So I've logged maybe 20 clicks Saturday morning when I come to a rope across the road and a thoroughly lived-in cargo box. There's a two-hundred-year-old woman inside with a clipboard turning traffic back. This is the central cross-island highway. A pair of Lexus SUVs pull up behind me, confer with the woman, and make the usual fourteen-point about-face. All very well for them; I don't imagine depressing the accelerator is likely to give them tendonitis. I've been climbing for a day and a half, and I'm not going back to Taichung to reroute. When I lift my bike over the cordon, the woman tries forcibly to stop me. I yank my bike away from her and she shrieks that I'm going to die. A day of hellish riding, generally fine weather, and pleasantly light traffic follows.