<i>by Peter Baiamonte</i>

August of last year my Taiwanese girlfriend moved back home to Taiwan, not the easiest thing for maintaining a relationship.  We decided that before we faced saying goodbye, I would come visit her in Taipei, take my first trip to Asia, and make the best of the situation.  A few weeks later we had planned out that I would sublet my place and go live with her for a month in the fall of last year. First order of business, google “Cycling in Taiwan”.

I found the blog for the Yangmingshan Cycling club, an expat cycling club based in the Tien Mu area of Taipei. 

http://taipeiycc.blogspot.com/

Got in touch with Dave who kept the blog updated and he was really encouraging, told me to definitely bring the bike, that Taipei is surrounded by mountains and Yangmingshan National Park, that there was a really active local riding and racing scene, and that he’d help get me in on it all. 

Long story short.. I spent the month there, made a whole bunch of new friends, ate some unique things, got to see quite a bit of the country, went on some fantastic rides with some great people, rode a bullet train at 180 mph, got used to having to boil water before drinking it, and of course spent some quality time with my girlfriend.

<img src=”http://peterbaiamonte.com/TDT/content/bin/images/large/080316_tdt_11.jpg” width=”580″>

Fast forward a bit.. we decide I should come again for a longer time period, we work out all the logistics, I went and got a visa,  re-connected with Dave and the rest of the guys I’d ridden with, and packed my bike. At the end of January I found myself back on a plane to Taipei, this time for two months. 

Spending February and March in Taiwan meant I would be in a predominately Chinese country for Chinese New Year, Lantern Festival, the 7th stage if the Tour De Taiwan, Cycle Taipei (the Taiwan cycling trade show), and best of all there would be a road race called the North Coast Race that I could race in. 

Got to Taiwan and waited 10 days for it to stop raining, spent two days getting over food poisoning, and Dave, who had helped me get into the local scene during my first trip, drowned while training in open water for an up-coming triathalon.. ..first time I re-connected with all my Taiwan riding buddies was at Dave’sfuneral. A really really bad way to start the trip.

The weather finally cleared and started to get in on some ofthe rides. This time I connected a bit more with the racing scene and started doing a bunch of rides with a local team, Team Columbus. 

The local racing scene in Taiwan consists of a series of events all connected together as a series with a national ranking system that includes results from them all. They have one big one every month or so…there are no weekly races like we have in NYC.  The North Coast race I’d heard about was the first race in the series for ’08 and the locals were all getting ready for it. The Columbus team guys took care of doing the paperwork for the entry and I was entered under their team entry.

I rode regularly with the Columbus team. An average weekend ride with the team would start at the bike shop that sponsored the team – most of the local teams are based around shop sponsorship and Columbus is one of the biggest of the Taipei shop teams. About 20 people would show up, mostly Taiwanese with a few expats mixed in, and a few non-racers who would eventually get dropped. We’d cover 60 to 80 miles on a mix of roads with maybe four to five thousand feet of climbing by the time we were done. We’d ride along the north coast fairly often and several times I got to pre-ride most of the course for the North Shore race that was coming up.

Everything came together at one time. Cycle Taiwan was the 13^th to16^th of March, the North Coast race was the 15^th, and the last stage of the Tour de Taiwan was a crit in downtown Taipei next to Taipei 101 (tallest building in the World) on the 16^th. 

First up, Cycle Taiwan. Thanks to a business card and a mention of VelocityNation I got in as press and dragged along my buddy Teo.  Unlike Vegas where bike companies are showing their stuff to dealers and press, Cycle Taiwan is a place for the factories to show off what they can do to the bike companies. Most of the booths were occupied by companies your average bike consumer has never heard of. Lots of the booths had frames, wheels and other items on display that had no names on them, they were there to show the bike companies what the factories were capable of. The whole thing, along withsome translation issues, leads to quite a different experience. It was interesting to see, but being as I’m not looking for a company to do my machining or castings, a couple of hours was enough for me.  There is a photo gallery here: 

http://peterbaiamonte.com/TPC/

<img src=”http://peterbaiamonte.com/TPC/content/bin/images/large/080313_taipeicycle_101.jpg” width=”580″>

Next, the big day, my first race outside of the US. I’m totally psyched. After a bunch of training rides the guys had recommended I ride the “Elite Masters” race – one notch below the “Elite Men” race. All the other categories are based on age groups and get filled up with a real variety of skill levels, the elites would be safer. So, Saturday morning I’m up before dawn, ride north about 7 miles or so to a meet spot where I catch a ride in my friend’s van to the race.  The race starts in the town of Wanli on the north coast of Taiwan.  We would start in Wanli, race along the coast for about 18 miles, hit a turnaround, come back along the same fairly flat coast road, then before getting all the way back to Wanli we would make a tight right turn on to a 4mile finishing climb, total distance was only about 40 miles. 

After a 40 minute drive we get to Wanli and I’m shocked. There are thousands…yes thousands of cyclists.  Turns out these events are huge, and racing here is a whole different animal. We find a parking spot, everybody starts getting ready. I’m handed my numbers, both of which are vinyl stickers, one you stick to the front of your helmet (it has a transponder in it for timekeeping), and the other you stick and pin to the back of your jersey. All the elite riders will start together and we wear white numbers, I find out that the combined field of Elite men and masters will be about 40 guys. I get myself ready and head out to roll around a bit before the start, which turns out to be near impossible with the amount of people on bicycles everywhere, so I just give up and head over to the start area. 

Elites is the first group and from my training rides I see a bunch of familiar faces as we line up. Behind us a sea of riders line up, imagine a cat 123 field of 40 or so…then about 1500 cat 4’s divided up in to age groups, then take a big slice of the five borough bike tour and line them up behind that, there are divisions for people on mountain bikes with slicks, there are some women’s fields, I see people back there on fancy folding bikes, hybrid bikes, it’s nuts, the staging area is packed. The benefit of all this is that you feel like a rock star in the front wearing your Elite white number. A hundred or so spectators line the start area on both sides of the road.  Assorted people make speeches over loudspeakers, a race director comes up and makes a speech directly to us (the elites)…all of it is in Mandarin so I’m clueless. A small explosion marks our start, the other groups will start every two minutes after us, we have a police car, two police motorcycles (lights flashing and sirens blaring) along with a race director’s car in front of us with a follow car and an ambulance following behind. The crowd yells Jayo! Jayo! (not sure if I am spelling that right),which literally translates to “give it gas”…mandarin equivalent of Allez I guess. 

Just after the start we have to go through a half mile long tunnel so the race director holds a red flag out of the car indicating we are neutralized. Once we clear the tunnel a green flag means it’s game on and the speed slowly builds. We cruise the first five miles or so at about 26 or 27 mph, it’s a comfy pace but I know the attacks are expected after the turnaround. We cruise through the town of Jinshan and people line the road, there are cops everywhere holding up traffic, another rock star moment. A mile or so outside of town and in a whoosh of air it all goes southfor me…DOH! A front flat, and for all the hoopla and fanfare and organization, there is no wheel van or neutral support…in seconds I’ve put my arm up, spit out of the pack, and all alone.  I’ve ridden almost five weeks in Taiwan at this point and this is my first flat. The rest of the day, I manage to get a ride back to Wanli, then a ride up to see the finish, then we have a tailgate party, we all talk about the race, I talk about my flat, people get trophies, there’s a raffle, and I get a free t-shirt. A few photos here:

http://peterbaiamonte.com/northcoast/

<img src=”http://peterbaiamonte.com/northcoast/content/bin/images/large/DSC00022.jpg” width=”580″>

And here:

http://bikeman.blogdns.org/Qmultimedia/cgi-bin/thumb_index.cgi?folder=/Qmultimedia/2008/Smw\?2008/Small

Sunday was the big crit finish to the Tour de Taiwan. A bunch of folks I knew were there to spectate and we all hung out and had a fun day together, weather was perfect, the race was a fast 60 laps, and came down to a bunch sprint, some guy from the Merida Europe team won, and one of the guys from Health Net, John Murphy, won the overall. Photos here: 

http://peterbaiamonte.com/TDT/

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/2008_Tour_de_Taiwan_Stage_8:_A_great_ending_for_John_Murphy

All in all, it’s been a fantastic time, and cycling, as usual, led to some fantastic experiences and some new friends. I became really close to a bunch of folks over there and they all have an open invite to stay in New York any time. It would be real nice to return the favor and have a Columbus rider or two do some racing in NYC at some point.