It's been great weather for riding in Kaohsiung over the past week. Took advantage of it to explore some new routes around the Agongdian Reservoir in Yanchao. This area is very popular with local cyclists as it's close to the city and offers a variety of terrain for all levels of riders.
On Sunday, my friend D and I headed east out of Yanchao along Jinshan road toward Cock's Comb Mountain. Very quickly, the sounds of cars and motorcycles disappear and you are surrounded by bamboo forests. None of the hills along this road are very long, but some of them are quite steep and really get your heart pumping.
Around 5 km outside of Yanchao the road name changes to highway 38 and you see some brown signs telling you to turn right for Cock's Comb Mountain and the mud volcanoes. I still haven't climbed this mountain, but hope to over the CNY holidays.
The road out to the mud volcanoes is not in the best of shape and dips up and down very sharply through a couple of ravines.
A new road that allows access to the mud volcanoes from Highway 22.
We went back to highway 38, turned right and went up a short hill to a Y-intersection. To the right is Pidi Lane that is the start of a 300+ meter climb up Cell Tower Hill. All the serious club riders that passed us went this way. We decided to save this for another day and go left, continuing along Highway 38 (Tuojhen Lane ).
An unmarked road that goes right off highway 38 and allows you to cut across to highway 41 on Cell Tower Hill. The road is perched atop a very sharp ridge with spectacular view on both sides of the road of the badlands.
Looking back at Cock's Comb Mountain (雞冠山) as we headed for home.
This was the turnaround point for the ride, so we headed back down to Highway 38, then 14 and down 29-1 along the east side of the reservoir.
A nice place to have a rest at the end of a ride on the Highway 29-1, just north of Yanchao.
