Huangshan by Nordicways ( www.nordicways.com ) is starting to become a staple of our early season racing routine. The race is well organised, relatively easy to get to, comfortable (not the racing part) and all in all filled with some solid competition. Last year saw Li Fuyu take out the win and take with him a great deal of local and national exposure. the 2008 top 5:2008:
Placing Rider Nationality Time
1 李富玉 中国 2:06:21
2 Piers Touzel Australian 2:07:12
3 唐志强 中国 2:07:53
4 朱志华 中国 2:08:31
5 高刚照 中国 2:10:26
As you can see a lot of very strong Zhong Guo Ren! As usual the perennial Piers Touzel coming in just after the Discovery channel rider (can you blame him?)! Your author brought in a 33rd last year taking a solid drubbing of more than 20 minutes to Piers!
The 2009 edition was also set to be a classic, however this year saw the event shortened to 40km on a very similar track to last year. The 40km race would see the top man take home CNY 8,000 and the top woman CNY 4,000 (I agree it should be equal but there were only 10 women signed up. . . . c'mon ladies GET OUT AND RACE!!).
For those of you who haven't raced Huangshan, the course starts with approximately 1.5 km on road. The start is dead straight leading into a right hand corner, on to another straight then a right into the old town of Huangshan which snakes its way out towards the base of the mountain.
2008 saw the champion boys and Li Fuyu ride away never to be seen again. . . Once through the old town you ride up slowly into the mountains via a series of tiny capo or little rolling hills (these are killer on the legs!). There is even a bit for the cyclo-cross crowd with a 50 metre run up some mountain stairs. Once this is finished its time for the 3km road climb to the top!
This climb was killer last year and I was put deep in the 'pain locker', but this year I overdosed on Marco Pantani videos the night before, so I was able to keep changing my tempo and got out of the saddle to maintain some pace.Once riders got to the top it was time for the "TUNNEL". . . .
Now I have to be honest here. This photograph shows the most light I have ever seen on that road. The photographer must have had a flash the size of a bus. IT IS DARK! but the perfect place to really get the pressure on the pedals and get COOKING! After this it is almost all down hill back to the finish.Saturday morning it looked, and felt certain to rain. You could feel there were many nervous riders, and with a quick walk out front of the hotel, many stood in the parking lot looking up! Luckily it waited until after the race this year, which left the track in brilliant condition.
The mens 40km race started hard, seeing Piers Touzel riding on the front with a large number of other racers sitting back and watching. It seemed like the "Piers Show" as the rest of the field seemed to wait to see what he would do next. In a smart move, Piers seemed to wait for another rider to make a move and this saw some strong riding from Feng Kuanjie. It was a hard fought race, however the talented Feng Kuanjie was able to take first place before former winner of Huangshan MTB Festival - Piers Touzel in the Mens 40 km. Tang Zhiqiang from Guangzhou took the third place.
Similarly in the mens 20km race, one rider rode off the front (YOUR AUTHOR!!!) with many riders sitting on his wheel. Unfortunately your author is not the cyclist of Piers Touzel, so he decided to ride the first 5km on the front while other (smarter) cyclists sat on his wheel in anticipation of the single track. The great part was that Your Author got all the camera time from CCTV 5! CCTV 5 sponsored the event and were out en masse, with numerous cars and even a lead van for the start. Your Author faded and isn't sure where he finished after a bit of a tussle with a local rider in the final 3km. Suffice to say after numerous efforts by this rider to CHOP Your Author (chop meaning, the rider would abruptly move towards the side I was trying to pass on to edge me out, or take out my front wheel), I had had enough and grabbed his jersey and pushed him backwards. . . . . .c'mon lets get real; you're gonna try to chop me in a sprint for 15th place?
RANT: KEEP YOUR LINE!!! IF YOU ARE GOING TO LINE UP AND SPRINT IT IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND DOWNRIGHT STUPID TO TRY TO TAKE SOMEONE INTO THE BARRIERS OR THE CONCRETE PILLARS IN THE ROAD. IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO IT AT LEAST MAKE IT SUBTLE!
To cut a long story short, In the mens 20 km-Hu Hao from Nanjing Unlimited Cycling was the strongest. The rest rounded out to be 2) Jiang Xuhua at 0:49:27, and 3) Lv Jiaxi at 0:49:37.
Again this year there were some incredible efforts by the womens field!
Women 40km: 1) Sun Chen, 1:55:1, 2) Zhang Rui, 1:55:2, 3) Zheng Rufang, 2:06:5
Women 20 km: 1)Li Lei, 1:05:4, 2) Zhao Lijun, 1:05:5, 3) Tang Linna, 1:06:0
This race is highly recommended due to its professional organisation, great course, friendly locals (except for the late night hotel staff) and BEAUTIFUL countryside. For more information or questions please email me at rob_w_lamb@hotmail.com or see www.nordicways.com the Nordic Ways staff are professional, reliable and very knowledgeable!
Full results to be posted soon.
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