race day

sunday, 11.06.11. race day. 

our press bus was waiting outside the hotel to take us to the starting line at 9 am. we hung around interviewing racers, taking photos and watching them get ready for the 10 am start. the international teams were introduced and brought on stage, again. this being the fourth time these guys had to go thru this process. that's the life of a pro racer at an invitational event, where they are paid to show up, be available for public events and race. giant brought some members of their european rabbobank team to compete in the taiwan cup.

there were a number of local taiwanese teams, not all at pro level, in the event, as well as the international pros. one interesting local team were these guys i shot taking a smoke break. yes, 2 members of the gbike team were smoking when i walked up and took their picture. you can see they gave me thumbs up.

while the race was on our group went into downtown hulien for lunch, eating at a local dumpling shop. after lunch we went back to the race, visiting the vendor's booths and road testing the fleet of bicycles giant brogught to the event. i rode 2 of the carbon fiber bikes and fell in love. they were both very smooth riding, xlnt handling machines.

two of our group wanted to buy bikes there, but things didn't work out. prices are about 1/3 lower and i looked into getting an anthem x 29er, but the salesman at the giant bike shop told me they don't get 29ers in taiwan - the people are too small! it's true.

the finish was pretty exciting as 4 riders were bunched together sprinting up to the finish line. the winner was a 23 year japanese racer from the shimano team. he really pulled out all the stops at the end, after an intense hot and muggy 125 miles. he finished in 4 hours, 47 minutes, pretty incredible. a local team did get 3rd place on the podium and the kom (king of the mountain - best climber

 here's a picture of the winner with lily our guide. she was with us virtually every waking hour providing non-stop info on taiwan, the culture, foods, the metro, bikeways, you name it - she knew it. she was also a very sweet, easy going person.

after the race we had a rest period, yes, just like camp. lily told us to be down for the bus to take us to dinner at 6:30. we were going to another dumpling house which gets very crowded. they use only organic ingredients and no msg. it was special because the owner is a certified master dumpling maker, having achieved 18 folds in each of his dumplings. his artisan dumplings contain ingredients from the farmers posted on the wall with their certifications. very impressive. taiwan is serious about organic labeling. and yes, the food here was far superior to our lunch.