China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

Today we had the 3rd race of this season. Again I am too lazy to write my own report so I again took the great race summary from the newsletter of Tom Lanhove. Here Tom’s summary:

We are happy to say that we set our own record of attendance! We had 10 man “A” race, followed by an impressive 30 something “B” race. At least 5 women and even the kids’ race featured 5 promising youth, braving the wind and the bumpy course. Another fun feature was the high number of spectators giving much needed encouragement when the going got tough. A solid feature of cyclo cross is the “anything can happen” aspect. We had punctures, (harmless falls), broken gears and so forth. The race positions change often and abruptly making it fun for riders and spectators.

The winners of this race were:
• The ladies podium was: 1. Jenny (Canada); 2. Ines (GER); and 3. Hu Chen (CHN)
• The open podium was: 1. Mark Thirwall (AUS); 2. Mike Bilan (USA) and Mr. Liu (CHN)
• The advanced podium was: 1. Todd McKean (USA); 2. Hangkai (MON) and 3. Yang Wei (CHN)
The level of competition was very high this weekend. The top 4 ladies actually finished in the top 10 of the ‘B’ race. This indicates how strong these female athletes are. It also shows how cyclo cross is an “honest” sport where bike handling skills, running, overall fitness, power and endurance are key factors, leveling the playing field between men and women.
For pictures, please see the following links:
• http://picasaweb.google.com/johnston2.4/2008CycloCrossRace3
• http://picasaweb.google.com/cyclosportschina/Cross3Nov16th#
• http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/hirobeijing/200811163
The pictures I have inserted here are all from Steve Johnston: Thank you for taking such great shots!

The B race saw a heated battle between the first 5 riders, with positions changing often. Mark Thirwall (AUS) and Yoshi-san (JPN) broke away with 3 Chinese riders + Mike Bilan (USA) chasing them down. When it seemed the gap was made, Yoshi-san smashed his rear gear shifter and he literally dropped away from the front. Mark was able to hold on to his lead with Mike Bilan putting up the best challenge, in front of a strong Chinese contingent. In a second group behind these front 5, we saw the four strongest women (Jenny, Ines, Hu Chen and Ms. Liu) battle it out. They overtook quite a few male riders, much to the delight ofthe neutral supporters. Jumping over obstacles is part and parcel of cyclo cross.

In the ‘A’ race, we had a 4 man strong race situation, with TREK’s GM Todd (USA), young Khangarid from Mongolia, Tom (Bel) and Yang Wei (CHN). Tom fell out with a puncture, skillfully repaired by Ines and Mike, leaving a heated battle between Todd, Khangarid and Yang Wei. They finished in that order at the end too.

Today we had TREK’s 2nd Cyclo Cross event at the Wenyu River. Our famous Beijing road cyclist Tom Lanhove has written a nice short report that I will just copy in here:
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It was a few degrees cooler than our first outing but we had even more people show up.
The course was revamped with less riding on the dirt road, and more „crossing“ in the fields next to the river.
The change made the course overall more challenging, but it also reduced the amount of punctures. Where we had 4 or more last time, we had none this time.
My favorite section of the course were those sharp uphill zigzags, resembling a skateboard ramp as much as a cross circuit!
The race had its usual quadruple divisions: open, advanced, ladies and kids.

• The open mens podium was: 1. Mr. Wang (China); 2. Mr. Liu (China) and 3. Mike Bilan (USA)
• The advanced mens podium was: 1. Hangkai (Mongolia); 2. Tom Lanhove (Belgium) and 3. Naran (Mongolia)
• The ladies podium was: 1. Ines Brunn (Germany) ; 2. Ms. Chen (CHN); and 3. Echo Yang (China)

For pictures, please see the following (more albums are sure to follow later this week…):
johnston2.4 on picasaweb
Cyclosportschina on Picasaweb
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It was a really fun race with the technical sections. This time I had the impression that having a mountain bike would have given a certain advantage on the long section riding on the bumpy fields. I am looking forward to the next race. Let us see if I then can still beat Ben (I was pursuing him then he was pursuing me – just behind me in this picture)

And in the evening we had a house colding party as we will soon move out. But it actually did not get really cold despite all the friends that came. It would have been nicer if we had already found a new apartment, but we still have more than a week to move out of the old place. The search still goes on.

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: