Mountain biking: Paoma and Tonghou trails

Near the end of August Gareth went on a 2-day mountain biking trip with Ken, Teri and Charles. We visited the popular Paoma and Tonghou trails, near the town Jiaoxi on Taiwan's east coast. Riding the # 9 highway from Taipei to Ilan. Since the new Snow Mountain tunnel opened up, this road is very quietWe passed by the Feitsui reservoir -- nice views hereKen, Gareth, Charles and Teri, the intrepid bikers.
Ken has also blogged about the trip, in some detail: http://blog.pixnet.net/Kaiteri/post/8354223
http://blog.pixnet.net/Kaiteri/post/8438437
(Chinese only + pictures)The top part of the Feitsui reservoir. Lots of tea farms on the hills around here...And the little tea town of Pinglin. We stopped here for some tea-flavored icecream By the time we reached the Paoma trail it was nearly dark. We stopped here to enjoy the view of the Ilan plain before descending into the town of Jiaoxi, famous for hot spring hotels and cow-tongue cakes The next morning: riding through back county roads and villages en route to the Tonghou trail
Our plan: cross the mountain range in the background of this picture

Just before the steep part of the ride uphill
After an extremely hot 2-hour climb to the top, we began the descent. We first rode along the edges of some steep grassy hills cloaked in mist. Then we had to push-carry the bikes down 3 km of hiking trail. But THEN... another several more km of excellent ridable offroad trail, all downhill. Yea! Eventually we popped out in Wulai, the aboriginal town south of Taipei. From there it was easy to make our way back to civilization and head home.