For a perspective on what it’s like to do this climb check out these posts at Satin Cesena: Iron Butt 1 and Iron Butt 2.

There are several events throughout the warmer months that involve this ascent, this being the first. We had a group of 10 taking on the mountain this Sunday.

A-Chang was the first of three in the group to post a sub-4hr ride. He finished in 3: 44 coming 39 out of 221 in his division.

Jason did it in 3:52 and 18th from 41 in his division, which is a very good job considering he works all day and goes to night school. Training is only possible on the weekends. When his schedule clears in the future, we should be seeing times getting closer to the key 3hr mark.

I posted 3:57, 55min better than last year giving me a 10th place out of 45 in my division, fair value considering the pain premium paid. A veteran cyclist on Taiwan’s roads, and a very strong one in this division to boot, Mark, posted 8th in what is his first ascent of the mountain on a racing bike, let alone under competitive conditions.  He only narrowly missed out on a place and had “plenty left in the tank” at the end. He will be looking to carve chunks off today’s 3:52  next time round.

Sabinna presents Mark with his jersey

Mark will be riding in a Primavera jersey in the future starting off with next Saturday annual Taiwan Urban Athletic Association’s  Balaka event involving a run from the east coast along the north around to the west of Yang Ming mountain finishing with a 9km climb to 880m.

Rui Yi , who rides a Sabinna GP1 ladies road bike (compact crank), completed half the climb. Having never attempted it before she was surprised at how tough it is but will be back in the future to tackle it again. Forewarned is forearmed. The better you know the various sections, grades and moods of the mountain, the easier it is to come up with a strategy to deal with it.

For an overview of what was happening at the elite end of the field, Bikeman were right on the spot giving great coverage as they do with all the cycling events, racing or challenge. The winning time was 2hrs 45 at an average speed of 20km/h.

Here is a post by Xü Yuan-Geng who achieved 4th in the RM19 division telling of his experience. It’s in Chinese, but the photos are worth a look. Basically, he punctured early on. Replacement wheels were made available by the organizers (except if you were sporting 11sp Campy!!) for just this eventuality. He was in two minds about going on especially when the replacement wheel was much heavier than the original. Anyway, having not lost too much time he resolved to get back into it. What helped him through was the slogan taped across the bottom of his cycle computer: “your biggest enemy is yourself”. That is certainly true of this mountain. What other people are doing is largely irrelevant. It is just you and the mountain. We will be back next year in a campaign to improve significantly on this year and see how far we can close the gap between current times and the magical 3hr mark.

A lot of the story of what went down in Hua Dong over the weekend has been covered elsewhere: Saturday and Sunday.  In short, Saturday was hot and windy with Sunday being exactly the opposite, although without descending into some sort of last-gasp-of-winter chill-fest. Far from it in fact.

Friday morning we gathered at the office and got the convoy ready to depart to the East over the Central Cross-Island Highway. Coach Chen with Rambo and A-Chang and assorted gear went in his car with the support gear including tools and what-have-you in the official Primavera wagon.

Two Festinos and one Triumph, cleaned, oiled and ready to go.

On the descent from the top of the ridge of mountains that traverse Taiwan’s length into the famous Taroko gorge, roadworks aimed at repairing the effects of a massive landslide meant the road was closed most of the time. It was nice to be able to stop and enjoy the late afternoon Spring ambiance of the mountains. The road is more than a little hairy in so many places, but you would have to search far and wide to find a nicer route to a weekend of cycling. Actually, I tell a lie, since we returned to the West Coast on Sunday evening via the infamous Su Hua Highway cut into the cliffs above the coast between Hualien and Suao, and that stretch of road is off the awesome scale as well. The section that collapsed late last year with the loss of so many lives has been stabilized and now looks like so many other landslide repairs.

After a leisurely dinner some of us wandered up the road to check out an enterprising salesman who had set up shop outside a very well-patronized restaurant full of cyclists. (What restaurant was not full of cyclists?!) Rambo took the opportunity to stock up on some calories. I should say something about “Lan Bo” aka Rambo. He is in the military and loves his sports. A body-builder for many years he also jogs and swims regularly with cycling fits into the mix very nicely. He is an extremely consistent cyclist as well who will just keep going no matter what the conditions.

Half an hour before departure on Saturday and the first stage for the weekend it was time for final photos. From right to left we have Rambo (RM 40), Coach Chen (RM 45), myself (RM 50), and A-Chang (RM 30) aka John, Paul, George and Ringo. It was already warm and as part of the final group to depart I had already gone through one container of water and had to go hunting for a replacement. Waiting for departure in the hot morning sun was not something that we had anticipated.

Around 30 km out from the finish (ie. the 100 km mark), I caught up to Coach Chen who had dropped off the back of his RM 45 peloton and was stranded. It was quite tough going being out there by yourself. I was part of a peloton made up of a few of my RM 50 group and quite a few from earlier groups that were finding conditions very hard indeed. Coach Chen had strapped his legs as part of an effort to deal with calf issues that he was anticipating being a problem, which it turned out to be. But when we joined forces we were able to work with this group and pair up to get ahead of it. This was good for me since I was able to make up some time on the large number of my RM 50 group that had escaped on the main climb over the 30-35km portion of the route. Once you let them go there, it’s all over. The best we could do was get home as quickly as possible. The photo along with a host of others is available at this photographer’s account on Mobile01.

31st from 156 in his division, A-Chang made pretty good time finishing in 4:07, with the winning time being 4:01. The photographer caught him in this pensive moment cruising into the finish.

Rambo was 37th out of 96 in his division. He finished in 4:31.

William, featured in this post late last year, rides for his Hsinchu school-based team and has recently taken to riding his Festino in events. Today he was 10th in his division. Thanks again to the photographer. He cleaned up on Sunday by placing 2nd in his RM 15 division, only missing out on the top gong by 2 seconds!

We are smiling but we don’t feel like smiling, although nor do we feel like throwing up, which is good. The last 500 meters are steep and designed to slow you down, just in case you were not slowed to a crawl already. Note to self: must send congrats to organizers praising them on this move as I have always thought it highly perilous to go charging across finish lines. This allows old gents like me and the Coach to finish with style and dignity.

Just having dismounted, Wen-Yen comes up for a chat and we were sorry for being less chatty than we would be otherwise as the inviting shade of a nearby coolibah tree, or what looked like one to me, had caught our attention.

Under shade of said tree, it’s time to stretch a troublesome left Achilles tendon, which is admittedly the least of my troubles today. Along with fellow RM 50 members Mark and Bill (reclining in the background) I begin reflecting on the 173km that we face tomorrow. Fortunately tomorrow is still a long way off. It’s off to the hot spring resort area just to the west of Taidong to maybe enjoy an extremely hot bath.

The next morning we gather for the morning photo. Coach Chen will be assisting with supply on this longer leg, the first watering hole being planned for the 50km mark since it is warm and humid.

This sums it up. At the 40km mark it began to rain and whilst it was not heavy it was consistent enough to wet the road completely and keep it we which required extra concentration in the peloton. Rambo takes an inside track as he prepares to pick up some water and calories.

He finished the day in 5:21, 41st in his group of 75.

Vanessa found this on mobile 01 (she found quite a few on mobile 01) so thanks to the photographer for sticking out the conditions to practice your craft. I finished in 5:11 for an 8th place out of 41 in my group. The clincher was the last few kms which were uphill. The winning time was 5:10, so it was a close one.  A-Chang finished the day 46th out of 133 in 4:51.

Next up it’s He Huan Shan on May 1. “Up” is right! I was hoping to be on a 56cm Cesena VL with SRAM Red compact 34/50 since it is really time I abandoned riding up that hill on a standard, but the production will not be quite ready darn it. Not to worry, two weeks later and it’s the first Never Stop event of the year that we’ll be attending, the climb to Tatajia although it looks like it’ll just be Jason (You-Zheng) and myself, everyone else being caught up in other things. That will be Cesena VL’s debut and having tested a 50cm model out the other day, I can see it’s going to be a great ride indeed.