This was a great race despite short term change of location! Originally we should have been at the Goose and Duck ranch, but just the day before Trek was told that they cannot set up the race there. So it was changed to the Wenyu riverside in Shunyi. Getting ready for the race:
Here an extract of the race report from Tom Lanhove from Belgium (with some comments added):The „open“ race (first time racers) was won by Samy Khoury from the US. He had a slow start but managed to come into second position, behind fellow USA Mike Bilan. Mike had a super race and quickly had a large gap to 2nd place Samy. Cruising on his way to victory, he met with cyclo cross‘ Murphy’s Law: Sadly (though quite common) Mike punctured at 2 rounds before the end. Lucky for Mike he found a spare wheel and still finished 4th. Ines (GER) made 3rd in this race and thereby won the separate women’s classification ahead of Helen Melville (CHN).
The advanced category race was won by Todd (USA), ahead of a Chinese rider from the UCC team and Dieter (Belgium). Like the „open“ race, disaster struck the likely victor of the race. Dieter from Belgium is a known MOB rider and I personally saw how awesome he is on rough terrain in Mongolia. With that specialized skill and the legs to finish it off, he was well on his way to victory when his front wheel literally exploded. This allowed both Todd and the UCC rider to overtake him. Luckily Dieter was able to jog (!) his way to third. And this because Tom decided not to overtake the jogging Dieter but stay behind and come in on 4th place. That was a great gesture of fairplay from Tom. That was awesome!
For pictures of the race go to Picasaweb of Cyclosportschina, Pictures on Dongfanghong, Picasaweb of Chris, Picasaweb pictures from Udo. More pictures from another friend are on flickr. Here is just a short video clip of the race.
Cycling back we came through the 798 Art District full of contemporary art galleries. My friend took some pictures:
