台灣 Team Cinelli Ritchey 車隊

The races were held on the vehicle testing track called ARTC in the wind-blown Changhua Seashore Industrial Area. In the morning we had the 10km 5-man TTT. With our team of four we had to find a guest rider in Phillipe, who did an admirable job. Out of 42 teams we ended up 7th.

Team Cinelli Ritchey TTT

We barely missed the podium (and a big fat prize check by something like 15 seconds. Agh. We couldn’t help but rue the close call. ONLY IF WE HAD a bit more form, some disc wheels, some tri-bars, some TT frames, been younger and born with better genes, trained more, practiced more diligently, eaten less, slept better… but we were pretty happy to have done an honest job of something that’s decidedly not our specialty.

A close call. We almost hit pay dirt

Our sister team Team MV ended up in 19th place — Bravo because most of the guys have had no real racing experience and have only been riding together for two months.

The afternoon 10-lap, 30km circuit race was, eh, chaotic, like going back 6, 7 years when road racing was just taking off here in Taiwan, when it wasn’t uncommon for organizers to throw everyone in the same race. We had close to 300 guys at the start, ranging from Elite-level guys training for next week’s national games to grandpa weekend warriors on MTB’s.

Tim leading the 5-man breakaway. With strong wind and a motley field I knew we had a good chance ot staying away IF we worked together. I just concentrated on doing my pulls strong, trying to keep SRM in the 380w range when I hit the front.

hmm, not really where you want to mix with the crowd. We seriously thought about skipping the show. Team Cinelli Ritchey and Team MV took a vote as to whether to brave it or not. We stayed and got a 3rd place podium spot out of it — and nobody crashed!

To stave off the coming disaster we decided to: Plan A do a TTT and just ride away from everyone Plan B solo away from the craziness and lap the field for fun; Plan C do not crash.

We accomplished Plan C. And I got into a 5-man breakaway after the first lap, did another TTT and finished 3rd.

Our support crew of Xiaoyu, Tina, Olive, Kai, Lydia, Even, Meimu and new member Weiwei were out in force. They made a fiercely good-looking entourage. Everyone deservedly got a tan, except Meimu. Special thanks to Tina for the baking goods: Please do not ever worry you’d bring “too much” in the future.

Check out the video footage here.

Team Cinelli Ritchey and Team MV

Graph from the morning TTT. I averaged 475w for the first minute-- the highest in the last few months. I tried to keep my pulls @ 400w.

The power graph during the breakaway. After first lap I did a 400w effort for 55s to bridge up to the group. It felt really easy. During the break I felt strong and just wanted to do some quality work. But predictably it kinda of got hard toward the end.

WKO + summary of recent training load -- very light. Tues and Thurs night rides with Team MV and Wed night trainer sessions + Sat. 2.5 hour rides. The day before the race I did a 10min TT up Huashan, a nearby climb and rode another 2 hours tempo. So my race day TSB was actually negative 20 points. But I think I am doing something right (the 30/30s trainer workouts are the bomb!) and am enjoying some surprising, bonus fitness for this time of the year.