[ Mech Problems :-( ] AoWanda Ride First Try

AoWanda Ride First Try Summary

• Self Ride
• Starting/ending Location: Near 7-11, PuLi Township, Nantou  埔里7-11
• Bike Length: ~ 73 km. Elevation gain: ~ 1000 m.
• Hill profile: One medium and rolling.
• Good for: Repeated hill training.
• CAUTION: 3 tunnels back and forth. Bring strong flashlight!
• Route Highlights:
  • Great PuLi and WuJie Views.
  • SiYuan Suspension Bridge 思源吊橋
  • Great river valley scenery.

Background

During Lunar New Year I planned this AoWanda Ride First Try route for:

1. Find a ride without driving too far, so to avoid New Year traffic.
2. Exploring self-ride possibility near PuLi (and say f**k to Sun Moon Lake ).
3. Get some dirt to my recently maintained bike.

This turned out to be one of my worst rides with 3 mechanical problems all happened at once (THANKS bike mechanics, you JERK! ) on my newly maintained bike. Nevertheless the views were stunning, so I wanted to share them as below.

Start

My AoWanda Ride First Try route started at PuLi, the starting town for WuLing from the West. Most people started here either to WuLing or to Sun Moon Lake, thanks to National HighWay #6 國道六號 connecting PuLi to TaiChung.

Lanterns for Lantern Festival.

PuLi was surrounded by great mountains.

Cool temple gate.

Kirin Elementary.

Instead of taking the crowded Provincial Highway #14 and suffering big buses, we took County #71 (投71) that crossed through the surrounded mountain walls with a tunnel.

County #71 also went through many aboriginal villages, so it should be more interesting.

The walls we shall conquer!

Began climbing!

Old tunnel?

Though not so tall, the climb here was steep.

Great PuLi view!

Soon we reached the tunnel. The tunnel was very dim and had crappy road surface, so flashlight was a must!

WuJie 武界

After crossing the tunnel, beautiful river valley scenery with aboriginal villages came into views of our AoWanda Ride First Try route!

Great mountains, river valley and aboriginal village!

Great cliff!

WuJie 武界 village.

The smoke came from a barbecue store.

Traditional aboriginal village gate.

Far end was the water pipeline bridge that transported water from WuJie Dam to Sun Moon Lake.

Taiwan aboriginal village had lots of dogs.

Crossing the great river valley!

Detour to SiYuan Suspension Bridge

At WuJie I decided to visit a local cool SiYuan Suspension Bridge. It was right below WuJie Dam so the view should be great.

Village view.

Cool path with waterway.

Great cliff at the suspension bridge.

Dam tunnels.

More Tunnels

In this AoWanda Ride First Try route we had to cross two more tunnels shortly after WuJie.

Another short but crappy tunnel.

This tunnel exit went to WuJie Dam. Not opened for public though.

A nice lake above the Dam.

Third tunnel.

Ride Along the River

The road after these tunnels went along the river and passed through many more villages.

Notice the sign was built with stacked rocks. It seemed to be the local tribe’s tradition.

Great Taiwan river: wide riverbed area, little water during normal times, and steep mountains at the sides.

WanFeng Elementary.

During this time there were cherry blossom!

Historical site for aboriginal tribe 2500 years ago.

Tea fields with mud slide at the background.

Aboriginal village church.

Typical Taiwanese government project: built and then unusable.

At the background was a giant sliding area.

White cherry blossom!

Turning Back

Due to much time and energy wasted in fixing my bike, in this AoWanda Ride First Try I decided to forgone the last 10km ride to AoWanDa, and turned back at the entrance.

AoWanDa entrance sign.

Going back.

ChinAi Elementary.

Also Recommended

Taiwan Bike Routes Map

[Mountain Firecrackers!] Cycling HsinChu Route Sixty to Cinsbu 竹60鎮西堡

[Knocking on the Unreachable ] Shei-Pa National Park Ride to ShueJian 雪霸: 卓蘭到雪見

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