Tour of East Taiwan Day Two 175km

The Exustar Cycling Team from Taichung City has dominated the 2013 edition of the Tour of East Taiwan, with 32 year old Liu Jinfeng taking an emphatic sprint victory over the breakaway remnants.

Huang Xinhua (MERIDA-Senter) came in second just ahead of RIDEA's Huang Jinlong. A standout ride from Lewis Fellas (CNN), who was prominent in the breakaway all day long, netted a fine fourth placing.

How it Unfolded

The 175km stage began at 7am in Taidong with a long 17km neutral section to get to the highway through the Rift Valley. Just four kilometers into the race, a strong group of 13-riders leapt away and quickly established an unassailable lead. In the initial stages, the peloton was perhaps a bit too compleceant as they let a group that big get away with so many top-level riders; many riders felt with the intermediate sprint looming, the breakaway would contest it and then wait for the peloton since it was a long day. The gap from the 13-strong breakaway, largely led by Lewis Fellas (CCN), steadily increased their time advantage over the peloton and by the time the entire peloton sensed the danger, it was too late.

When the gap went to three minutes in quick time, early in the stage, this prompted a move from Fraser Young (Tropix-Cronus), who sensed the dangerous move,  and was quickly joined by Andrew Stanley (Neilpryde Cyclones) to form a duo that formed the first chase group. They were soon joined by Dave Christensen (DirectAsia.com) and a Champion System ProBike rider from Hong Kong. The quartet initially worked well together to chip into the breakaway's lead, but the pace and the head wind soon took its toll. The Hong Kong rider was first to drop off, leaving three riders to toil long and hard into the stiff wind.

Not long before the KOM climb, the trio were joined by two more strong riders; Taiwan's 2011 KOM challenge winner Fan Yongyi and Zhang Zhiyi (RTS Racing). The fresh injection of pace into the floundering pace of the trio was a welcome boost, but it soon caused Fraser Young (Tropix-Cronus) to drop out of the chase group going over the KOM climb.

The breakway's advantage swelled out to a maximum lead of 11 minutes over the peloton as the 13-riders all worked seamlessly together like a well oiled machine, with the CCN rider doing considerably longer pulls than the rest of the escapees.

With many of the teams represented in the breakaway, an organized chase did not quickly eventuate. But when it did, the pace of the peloton was ripping 45-50km/h for long stretches of time; however this made no dent into the breakaway's advantage. The only success was eroding the chase group gap and they were swept up on the final climb for the bunch sprint that was taken by winner of Stage one, Feng Chunkai (Exustar Cycling).

The organization of the Tour of East Taiwan went like clock work and the level of competition that was shown in the 140-strong elite peloton was impressive. There is a lot of cycling talent coming out of this small island nation and through events such as this tour, offers riders opportunities to further improve themselves. For an amateur-pro race, it was believed by many expatriates living in Asia that Taiwan offers the largest competitive peloton in all of Asia.  It was also particularly impressive to see the level of dedication from the local communities and public services to make this event happen. If you are looking for a competitive race with large numbers of experienced riders, then add this ADC Tour of East Taiwan to your calendar for 2014.