On Xmas Day, I flew down to Guangzhou to participate in China’s inaugural 29er Mountain Bike event which I believe was a huge success and the future of the 29er here in China looks quite rosy. The event was put on by Format and sponsored by WTB. In case you did not know, WTB stands for Wilderness Trail Bikes and they are a pioneer in the mountain biking industry. It was back in 1999 when WTB first came out with the 29er tire (The Nano) before 29er bikes became popular. Now, here in China with the cycling boom that is currently happening, WTB is nicely poised to be part of China’s growth in the 29er market.

As for Format, they are a Chinese bike brand that is very active in race promotion and have been rolling out a line of 29er mountain bikes. They are looking to promote the 29er movement in China and given the success of the inaugural event, they are planning to host 15 mountain bike events in 2012 with a separate 29er category! So, the 29er trend in China has officially begun…

The Racing

It was a bit of a frantic rush for me to get my bike ready for the start of the 29er race as I had been forced to wait by the stage for a good 20minutes so I could give a three minute speech. I still had to pin my numbers, take care of other business as well as change the front tire from the WTB Vulpine 2.1 to the Nano 2.1. So after the speech, I managed to get everything ready including the all important front tire change and line up at the start line. It would not have been good to miss the start!

On the sound of the gun crack, the riders bolted for the beckoning forest up ahead on the road. I quickly moved to the front of the race and assumed the lead quite early on. I was actually putting time on my pursuers that I had over 100m lead on the second placed rider by the top of the rough forest climb. However, my MTB technical skills were quite rusty and I was caught and passed by the Niner rider after emerging from the single track section. That single-track section was actually the coolest part of the race track, it snaked its way through the forest with a sheer drop down on one side. Some places were quite dangerous including a tight bend where there were some tricky roots and if you went too quickly, you’ll get some air and land down the ravine. There was someone stationed down there just in case some one did go over the cliff! The single track angled down steeply that required some good bike handling skills to ride it. Naturally, there was a crowd of people gathered to watch the action unfold in that particular section!  I found that the Nano 2.1 front tire handled the loose trail surfaces alot better than the Vulpine 2.1 I had used at the Nanning MTB race the previous week.

After completing the first single-track section, there was a short climb before the 2km open rough downhill section. The rider who had passed me right after the single track was riding very well and put about 20-30 seconds on me on the descent. But during the second lap 4km climb, I reeled him back in and was within striking distance of passing him. I was only 10m behind at the top when we entered the single-track again. I knew that it was a mistake that I did not try and sprint to overtake him before the top of the climb as he was no where to be seen after emerging from the single track. He was out of sight. I still rode hard as I could, but without a visual ‘guide’ it was hard to gauge how fast I should be going.  By this point, I knew that I was riding for second unless he faded badly. I was happy with this result and proud to be part of China’s first ever 29er specific event and have a second placed trophy to show for it.

Biketo.com, China’s leading online cycling media website published a good selection of photographs about the WTB-Format event and also contains a video of myself being interviewed.  Also QQride.com has some great photos.

The formidable Merida Pro Mountain Biking Team lined up at the annual Merida Cup MTB event including multiple world cup winners in Ralph Naef, HannesGenze and Thomas Pfrommer. It was a small field of just over 20 riders with Merida Europe boasting eight riders on the front row; the race was more of a demonstration for the hordes of Taiwanese fans that lined the challenging cross-country course.

The course

It was only a short 4km with one sharp sealed climb that gained 80m each lap. It was good that most of the track was descending and on bumpy rocky single trail through the forest. Both myself and Jason Moeschler ran front Bronson 2.1 and rear Wolverine 2.1 tires, both tubeless. After pre-riding the race-track, Jason was excited that we were both running these types of TCS tires as they were perfectly suited for this type of technical track.

My Perspective: (Strava file: http://app.strava.com/rides/2562454)

Having already 140km in my legs from the day before plus I was on a borrowed Velocite Flux carbon bike with shocks that were locked solid and a dragging front rotor all did not help my case in getting a good result. I’m a mountain biker at heart and this was my first real mountain bike race in a long while, so I was looking forward to carving up some trails.

Typically, I start fast in mountain bike races but fade as the race progresses. It was no different in the Merida Cup race. I had maneuvered myself into a good position during the rolling neutral start before we were unleashed like a pack of baying wolves hell-bent on capturing its prey. When the flag was dropped, I was dumbfounded at the sustained accelerations of the Merida Europe pro guys, they really turned it on as we dashed for the first single track section going up a 20% gradient. I started quite well, even passing my WTB teammate Jason Moeschler.  I was enjoying the single-track, but found that I desperately needed proper running suspension forks, as I was absorbing most of the impacts and my hands, lower back and elbows suffered as a result.

I was buoyed along by the large crowd support and heard my name shouted a few times. Despite the mountain bike race being only 20km, it was an hour of pain and I felt myself get slower and slower going up the mean 20% climb on each lap. Apart from a respectable 11 minute flat first lap, the rest of the laps ballooned out to 11min 50s but at least I was consistent. It was impressive to see Jason’s lap times – 10.01, 9.57, 10.19, 10.27 and 10.17. This is a hallmark of a successful cross-country racer: the consistency of lap-times.  Despite the rough beating my body received, I immensely enjoyed the technical nature of the track with many tight corners, logs and rocks to jump over, rock garden descents and a couple of stairs.

World winners, Ralph Naef and HannesGenze, provided the crowds with some great entertainment as they both blitzed the course in a super quick time of 50mins 07 seconds. Genze was only four seconds behind at the finish but a massive two minutes lead over third place-getter Alain AlexandreBetremie. PengGuixiang, Taiwan’s no.1 mountain biker, was fourth with WTB’s own Jason Moeschler taking the final podium spot in fifth with a time of 54mins 12 seconds.  I was a further eight minutes adrift in 12^th position.

Equipment used

Daniel Carruthers: Velocite Flux carbon hard tail with WTB 26” Strykers, WTB Silverado carbon saddle and Bronson/Wolverine TCS tires.

Jason Moeschler: Cannondale Jeykll full-suspension with WTB wheels, new VOLT titanium saddle and Bronson/Wolverine TCS tires.

Keep scrolling for more photos (they are also clickable for larger view). Photos curtousey of Bikeman.org media.

World Cup Champions leading the race

Need some energy? These girls will supply you some...

Jason Moeschler doing the stairs..

The crowds were out in force for the Merida Cup race

Jason Moeschler nabbed a 5th place podium spot

Finishing in the second group

Last week, I took part in the Volando sponsored sportive/race in Kaohsiung – Southern Taiwan. It was a small local bike race but well attended by over 300 cyclists. I wrote a report about the Volando Cup race that appeared on Cyclingtime, so I won’t bore you with more details of the racing.

Today I participated in the Merida Cup road race, which was only 38kms, frankly too short in my opinion! It seems that many of the races here in Asia, with the exception of UCI events, are far too short and tend to end atop a climb! The race today was over in under an hour – makes it almost not worth coming out to attend. However, I made a good day of it with 140kms of riding. A good day of training miles, although the season is winding down now since the Poyang Lake 5-Day Tour was cancelled.

I made the dangerous breakaway of the day in the beginning stages. After a flurry of attacks, with the pace close to 50km/h stringing out the pack.. I surged on to bridge across to a promising move with Lee Rodgers, Feng Chun Kai and a Merida pro rider in it. I towed several guys with me to make the bridge and we were 7-8 riders and had a very good gap. However, the pack was motivated and did not let us go so easily.  It was all back together again and more attacks went left and right, with none sticking. I made a little surge to bridge to another move of three riders up the road, but only succeeded in towing the pack single-file so I sat up. After this point, I was just pack fill – barely surviving the false flat climb and then the major climb towards the end. I did not expect the race to end so quickly as I believed we still had at least 10kms of racing when I crested the climb. I would have dug a little bit deeper to hang with the lead group going over the climb if I had known that the finish would only be several kilometers!

Tomorrow I will be racing the mountain bike: a nice Velocite Flux equipped with WTB Strkyer TCS wheels,  Bronson and Wolverine Tires. Also trying out WTB’s Silverado Carbon saddle for the first time. Will be racing together with fast WTB pro rider, Jason Moeschler. You can also find him on Strava. The MTB race looks to be a fun affair but again a bit short at 6 laps x 4km for a total of 24km. It will almost be like a short course MTB sprint.

Stay tuned for the MTB action!

Going through the U-turn

I went down to Shenzhen to take part in the 2011 Shimano Cycling Festival with two bikes in tow – a first for me! I had my Velocite Magnus road bike and an Orbea 29er mountain bike. It was manageable as I packed the road bike into the Scicon Aerocomfort Plus bag rolls very well, while the mountain bike was packed into a soft bag that I carried on my shoulders.

Originally the 2011 Shimano Cycling Festival was supposed to be held in a different location boasting a challenging 65km undulating road race in the morning followed by a circuit race in the forest park over some great trails. However, the Forest Park authorities decided to cancel the Shimano run event only five days prior the event day! It almost led to cancellation but Shimano found a nice location by the sea-side in Dapeng Village to hold the events.  However, due to the short notice of the change the mountain bike events had to be run on the road. The same 7km circuit that the road race was held on in the morning. Typically, Shimano are very good with holding “real” mountain bike races with some brilliant flowing single track through ancient Chinese countryside, unlike many organizers who hold mountain bike races on the road as they are afraid for rider safety.  Nonetheless, there was some exciting racing across all the categories. It was great to notice that the popularity of cycling is continuing to grow and in the intermediate ranks there were hundreds taking to the start line. Shimano’s list of bike events in China can be view on the Shimano Club Website. However, the site is only in Chinese so you might need Google to help translate it for you!

Road Race dominated by breakaways

John Tonks leading the way in the winning breakaway

Since the race was held on a short 7km circuit and raced around only five times, it was always going to be a fast race. With a 300m hill climbed twice each lap and a U-turn near the start finish-line meant that the elastic in the peloton would be snapped fairly easily if the pressure was applied.  As usual, there was a flurry of attacks at the start and going over the first climb the peloton was lined up single file. But it bunched up again approaching the round-a-bout. It was here that a small gap was created and John Tonks (Champion System) did a surge to which I jumped onto his wheel followed by five other riders. We hammered it over the short climb and gained a big gap. We rotated fairly well to increase the gap but after a couple of laps, a motivated peloton had reeled us back in.

The catch

I had seen the pack coming up behind us and made sure I recovered enough before the catch was made so I could go with any fresh attacks. Sure enough, when the catch was made, John Tonks Champion System’s team-mate went on the attack. A perfect example of good team work. His team-mate took with him two other riders and I was able to use my explosive power to bridge across to the new breakaway that was powering away. About 30 seconds later, we were joined by John Tonks. We rolled away and this time I knew that this was the winning break as we created an even bigger gap than the first break in shorter time. A few minutes later, a hard working Zhang Li (Chinese Kung Team) bridged up to us to form a six-man breakaway. As he was coming up, he was deliberately holding back as the rest of the break were rotating. He clearly needed to recover and I let him do this for a bit before I swung off the back and drifted back to force him to move into the pace line.

Zhang Li making his move to bridge up to our breakaway

The Finish

With one lap to go, I thought I would try some selfish tactics and sit on at the very back of the breakaway. I was trying to come into the finish with the freshest possible legs but somehow this tactic backfired on me. It was going fine till about 1.5km to go, when a surge went and I reacted by jumping into third position but this put danger-men Zhang Li and John Tonks sitting right on my wheel. It was going to be difficult to drop behind them and use them as lead-outs. It was also an extremely windy finish.  Basically I was watching the danger-men and responding to their moves. But when one of the Chinese riders attacked hard right after a surge, I chose not to chase. The others also did not react, which gave the hard-working Chinese rider a well-deserved but easy win. The Hong Kong Champion Systems rider goes on the attack to which I chase down and was in the hope that he would keep going to catch the runaway Chinese rider, but he faded and this left me out on front into the wind with about 300m remaining. What was even worse was that three very good riders were all behind me – John Tonks, Zhang Li (the perennial winner here in China) and a Neil Pryde Hong Kong rider. I was waiting for the attack as we rounded the final bend, but I was unable to respond to John Tonks super surge to the line. Both the Neil Pryde rider and Zhang Li flashed by me and I could do nothing but to finish a distant 5th. Zhang Li took the sprint for 2nd while John Tonks took 3rd.

Zhang Li took the sprint for 2nd. I'm back in the black Velocite kit...

It is difficult when you are riding solo and don’t have team-members. I did not want a repeat of what happened in Suzhou where I was worked over by riders who each had two team members in the break. This time it was only six riders in the break and I thought if I could sit on for the finale I could grab a win that I am hunting for. Perhaps I need to try some more different tactics and be more aggressive in the closing stages of a race; which is normally my trademark.

A couple of hours later, I also did the mountain bike race on the same course. A report on that will follow in my next blog post. Stay tuned!

Bertrand Jouve (Chinese Kung Team) leading the chase

Photos at courtesy of QQRIDE.com

At the finish of the 120km race

The Suzhou 120km race sponsored by Look and Mavic was staged last weekend and 149 elite riders lined up on the start line in front of a good sized crowd.  Apparently, the Chinese Cycling Federation have not yet banned radios from amateur level racing like most other places in the world! It was interesting to see many of the major Chinese amateur teams equipped with radios. They were obviously take this race quite seriously.

While at the start-line, only minutes before the start, I somehow managed to snap my Velocite carbon skewers. The rear HED wheel felt like it had too much sideways movement, so I went to re-clamp it tighter. The lever just broke off in my hands and the skewer was no-where to be seen. It was a shooting missile, quite dangerous in fact. Lucky it did not puncture anyone. I was saved by the Trek Racing Team, one of their riders on the sidelines offered me his mountain bike skewer and I used that for the race.

Cracking start

I was at the very back of the field when the gun went off, and the riders just went ballistic; seemed like an all-out sprint as the 149 riders were strung out, weaving across the road like a snake out of control. That first lap was a good 45km/h average and I had broken away with China’s current time trial champion going through the start/finish arena. However, the break was short-lived as the peloton reeled us back in quick time.

On the attack

I wanted to be sure that I would make the winning selection so I went on the attack at every opportunity. In the first 25kms I was in half a dozen separate breakaways and none of the stuck. There was one promising one that got a big gap, but it got too big and unwieldy as more riders leapfrogged across to join in on the action – that break swelled to 25 riders but it was quickly shut down as there was no organization whatsoever, with riders constantly looking over their shoulders and giving half-hearted pulls.

After 30kms, I was riding mid-pack and saw a small group of three riders edge away so I slowly moved up to the front and then launched a massive sprint to bridge across to those riders. About 3/4 across, I checked on my progress behind and saw Specialized Simon Cui and a whole string of other riders right on my wheel. I immediately swung over and let them finish the bridge. I was able to jump on the back of the train and the group formed the 15-man break that stayed away.  Initially, I had to yell at the riders for not co-operating but eventually succeeded in getting them to roll through after leading by example. It was not as fast as I would have liked, but we rolled well enough to get out to a handy two minute lead on the peloton.

When the riders realized that the lead was over two minutes, they started to get a little complacent and started rolling through for softer turns.  They only spurred back into action when the gap was cut down to just over a minute! I felt like I had done too much work in the opening stanzas of the race with all of my attacks and counter-attacks that I started to look after myself a bit more by taking shorter but efficient pulls on the front. I was also at a disadvantage riding unattached as all the major teams in the break each had two riders each. This meant that they could send their team-mates up the road while the other sat in waiting to counter-attack when the catch was made.

Detonation of the Break

With 25kms remaining in the race (five laps), the riders started the attacking business. This made life quite difficult for me as I was hoping to roll to the finish and try and out-sprint them! It did make for an exciting race with all the attacking going on. Three riders managed to slip away and I was unable to follow them as I was still recovering from a hard out effort. I was surprised that Triace and Specialized did not take it on themselves to chase down the trio – Trek was one of them up the road. Despite the trio steadily extending the gap, the rest of the riders were happy to attack, sit up, counterattack, sit up and relaunch another attack! All I could do was hold on for dear life, I had no choice but to follow every move. This ensured that my heart-rate was well in the red-zone of high 180s to early 190s for the last 20kms.

Final Lap

Wang Lei winning the sprint for 3rd and collecting a nice pair of Cosmic Carbones

Entering the final lap, the original 15-man breakaway had splintered into fragments with two riders about 30 seconds up and I was in a group of seven riders. The first half of the lap was high speed and we looked like we were going to catch the front two riders, however there was a senseless crash that took out a couple of riders (Specialized Simon Cui and Triace Feng Kuanggao) that halted the momentum. Following the crash, we rode quite slow – about 30km/h and this allowed the crashed riders to rejoin the party.

As a sprinter, I was backing my chances of winning the sprint for third place. This was my plan and I was going to execute it with perfection. Rounding the final bend with about 200m remaining, Wang Lei from Triace came through on the inside of me and I immediately jumped onto his wheel and was looking to finish strong. However, the early hard work had caught up with me. My right leg just seized up with cramp. I rolled across the line 4th in the sprint and 6th overall.

The Mavic Look sponsored race had some very nice prizes for the top 10 place-getters with myself collecting Mavic Cross Trails for the 6th position. I don’t know why a road race gave out mountain bike wheels as prizes to roadies! Thanks to qqride.com for the photographs. Thanks to my trusty Velocite Magnus for another sterling effort and to my main sponsors Hansaton, Smith Optics, Usana and Selle SMP. All photos can be clicked on for the larger version.

Lee Rodgers taking off like a demon - Photo by Jojo Rinoza

In most stage races (with exception of Grand Tours), a 40km ITT is very long stage; especially when you have it at end of a three day short tour. In reality, the parcours at the Matabungkay Tour did not offer me many opportunities to use my killer sprint. I missed out on the key breakaways and they had happened on crucial points of the climb. I had no legs to follow. Maybe the first stage was a mistake, where I mistakenly believed that there was three of my Mossimo teammates up the road. For this reason, I delayed my chase for a long time – when in fact I could have jumped right when the break was being established and been right in the mix. The hill was not overly difficult and I climbed it well below my capability.  The other chance of getting away came during stage three – I had made a vicious attack to which no one responded to and sailed away with one other rider in tow. I had two minutes on the main peloton by the time I hit the base of the climb. In hindsight (yes-everything is 20-20 then!), maybe I should have gone balls out hard up the climb in the bid to reach the top first. But instead, I chose to ride high tempo, and after 10km of climbing I was caught by the lead chase group. I did slot in nicely at the back and hang on, but when Lee Rodgers did a big surge I could not go with it.

 Time Trialing

It was now up to me to produce a good time trial – and I am still very much a novice when it comes to these events although I have had some success at them. Mostly the shorter and more explosive events. What made things even worse was the organizers had moved the times up so I ended up missing my start by 30 seconds. This threw me off quite a bit and this enabled my 30 second man to catch and fly past me at 60km/h! I was riding my Velocite Magnus road bike equipped with clip-on bars and HED disc/tri-spoke. I kept my focus and re-passed my 30 second man; however this dude stuck to my wheel like glue despite my numerous attempts to swat him off my wheel like a fly. He would drift back, but always come back sneakily. I probably wasted a fair amount of energy yelling at the top of my lungs to stop riders from latching on. Its a individual time trial, not a road race!

Normally, I am able to ride well on a road bike in TT’s and I thought that with the slick HED disc wheel on, I would be flying. But it was the opposite. I could never get on top of my gear and struggled into the wind and the constant ups and downs. It was a tough 40km for anyone – check out Colin Robertson’s blog post, he finished with a 57min 40 which is a sterling effort. Only three riders went below 60mins: Lee Rodgers clocked just over 59mins while Mark Cook came in at 59.50. The rider who was pacing me for most of the time trial, left me behind for good when going up the first of the steep climbs and eventually finished 5th. I limped in to come 9th overall with a time of 1hr 03mins to clock an average speed of 39km/h. In reality, it was not a bad time-trial effort given the nature of the course. But I had wanted to do sub 60mins and need to figure out a good time trial position if I am going to improve my TT skills. I know I have the mental capacity required to do well but always limited by equipment and correct position. In fact, position on the bike is the key to everything. Once you have that right, you can shave minutes of your time and add on the fancy TT equipment you can shave more seconds here and there.

My time-trial result allowed me to finish 11th overall. Regardless, I’m pretty happy with the racing I did. I made a few good attacks and while none of them ultimately won me a place in the winning breakaway, they did help make the race harder and provide an opportunity for counter-attacks to fire. Just like Stage one’s winning move occurred right after I had gone off the front. My move had strung out the field and this allowed the strong riders to move to the front – Lee Rodgers took the opportunity to really drive it home by taking only two riders with him to the finish line.

I am pictured here finishing the 40km ITT

Again, racing in the Philippines was a treat and I recommend any rider in Asia to consider adding one of the stage races to your bucket list. In fact, there are rumors of having an “Asian Expat Championships” where Thailand, Bintan, Singapore and Philippines are all included. Having amateur points on offer for the series would be an interesting concept and create some excitement among the riders. We may see many riders traveling around like “pros” to amass the points to win the coveted Asia Championships title!

Matabungkay is truly a wonderful region to visit and its highly recommended to stay at the Matabungkay Beach Resort for several days and explore the region, either on  your road or mountain bike.

The breakaway with a stunning backdrop

The Tour of Matabungkay was an action-packed weekend for cyclists and I recommend this tour and any other stage race in the Philippines for those of you contemplating racing in new and exotic countries. The growth of cycling in the Asia region has been phenomenal over the last few years, but I think the Philippines is one of the best countries to race in. They have a humming cycling community and are leading the way for putting on stage races for amatuer road cyclists; something that many of us seek out to make a trip worthwhile. If you are a cyclist living in Asia, then a trip to the Philippines is a definite must. The people, the scenery and the racing was just high class.  The food provided in the resorts was also excellent, although food in the Philippines can be quite bland and Jollibees is the national food.  Plenty of fresh fruits like pineapple and mango was available and great for recovery foods.

Riders checking out the scenery….

Stage Three – 120kms

After a double-stage day the previous day we picked ourselves up to tackle the fantastic 120km route that was certainly the highlight of the Matabungkay Tour with some stunning scenery atop the 17km climb. Awesomastic views of the lake and tall volcanoes in the distance, that is if you were paying attention during the racing..

Once the neutral 18kms were completed, there was a flurry of attacks but nothing was sticking till one of the Filipinos took off solo – but even then the pack was reeling him back in. When there was a slight lull in the pace, I let out a guttural battle cry and unleashed my attack which was designed to 1. Provide comedy and 2. Hopefully intimidate and allow me to create the gap I needed. It worked. I was steam-rolling down the road at 55km/h and the Filipino rider that was about to be swallowed up immediately accelerated onto my wheel. However, my breakaway companion only did very weak pulls and when we hit the base of the main climb of the day, we had only a two minute advantage over the chasing peloton. I climbed at tempo pace, trying to go as fast as possible without going too deep. We still traded pulls on the climb and at about the halfway mark, a group of 10-12 riders led by Lee Rodgers pulled up to us. I jumped on with them no problem and went for several kilometers near the back. However, Lee Rodgers decided he wanted to attack. His surge opened up a gap in front of me and I did not have any legs to close it. This resulted in the group reducing to just seven riders and they rode away with the race. I was eventually caught by the second group about three kilometers from the summit.

The moment when I attacked..

Establishing the gap...

Team tactics

I knew that two of our team-mates (Mossimo) were up the road, including Lee Rodgers and the opposing team Franzia also had two riders in the breakaway. This meant that we had a chance to improve our team GC placing if it worked out. About 25-30kms from the finish, I started to do some attacks to see what would happen. I threw in a big one and this gave me a big gap and I checked back to see three riders chasing with another gap back to the rest of the group. I had them on the back foot. However, Pinpin, a strong Filipino rider for Franzia was slowly bringing me back. When the catch was made, one of my team-mates sailed out the front and I completely eased off the gas and yelled for him to keep going. I then focused on keeping second wheel the whole time, disrupting any chase effort Franzia might mount. It was surprising that they were not more aggressive. Our team-mate managed to finish nearly two minutes in front and thus winning the team GC for the stage and closing the gap to about three minutes behind Franzia overall.

The Filipino Jeepnies all lined up on road side to let race go by...

Sprinting

For those of you who know me, my forte is sprinting. So, at the end of the stage, I pulled off a good sprint to win 8th place. Not a win, but nonetheless I was still happy with it as it represented good calculation on my part to be the best of the second group. For the on-lookers it might have looked a tad strange that I was whooping and pumping my fists in the sky like I had won the race. It was just celebrating my inner victory. Nearing the top of the climb, about 1km from the finish, I put in a big attack that instantly got me a gap and two riders fought their way back to my wheel. One of those riders was Pinpin who was urging me to keep going at 500m to go. But I swung left across the road and stalled. I did not want to spend all of my matches and get swamped at the line. Matt Kinch from Franzia had been chasing hard at 52km/h to bridge the gap back to us and when he sailed by, I reaccelerated hard back into the slip stream of other riders. With about 200m to go, Kinch faded and I was able to burst out into the front and win the main group sprint quite easily. Next time, I have to be sprinting to win!

Lee Rodgers won the stage with yellow jersey, Colin Robertson back in 4th – 6 seconds. Robertson holds a small lead of 27 seconds over Rodgers. However, Robertson’s time trial skills are quite legendary and it will be a closely fought tour.

My individual time trial report will be covered in my next blog post. Stay tuned.  Photos kindly supplied by Jojo Rinoza.

Rodgers in Vamp style for Stage 3's win

Taking the bunch sprint for 8th...

Celebrating even though I was not the true winner of the stage...

All photos by Jojo Rinoza.

Photo: Jojo Rinoza

Cycling races that include resort living are on the rise in Asia, races like the Tour of Matabungkay and the Tour of Bintan both offer resort accommodations with picturesque tropical surroundings for riders to unwind after hard racing.  As I type this, I am sipping on ice-cold fresh Mango juice and enjoying the laid-back style of Filipino lifestyle. Quite a contrast to the frenzied life in Mainland China, mind you Manila, Philippines largest city is a sprawling metropolis that is in some ways crazier.

The Matabungkay Beach Resort is less than three hours away from Manila, but it is a completely different world in the Southern most tip of Luzon Island. General Manager of the Resort, Rico Violeta, is an avid cycling fan himself. “I want to promote Batangas as a cycling destination and show the world what we have to offer” he said.  While out pre-riding some of the stages, it was quite evident that the region has some great roads with punchy climbs and rollers. With the great beach nearby, the cyclist is never far from cooling off if riding is becoming too hot…

The 2011 Tour of Matabungkay is shaping up to be a very tough race; a race that does not favor the climber or the sprinter, but favors a rider that has strong all-round ability.  It is also a race that is dependent on your ability to time-trial and the organizers have mapped out extremely challenging parcours for both the team time trial and the individual; so challenging that the winning time in 2010 was only 59 mins, averaging 40.22km/h. But this year’s competition looks like the course record will be broken.

There are 80 riders starting the elite category with several strong teams, including the two-time winner Mossimo Team and The Franzia Wines Teams. Both these Filipino Teams have imported quite a few foreigners to not only bolster their ranks but also to showcase the Batangas region to the world as a destination for cycling.  But I think it’s really to strengthen their teams in the bid to win the coveted team title.  Mossimo with their 17-strong rider squad with imports Lee Rodgers, Rob Gitelis, and Daniel Carruthers definitely look to be the favorites on paper.  A strong challenge to topple the Mossimo Cycling Team from achieving their hat-trick will come from the Franzia Wines Team led by Scotsman Colin Robertson. Roberston has been training specifically for this event for months and the former Scottish time-trial champion will be a formidable force to be reckoned with, especially in the two time-trial stages.  Other strong riders include Mark Cook and Damian Barrett, both expats living in Hong Kong.

While out pre-riding the time trial stages, I was impressed with the course they had put together. It is not an easy course and definitely favors the powerful rider that can punch it up the numerous climbs. Stage two is the team time-trial over 30kms and our Mossimo team will have nine riders but only three need to finish for the official team time. For me, it will be a case of riding well at the front over the flat and rolling downhill sections but have to hang on during the climbs. It will also be in the afternoon – the hottest part of the day and it will be important to start well hydrated as we will be coming from completing the 90km road race first up.

I did not expect to find this tour to be predominantly climbs. The first stage features a long 20km climb after 20kms and this is expected to break the race to smithereens and leave the field in tatters. After this first brutal stage, riders will have to pick themselves up again for the TTT in the afternoon. Recovery from the stages will be key to doing well at this tour. The second day features an epic 120kms taking in the best of what Matabungkay offers. The tour ends with a super hard 40km individual time trial; it will be a true test of who is the strongest after a very testing first two days. All of the stages finish atop a tough 2km climb.  After staking out the time trial route today, I was sitting with the Mossimo Team drinking coke with ice-cubes and I observed one of the Filipino make himself a raw-egg coke cocktail. We nick-named him Ricky Eggman as he proudly said that it was one of his proven methods for recovery after a hard training ride!

Protein-coke with raw egg - Filipino Style!

Despite the hard-coreness of the race, riders have the luxury of coming back to the Matabungkay Beach Resort to enjoy some relaxation and fantastic Filipino hospitality and food.  Enjoy the fantastic photos below, click on them for larger sizes. Stay tuned for my reports over the next several days. Here is a preview of the race on the Philippine Inquirer.

On my last day in the US, I went to Lodi, California to compete in my second criterium event of the weekend. You can read my report on the San Rafael Twilight here.  A good report on the Lodi Presented by Michael-David Winery can be viewed on the Lodi News site and Marc Pro Strava have a first hand account of the Pro 1,2 race.  A another nice report found here.

JD Bergman (Clif Bar) leading Roman Kilun (KENDA) through the corner

Quite a few of the criterium riders from the star-studded field of San Rafael made the trip out to race at Lodi, including Rahsaan Bahati’s squad of the SKLZ-Pista Palace cycling team (read about his team on Velonews) and a whole bunch of the NorCal criterium fastest talent.  Just over 70 riders took to the start-line of the feature Pro event of the day and racing on the pancake flat figure of eight race course was lightning quick and strung out for much of the race. I had started well moving up to the front of the field, following Rahsaan Bahati, and going into the second lap, I found myself second wheel, behind Bahati, but he sat up so I drilled it down the back straight to keep it strung out. I then floated back down the field to recover from my effort.

Bahati going through turn eight

The opening stanzas – the first 10 laps or so were lightning fast at speeds of over 50km/h, and averaging 46km/h. This is pretty good for a figure eight criterium course that was pretty tight in places.  Numerous attacks kept going up the road and I was able to follow some of them, but none were sticking. At about the half-way point, I saw that a breakaway had suddenly formed and was dangling at about 10-15 seconds in front. I sensed that this was going to be the breakaway of the race as it contained riders like Steve Reaney (California Giant Berry), SKLZ-Pista Palace riders, JD Bergmann from Clif Bar racing, Logan Loader,  and Eric Barlevav just to name a few of the heavy hitters in the break of 13 riders.  I gallantly tried to bridge the gap on my own, but quickly found myself in no-mans land and then was caught  by the chasing peloton that was keen on keeping the race under control as all the major teams were represented.

As I was back in the field and following wheels, disaster struck when I hit the only pot-hole on the course and resulted in a blow out and a broken spoke! This was not good as I had just gotten a new Vittoria tubular glued on at Studio Velo only a couple of days prior! So I took a lap out to get a wheel replacement from Williams Wheels at the pit. I jumped back into the main field but by this  time, the break was already well and truly established with a minimum 30 second lead which is hard to single handedly bring back on your own. I just sat in the field to wait for the bunch sprint for 14th place. I was setting myself up well for this finale and when I saw the lap counter say one to go… I thought I was in for a good chance to test my sprint against some good sprinters in the pack, like Rahsaan Bahati. Going through the final turn, I was in the top five and sprinted to second in what I believed was the finish. But, no, there was still another lap to go. The announcer had messed things up and I had not heard the announcement due to my hearing impairment. So, the race went around for another lap to which I had no sprinting legs for and rolled in for 31st position out of 70 riders.

Strava file can be found here. Although I did not win the race, I currently hold the KOM for fastest lap time!

For those of you that don’t know, Lodi is a small city located in the Northern portion of California’s Central Valley and is well known for being the Wine Production Capital of the World. So it is quite apt that  Michael-David Winery came onboard as the Lodi Cycle Fest’s major sponsor. All of the top placed riders received the flagship Seven Deadly Sins wine, including myself for placing in the 35 plus 1,2,3 event. I promptly gave this bottle of wine to my host/friend as I don’t drink alcohol!  Despite the low crowd attendance in the historic section of the Lodi Township, the Cycle Fest shows some great promise to become one of California’s more popular events. It only debuted in 2009 and the promoter, Dominick Brookes (also an avid bike racer) is full of optimism for the future of Lodi Cycle Fest saying that it would be great to tie in with other promoters such as the San Rafael Twilight. Having a double-criterium weekend where all the riders turn out in full force would be great for the town of Lodi. This will also draw in more crowds to watch the exciting action. The Lodi Cycle Fest is an event that is only going to grow strength to strength and the 2012 edition is promised to be bigger and better.

The two races I entered at Lodi capped off a big weekend of California racing – having also done two races at San Rafael the previous night. This was great preparation to get some speed in my legs for the upcoming Mongolia Bike Challenge. Presently I am now back in Hangzhou, China recovering from the jetlag and trying to adjust to the heavy sticky heat!

Check out the photos below. Click on the photos for larger viewing size.

Kimberly Fong, Cat 2 racer for the Michael David Winery Cycling Team

The Pro Men's start at the Lodi Cycle Fest

I lined up at the very front!

Taking off at the gun...

I'm at the front of the race with Bahati on my wheel (see his Predator handlebars!)

The pain of the pace shows...

Webcor bad-ass Rand Miller cornering

Rand Miller on the attack as Steve Reaney watches on

Marc Pro Strava rider leading Logan Loader

There was some good crowd support

Enjoying the wine is left, Mary Ellen Ash, (she also won the recent 2011 Berkeley Bike Club Crit), and right: Martina Patella, the wife of Roman Kilun

The Pro Men's podium

Photos courtesy of Stefan Pommerenk

Astounding News flash: Steve Reaney and Rand Miller went 1-2 at the Watsonville Crit, and repeated the feat the next day at the Berkeley Bike Club Criterium. Whats more, in both races they lapped the entire field!

Podium prize giving for Elite 30s – 4th spot (six get to go on the stage)

Despite the qualification race for Tour de Taiwan being held in Taizhong at the same time, there was still a very good turn out of racers in the Elite category with Columbus, Cineli-Ritchey, Giant, Champion Systems all represented. About 100 riders lined up in considerably colder conditions than the race held two weeks previously in Dajia. This was also the last major race of the year as the season winds down for 2009.

Race strategy

My race strategy was to conserve as much as I can before the 17km climb at the end. I knew that if I burnt too many matches during the flat/rolling coastal section (48kms), I would not finish strongly on the climb. I needed to curb my natural attacking instinct, even when I saw good opportunities and concentrate hiding as much as I could from the prevailing winds blowing in from the Pacific Ocean.

Yangming Mountain Climb – 18kms

Overall, I was satisfied with my performance and felt that my preparations prior the race and race strategy was almost spot-on.

Pre-race preparation

Since re-starting my training 4 weeks ago and stepping it up another level in the 2 weeks after the Giant Cup Race focusing on climbing really paid divendends for this race. Training consistently and with specificity is the key to improvements.

I also felt that my race day nutrition played a big factor in my performance. Below is a summary of what I consumed since rising at 5.30am:

• 700mls of USANA Nutrimeal shake mixed with Peach/Mango Fibernergy
• USANA Essentials, 4 x Proflavonal 90 – grapeseed extract, Biomega Fish-oils and extra Active Calcium (I also took extra Active Calcium the night before)
• 1 x banana
• 600mls of REV 3 surge
• 1 x cup of hot Thai Tea
• 1 x USANA Oatmeal Raisin Nutrition Bar (consumed 30minutes before the race start)

During the race:

• 2 x 600ml bottles of REV 3 Surge
• 1 x Hammer Gel (just before the climb)

By focusing on consuming low-glycemic foods, I was able to keep my energy sustainable without the crash or exhaustion that usually follows after a race. I still had good energy levels to ride another 30k at a good tempo to complete 100k for the day.

Climb statistics:

Distance: 17.94km
Avg speed: 23.1km
Avg cadence: 80rpm
Avg power: 330watts
Peak power: 1040watts

Time: 46 mins 20 seconds

I had also achieved my second best CP30 for the year with 344watts. Previous best was back in a race in Texas where I did 348watts for 30minutes. I am looking to build on my fitness with some more solid training, trying out a new 31 day program designed to increase my CP20 output. I have been using Training Peaks to track my data over time. I’m hoping to find a team to ride with for the Tour of South China Seas (Dec 27th-Jan3rd) which is a multi-day cycling race that starts in Hong Kong and finishes in Macau.

Holding 4th place Trophy with my wife, who is my best supporter!