The Daily Bubble Tea

This morning, cycling buddies Michael T. and Drew K. came down from Taichung for some cycling around Lugu [鹿谷].  The route was about 50km long and tallied up over 900m in climbs.  I packed my bike in Michael’s van and we traveled down HWY 3 to Zhushan [竹山].  We parked the van at the 7-11 on Jishan Road [3丙], unpacked, and were off!

Our route gave us a great view of the Jiji Weir and the Zhuoshui River.  Soon we were on County Road 139 followed by 131 to Lugu.  Along the way, there were plenty of tea plantations:

This is the much more heavily traveled County Road 151.  It leads to the popular tourist destinations Sitou [溪頭] and Shanlinxi [杉林溪].  Since the weather was cool, the traffic wasn’t too bad:

After stopping to confirm our location on a tourist map at the side of the road, Drew discusses his satisfaction with the outstanding English translations found on tourist maps throughout the island.  We were just a stone’s throw from the Tca Culture Hall [茶業文化館] and a short ride from Mr. Dongding [凍頂山].

Our bikes lined up during our final ascent before turning off on 投55-2 to circle back around to Zhushan:

Although it was really hazy, I did manage a few decent scenery shots here and there:

The ride back was mostly down hill.  We stopped briefly at a homestay run by the parents of one of Drew’s friends for tea and conversation before charging back to the van in Zhushan.

Here’s the official map of the route we took this morning.  I got a portrait of all three of us in front of a convex traffic mirror, but I accidentally erased it from my camera.  Here’s a self-portrait from the same traffic mirror that my delete-happy thumb spared: