In this post, I’m going to talk about a climb in Northern Taiwan. The name of this climb is Balaka. It is definitely a well-known climb that a lot of people who live in Taipei will undoubtedly know about. I think this climb belongs in our top 100, definitely in the top 50 for its popularity, for its amazing, really amazing access to Yangmingshan. It’s one of the nicer roads to ride up Yangmingshan.
It doesn’t have a super steep gradient and the access to the road is not that far if you are located in Danshui, Hongshulin, Guandu, Tianmu, and I would even go as far as say Central Taipei. You could do the ride in about three hours, give or take some change there.
Let’s talk about the location. I’ve just mentioned a few places, but this ride, you can do a loop in about 100 kilometers basically from, I’m going to say almost anywhere within the greater Taipei area. If you’re coming from Central Taipei, you want to get on the river and ride towards Danshui. the Hongshulin exit is probably the best place to get out, get out onto the main road and ride up Danjin Road, which is actually road number two, and then you need to find 101, or I believe the name in Chinese is Beishin Lu. So you’re going to go up this road for about six and a half kilometers.
This road is, I’d say, a false flat, but it is actually two to three percent up for about six and a half kilometers to a police outpost. Now this is not a full-on police station, but there is a place to use the bathroom and you can get water. Now at this outpost, you are at 240 meters above sea level. In the audio clip, I mention: I think 200, maybe 250 can double-check that. We’ll take a look at the GPS information. This is where the actual Balaka climb starts.
Now from this location on a Saturday morning, you’ll see plenty of cyclists here Sunday morning as well. On a weekday, this climb is amazing because you might not see any traffic on this road. That’s a big ask, but there is not a lot of traffic compared to other hills on Yangmingshan. This one does not get that much traffic, so it’s definitely a go-to road if you have time to do it. Even on the weekend, there isn’t going to be much traffic.
So from the police station up to the Datun parking lot, you’ve got a 10 kilometer climb with no traffic lights, no stop signs, no intersections, and the gradient is not that steep. Average on Strava says 5.9%. Whenever I’ve done this climb, I’ve never felt like this was a knee-breaker of a climb. It offers a great training route for the elite, really high-level cyclists, and at the same time, for a person new to cycling, it offers a great challenge. A 10 kilometer climb is substantially a chunk of climbing to do at 4-7% going up for an extended period, definitely a good one to say, ah, I did it, I made it up the hill. It offers a little bit of everything for any range of cyclists. If you’re going to do it on a mountain bike, go for it. Definitely a classic road climb.
We are trying to put the top 50 climbs that are over 1,000 meters of elevation gain, or peak out over 1,000 meters. This one does, and the thing about this climb is a lot of people will make it up to the Datun parking lot and then either go down to Taipei, perhaps ride down to Jinshan, Wanli area, or turn around and go back down.
From the Datun parking lot, you can carry on for 2.5 kilometers up a steeper section. That is definitely a challenge. There’s some 20% moments on this part, and it carries on to, I’m going to say a dead end, but there’s a lookout platform up there, and it is definitely a steeper section of climbing to do. So if you plan on doing this, if you’re listening to this and you’re from out of town, you’re visiting Taipei, just be aware that once you make it up to the Datun visitor parking lot, there is a continuing climb, and you can see it, and it is definitely steeper. So that’ll be the end of the road there, if you make it up that. They sometimes close that off during a butterfly viewing season, and they won’t let you go up the road, but all the way to the Datun parking lot is that’s always open.
This hill, or this mountain, this road, offers a location for some challenge events/rides. I’ve participated in one or two, and years ago I did one and cramped up completely bad, incredible pain, almost fell off the bike, but I made it up and I finished the event. Man, that was almost 15 years ago. What else can I say about this road? If you are coming to visit Taiwan, and you are located somewhere in Taipei, even if you’re out near Xindian, or central Taipei, you can do this, and you might need, I’m going to say anywhere from four to six hours maybe. If you’re located closer to the start, three hours is fine. If you’re in Danshui, I think you can do it in about two and a half, maybe two hours if you really gun it up the hill.
The road quality is good, there’s not much to say about that, it’s not awful. Going up the Danjin road, the 101, you get a little bit of traffic, but there’s some photo opportunities, there’s a huge temple to take a look at, and I think there’s a 7-Eleven, a Family Mart, amenities if you need to stop and buy a drink, or something like that. What else can I say about Balaka? This is actually, if you say this name to any local person, any Chinese speaker, if they’re in the cycling scene they will know Balaka it is definitely the name they also use, so that helps if you get lost and you see another cyclist, they can definitely help you out. It’s a really nice area, and from February to March, you can see the cherry blossoms. There are some really nice photo opportunities, the whole area is full of all kinds of cherry blossom viewings, and the only thing about that is sometimes you’ll get a lot of cars on some of the more narrow roads, and perhaps we’ll cover the actual cherry blossom sakura road network that is kind of behind or on the side of Yangmingshan there.
Okay, last point, I’d have to say that of all the roads in Yangmingshan, this is probably the best road to go over the mountain. The other roads on Yangmingshan are all actually good too, and we’ll probably cover a few of those, and they have been covered in the Buddha Hand ride. The only thing about Yangmingshan is over on the Taipei side, sometimes you can come in, you can be on some steep hills, there are some extremely steep gradients. If you take a wrong turn or you’re using Google and it sends you up some of these roads, some of them can carry on for two kilometers at extremely steep gradients. I think there’s one that’s hitting 15 to 20% near Chinese Culture University, and if that’s not your thing, then you find yourself on such a road, they’re tough, they’re definitely tough. This one does not have that, and this makes it for, it offers just a really good platform to test your fitness, to see where you, you know, how you’re doing, and that’s a good training ride as well.
Okay, so that’s Balaka, and I don’t know what else I have to say about it, if I think of anything, I’ll just type it up in the post. There you go, that’s my spiel on Balaka, located in northern Taiwan.
[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/gpx/Balaka.gpx”]