped me from entering the shopping mall, she told me, with a raised pitch, “bicycle is not allowed here.” I look at her, and said: ” Bicycle? no, it’s a shopping trolley.” My bike is converted within seconds.

Few minutes later, I’d ordered a Chicken rice, looked at the trolley/bike, and her funny face kept replaying in my mind.

jz88 in Funan food court

more photos of jz88 in different “restricted zone”
thanks to the team in tomorrow.sg, this blog has been “tomorrowed

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