台灣 Team Cinelli Ritchey 車隊

Yunlin County is one of those places that blur by as you hurl toward somewhere else, registering only as km’s to be ticked off. Oh yeah, it’s got overrated and overpriced coffee in Gukeng. Soysauce. And the controversial giant Formosa Plastic oil refinery on its coast. Impressions from my one previous visit to Yunlin – only 1 hour south of Taichung – are of desolate farm houses amid a desolate sea of rice paddies, shimmering in a desolate sun, everything quietly baking in desolate silence.

TCR all kitted up for battle. Our race kit this year is a real eye-popper. Being easy to spot in the pack is both an advantage and a disadvantage, we find. But there's no denying our Stratos are getting the most attention.

The National Club Series’ 5th and 6th races were held in Yunlin this past weekend, around the Town of Huwei (Tiger’s Tail). It’s the first time the Series has come to Yunlin, as part of the county’s tourism promotion. The crit and the road race were held on the coastal plain, meaning for both days we held nary a hill in sight. As we drove around Huwei looking for lunch I couldn’t help wondering hmmm what kind of lifestyle would I have to adopt if I lived around here. Sure after a while i’d find something to dig in the sultry central-southern (中南部) miasma. But where would I do my hill repeats? Where would I go for the shady escape into the hills? I mean, where are the shades? I started to wonder if I had to be in a place that’s garishly bright, murderously hot, mind-bendingly flat and without shades, would I rather be in a real desert or an asphalt-and-rice-paddy desert? Yeah the mind wanders when it should be taking siesta.

Tim in the lead breakaway during Sunday's RR: First in EM40 and Fifth overall.

That is not to say that I found nothing to recommend during our excursion. Huwei has a real vibrant night market (ok, that’s the obligatory tourist thing to say). And the town has some really cool Japanese-era public buildings left that I wished we had more time to explore. And you gotta respect the sun-toughened A-beis (Old Uncles) who rule the roads with their imperturbably imperious scootering — no helmets, no lookin’, no paying no mind to nobody. Dis them at your own perils.

Inigo flying the TCR colors in a breakaway during Sat's crit.

Sat’s race was held around the “Yunlin HSR Station”. It wasn’t until I google-mapped it on Friday then I realized no such thing exists. There ain’t no high speed rail station in Yunlin. “Yunlin HSR Station” is an idea, a mirage that exists only as paddies asphalted into weedy grids and semi-open roads in anticipation of a (possible?) HSR station. Eratic housing development patches the landscape incongruently. We followed signs that said “HSR” and got lost in the maze of new roads that ended suddenly in concrete blocks.

With the weather being so hot our number-one concern was staying cool. After picking up our numbers we decided to get back in town to chill in the 7-Eleven. I was tempted to get a slurpee.

We’ve been experimenting with various cooling strategies. Iced towels. Iced tubes wrapped around towels. Alcohol spray. We thought about making our low-tech version of cooling vests. But what remain most effective are simple stuff already at our disposal: Our Camelbak Chilljacket water bottles, sticking ice underneath the baselayer, dumping water overhead.

TCR and entourage getting some AC action before the crit on Saturday. Note the Slurpee machine.

The number-two concern of the day was staying upright. We don’t get a lot of practice riding crits in Taiwan, especially one with a 180-degree turn. The Tech Park Speed Work the team started doing on Wed. nights helped us getting our cornering down, but Ray still crashed at the hairpin. It was a real slo-mo takedown. I had a good view of it as he had a gap in front of the peloton. Apparently his front wheel washed out on some pebbles. Nothing serious but he couldn’t regain the field afterwards. Pity as he was riding strong at the head of affairs.

Sat's crit at the phantom "Yunlin HSR Station"

Note to race organizers: Sweep the corners, please! Especially the 180-degree hairpin with a high-speed approach. 主辦單位，please please 把繞圈賽的過彎點確實的掃乾淨！

A few more guys crashed on the spot. We had to true Inigo’s back wheel after some guy ran into it and tried to yank his handbar out of the spokes. Note to fellow competitors: The back wheel you crashed into might be a NT50000 carbon wheel, so please chill when you try to disengage. 車友們 (哥輪布的車友們)，當你撞入前面的後輪時，請花幾秒鐘冷靜一下：這後輪可能是價值 NT50000 的輪組，請不要硬試著把你的把手從其幅條中抽出來。

Other than Ray’s scrapes the team survived Sat’s crit intact.

The road race on Sunday more suited to our strengths — a big, flat, windy 80-km loop around Yunlin. I encouraged everyone to be more aggressive, to take flyers and be smart. I ended up being in the breakaway of the day and finished first in RE40, fifth overall. The break started with four guys (shout out to 單風的孫一鋒 who rode strong to establish the break but unfortunately didn’t hang on to the end). When the second group of about 10 bridged up we had perhaps 30s on the peloton. With the terrain being so flat I was concerned that we would have a hard time getting out of sight, and the race marshal gave us some pretty sketchy info (Note to race organizers: when giving gap information, please give it in time, not in guestimated distance. 主辦單位，請訓練所有裁判提供時間差，不是距離差如“差不多差一公里多”). When I tried to get the time gap from one of the scootered marshals, he looked up from his cellphone and asked “Gap to what?” I couldn’t resist a sarcastic reply of “What do you think? to the Commisaire’s car up ahead.” I wanted to add “you moron.” He came back and reported that we were “maybe a little more than 1km ahead”.

But I also knew there’d be little organization from behind. And the prevailing headwind gave us an advantage over the smaller chase groups that were likely to form.

Anyways I was committed to working it and put in strong pulls, 30s spots @ 375w seemed manageable for the remaining 1.5 hours.

Ray and Inigo controlling the pack for Tim during Sunday's RR.

The pace continually shed guys off the back and there were 7 left by the last 10km and only three of us were taking meaningful pulls. By then we had 2 minutes on the chase and over 5 minutes on the peloton. When one of the strong Giant guys jumped with 1km to go I was caught off-guard and hesitated. The hard right-hander 150m from the finish nullified any chance of making up for the blunder. Instead of fifth I could’ve been a contender for overall. The consolation prize was the first place finish in the Elite Master40 cat. Note to myself: Got to practice for the endgame.

Thanks again to the support crew of Even, Lydia, Olive, Yahui, Meimu, and of course Xiaoyu. They worked hard to keep us cool. And it was also the first mass-start races for Team ModusVelo members Yingjie 英傑 和 Shengbo 聖柏。It was really satisfying seeing newbies excited about road racing and getting through their first races safely.

TCR pre-race prep.

Sample bottle of soysauce as part of race souvenirs. Xiaoyu mistakenly gave it to us before the race thinking it was some energy fluid.

Mango ice!

TCR 和 TMV 隊員聖柏。這是聖柏的第一次倶樂部聯賽。