泰安路 (Taian Road, 1,473 ft.), Cidu

Another example of the advantage of having GPS on a bike. I was planning on doing a tried and true ride out to Ruifang and Taiwan's east coast and looping back through Keelung and heading home. I recall the ride being long, but with only a little climbing.

But while heading out to Ruifang, I came across a road that had always intrigued me and made me wonder if there was anywhere worth riding. There was a bunch of signage at the intersection that led under a railroad overpass that made me think it was a tourist destination.

So I checked the GPS, found that it was a climb, but it was an out and back road. It didn't go anywhere. I decided to abandon the original ride and do the climb, knowing it was out and back, and having done an unplanned climb, I could just go home with a satisfactory ride.

The climbs I've been doing have been increasing little by little. I'm still convinced I'm cooked on climbs, due to age and/or alcohol. I just can't do them like I used to. I have yet to break either a 2,000 foot climb or 2,000 feet of accumulated climbing.

And there are limitations to the GPS because of human error. I found a certain bridge closed on my return home, and in plotting an alternate route to bypass the bridge, I didn't follow what looked on the map to be the most direct way to get back on the road to Taipei and went on what was familiar and "made sense" and ended up taking the long way just to backtrack to the exact opposite side of that closed bridge. I ended up riding several more miles than I had to, albeit the shorter way would've been through car and truck-choked urban streets of Xizhi.

Shortening miles isn't necessarily the point of rides or GPS, but sometimes it comes in handy when running out of fuel or time.