What’s it like to cycle 1,000km around Taiwan? Highs, lows and a satisfied glow at the end
- Hills, busy roads and rain make a lap of Taiwan by bike a tough but transformative journey for a couple with little prior cycling experience
My legs are numb and my lungs ache as I shift down a gear and pedal harder still, keeping an eye on the crest of the hill we are climbing. A loaded truck thunders by, the draught it produces buffeting my bike.
I look down at the mobile phone mounted on my handlebars, squinting to read the screen in the glare of the sun. Just 40km to go. For today. Only about 800km (500 miles) left in our quest to cycle around Taiwan.
I am feeling gullible, old and worried.
Gullible because I believed the people – clearly fitter, more experienced cyclists than me – who said this trip was easy for the average, active person, and a pleasant way to see Taiwan; now, on our second day on the road, I am beginning to doubt them.
Old because my legs feel weak, my back aches and I have, after all, picked this challenge to prove something to myself on a big, round-number birthday.
Worried because we have only just begun and my partner is lagging, timidly hugging the edge of the road in fear of the traffic.
