Bikedan in Asia

  My team flew me back to Beijing to take part in the Shimano organized 55km road race that was held on Saturday.  More than 100 elite riders lined up at the start line on the tight 5.5km course that went around the Olympic Rowing site 10 times. In typical fashion, the Chinese riders sprinted [...]

After knocking on the door with a whole string of second places and podium finishes for a long while, I finally won a road race at the Beijing Trek sponsored event in convincing fashion; winning from the bunch kick at the end by several bike lengths. It was quite amazing to pull of a win [...]

The final stage of the Tour of Sailimu Lake was held in the city of Bole in front of what seemed like half the city out in force to support the riders. It was a 6km city circuit with long straightaways. The finishing straight was on a false flat uphill into a block head wind [...]

Today was always going to be a shake up of GC with the long climb up to the scenic Sailimu Lake perched amidst majestic mountains at an elevation of over 2,000metres. The two Feng brothers from the Triace team rode away together early in the climb to go 1-2 in the stage and in the [...]

The Tour of Sailimu Lake continues in the far west of China and now we are in Wenquan Village, nestled amidst majestic snow capped mountains, at an elevation of more than 1300 meters.  Today’s stage was just a precursor of the penultimate climbing stage tomorrow, and there will surely be a big GC shake-up after the [...]

The Tour of Sailimu Lake continued this morning with a fast 78km stage that was completed in 1hr 44 mins with an average speed of 43.6km/h; perhaps not as fast as yesterdays opening stage, but the peloton was motivated to keep things together after letting Stage one’s winning break get out to seven minutes! Riders [...]

One of China’s few multi-day stage races for amateurs is now being held in the far flung wild west of Xinjiang Province. This is the sixth year that this five day stage race has been held and the numbers of competitors continue to grow each year. In this 2012 edition of Tour Sailimu Lake, 115 [...]

As my previous blog posting indicated, China has a large number of Amateur events scattered throughout the largest country in the world.  Out of the five that was listed, I managed to attend two – one in Yiwu and the other in Chengdu. The event in Chengdu required me to take a flight from Hangzhou [...]

This is who you will be racing against here in China… … actually just kidding, there is in fact a thriving amateur racing scene in China that  anyone can participate in if they can find the races.  I recently read on  CyclingIQ about race events in China and the chances of finding one is slim while [...]

Yellow Mountain Mountain Bike Race If you are looking for a picturesque mountain bike race combining ancient villages and traditional Chinese countryside, then the Yellow Mountain event is the race that has it all.  The start/finish area is right by the famous Hongcun, where the opening scene of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is shot.  Many [...]