Photos by MJ Klein
BROL member Gunnstein came to Taiwan for a visit. One of the things on his agenda was to visit TW-Bents and pick up a new Cobra recumbent bicycle.
This slightly-out-of-focus shot is the meeting of Gunnstein (left) and Walter, the TW-Bents design engineer. They are exchanging business cards.
Photos by MJ Klein and Michael Turton + Video by MJ Klein
Michael Turton invited me down to Taichung to ride some hills on my recumbent trike. I don’t have that much experience with hills because there aren’t very many where I live. I was looking forward to seeing how the trike climbed, with my new 26 tooth chainring. I shot some video with my GoPro Helmet Hero Wide, video camera (visible on the front of my bike helmet) which you can see later on in this article. Michael took this shot of me standing in front of a reservoir at the top of the hill we climbed.
Photos and video by MJ Klein
UPDATE: I forgot to include the ride map. Click on this link to see it.
Over the recent holiday, I had the distinct pleasure of riding my recumbent trike in the wonderful city of Kaohsiung. This southern Taiwanese city is known for wide boulevards, protected side streets and ample scooter lanes. It was a real pleasure riding there! Notice in this shot, how large the scooter lane is (the space to the right of the solid white line). Notice that there is ample space for parked cars and scooters to co-exist.
Photos by Hui-chen and MJ Klein
On today’s ride, I had an opportunity to do some more riding on the Hsinchu bike trail system in the 17 KM area. I began further south and then rode north until I found where I had ridden previously. Unfortunately due to a problem with a rear axle bearing, my ride had to be cut short. But nevertheless I did get to experience a new area of the trail system.
Once again, I did the riding while Hui-chen took a walk around and photographed many aspects of the trail and other interesting things.
Photos by Huichen. Videos by MJ Klein.
After my visit to the factory warehouse the day before, I was ready to do some riding, now that the trike has been reworked by the factory. After seeking out and finding a series of bike trails in southern Hsinchu, I was anxious to finally get a chance to do some riding on them.
Hui-chen and I went to a point that we had found on a recon mission to locate the bike trail the week before. I began my ride from this point.
Here I am just entering the main trail now.
Photos by MJ Klein
Today, Hui-chen and I went back to the TW-Bents warehouse facility to meet with Walter, the trike designer. I wanted to get a new chainring and have him check out the trike.
Walter also showed me some new products under development, and although I wasn’t permitted to take photographs of them, he said I could tell you about them. I’ll get to that at the end of our story for today.
Right away, the assembler began taking the crank apart to get the chainrings off.
Photos by MJ Klein
Today, I went on another ride with my friend Michael Turton. We rode the same circuit as we did last time, but this time I had my Nikon with me (it was in the shop last time) and I got some nice photos of the second section of the ride. I also shot some video with the Gopro Helmet Hero but I’ll have to edit that footage later and then update this article with a link.
My first photo stop was on a bridge with this view. Wow!
Photo by MJ Klein
This article isn’t so much about the ride today as it is about my riding in general.
The other day I learned about a site from Todd, called Bikemap.net. This site allows one to create bicycle routes (either by plotting them on a map or by uploading GPS file data) and then create ride logs using those created routes. One of the best things about Bike Maps is that you can search for routes to ride and share your routes with others too. One of my main complaints is that I often can’t figure out where I should ride to, so I end up going back to places I’ve already been, over and over. Bike Maps allows me to search for and find routes for areas and distances. The best part of Bike Maps is that I can download a GPS data file of the route and upload it to my GPS so I can get turn-by-turn navigation on the GPS while riding. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Today I rode to downtown Hukou, which is something that I try to do every week at least once, for exercise. I normally park across the street from the train station and eat lunch. In fact, today’s photo was actually taken last week, but it was the same exact route and I parked in exactly the same spot as I did today, while eating. Today was no different than any other day that I do this, and normally I don’t bore people with that weekly ride into town, unless something really interesting happens.
This is my Bike Map ride log for today: http://www.bikemap.net/route/339387 I’m going to continue to use Bike Maps and log my rides so you can see where my trike has taken me.
Thanks for reading! We’re looking forward to your comments and ratings below.
Photos by MJ Klein
UPDATE: I added a link at the end, where you can download my GPS track log and import it into Google Earth and view our route.
Yesterday I went riding with Michael Turton and his son, Zeb. They took me on some awesome bicycle trails and bike-friendly roads. It was a gorgeous day for riding!
We met where National highway #1 meets local route #3 at the head of the Houfong and Dongfong bicycle trails. After getting the trike ready to ride we took off down the trail, which is a converted railway bed. There was a slight upgrade that wasn’t too unpleasant. In this photo you see us taking a short water break at a scenic photo op site along the route.
Photos & Video by MJ Klein
I took a nice long ride on Friday, along the coast and one of my favorite areas. I’ve blogged on the Yong An ride before; nevertheless, the ride up to Yong An is very enjoyable and has quite a long stretch along the Taiwan Straight, always a favorite place to be.
I enjoy photographing the ships on the Taiwan Straight. I’ve seen quite a few of them from the roof of our home. I took this shot from the road along the coast.
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