We've had a spate of good weather in Taipei. I went for a ride this morning in the southern hills of Taipei, which are actually east of Hsindian. I had earmarked Zhinan South Road as a road to explore after I rode up to Zhinan Temple last year on a different road.

Since I had never been there before, I didn't know how far it went, or how far up it went. And since I don't do "rides" here because my bike is a second hand commuter mountain bike that weighs a ton and is about to fall apart from the way I ride it, I didn't prepare in any way special except wearing the sole cycling jersey I brought, and leaving the heavy D-lock locked to a pole.

Key to this ride was that before I started climbing, I managed to get the chain into the granny gear, which I wasn't able to do attempting to climb Yangmingshan several weeks ago. I didn't mention that because I failed miserably and abandoned my bike halfway up and hopped on a bus. Oh god, I don't believe I just admitted that.

I didn't bonk. But not being able to use the granny gear on such a heavy a bike made it. . . not worth it. I think the words to signal the abandonment were, "OK, this is just stupid", and I stopped and headed back down to the last bus stop.

Not expecting to go far or high on Zhinan South Road, not preparing, and just taking each bit of road as it came, this climb seems easy in retrospect, but that can't be right. It was definitely steep and it was higher than Zhinan Temple, because I could see it from across the valley.

It's probably just because of my expectations. It also helped that the ride had a definite end in a loop at the top, preventing me from pushing farther. I came no where near reaching my limit. Although there was another road to go longer into more unknown if I ever get a better bike – not doing it on this one again.

Going up, there were parts moving in ways that really didn't look right. The bottom bracket looked wobbly and the left crank looked wobbly independent of that. I'm not a fan of rear suspensions, but a lot of cheapo bikes have them for some unholy reason. And since decent rear suspensions only come on really expensive bikes, I can't imagine rear suspensions on cheapo bikes being a good thing. I kept looking down and imagining the whole thing just coming apart.

Coming down was no better as my front brake felt like it was about to . . . break. Instead of recklessly tearing down the mountain as I usually do and risking losing the brake, I basically rode the rear brake all the way down, never getting fast enough to necessitate braking hard. Yea, that was a little boring. I even let a bus pass me down. Yea, that was a little humiliating.

The area where the climb ended is famous for teahouses and plantations, and is about to get more famous. They're building a cable car with stunning views to go up to Maokong and it's set to go online in July. I swear I can see parts of it from my apartment. I rode by the cable car terminus which is still under construction.

It will be a pity, though, if the huge influx of people adversely affects the tranquility or the character of the mountain for the people who currently use it. While riding up, I passed a lot of older people jogging down, and they would say "早" (good morning) or "加油" (encouragement) to me. It seems to me when the character of a place changes, you lose little touches things like that symbolize.