Final stage report Yunnan Gran Fondo

Final Battle-stage at Jade Mountain

The best stage was saved for the last with a splendid course laid out for all of the Gran Fondo participants, it was not the longest stage of the week but it was one with parcours that was packed with action, beginning in the quaint ancient village of Lijiang in front of a large crowd. The weather was fantastic with the skies impossibly blue and the centre-piece: The majestic snow-capped Jade Mountain rising into the sky, with its jagged peaks reaching upwards. It was a splendid climax to what was a brilliant week of racing in five different areas of Yunnan Province. Dali and Lijiang were by far the favorites with the Gran Fondo peloton. It is hoped that the 2015 edition will see more stages centered around the Dali and Lijiang areas, perhaps even as high up as the Shangrila region with its distinct Tibetan influence. 

Back to the racing. The GC battle was down to just two riders: John Cattrall (England) and Wei Kui (Specialized). Cattrall had the lead by a slim 45 seconds and would need to perform at the top of his game to beat a superior climber and ex-professional rider from the Specialized team. Further, Wei Kui had three team-mates at his disposal while Cattrall had zero. The battle at Jade Mountain unfolded with Wei Kui emerging victorious, but this was not decisive till the last five kilometers where he was able to dance away with ease from Cattrall to finish 7th for the stage, but more importantly finishing up to the base of Jade Mountain with 2minutes 15 seconds over the Englishman. This gave him the overall win at the inaugural Colorful Yunnan Gran Fondo by a convincing 1min30 seconds. 

Another big eye-opener was the incredible performance by 16-year old kid Lv Xianjing who simply powered away up the final slopes in a big gear to blow away the opposition. No one had an answer for this young teenager's, hailing from the high mountain villages of Yunnan,  turn of speed and in short time Xianjing who has never heard of the Tour de France, opened up a massive gap that would continue to increase all the way to the finish-line.  This young rider, who also won the mountain ITT, is definitely an emerging talent worthy of world-class and could be the next Chinese super-star. Stay tuned to Saddle Drunk to learn more about this special prodigy. 

Carruthers Perspective - How it unfolded

This was the last stage in what has been a big month of racing for me! My super-crazy-hectic month of racing began on October 13 when I did three stages of Poyang Lake, then over to do the Tour of Matabungkay and back to do the last three stages of Poyang Lake. I then raced two more Chinese races before jetting down to New Zealand to do the week-long 1000km Tour of Southland. I arrived at the Colorful Yunnan Gran Fondo already fatigued from my cycling adventures and this brought my total race days to 24 in just over a month! As you will have read from my previous reports about the Yunnan Gran Fondo, I had been plagued by bad luck that ultimately lead to the destruction of my high GC placing (the unfortunate but beautiful stage of Dali), I was determined to be rid of the bad luck and sign off my 2014 season with a good stage.

The parcours of this stage did not really suit me, featuring two laps containing a 6% 2.7km Temple Climb before racing up the 12km Jade Mountain climb.  However, I was still very active in the race in support of two riders. While lining up on the front row of the race, I was next to John Cattrall who was shivering quite violently, perhaps from a combination of the cool temperatures and nervousness? Cattrall knew that Wei Kui from Specialized could climb better than him and he would need to pull something extra special out of the bag to stay with the lighter rider. Cattrall asked me for help during the stage so I agreed to help to the best of my ability; this would mean sacrificing my own aspirations for the stage and focus on keeping Cattrall close to Wei Kui and sheltered from the wind as much as possible, at least for the first half of the race.

When the gun went, the Mongolians went on the attack immediately, like they always do but it was back together after they made an error at the round-about. The usual counter-attacks flew up the road one after the other, but nothing was allowed to go. I was riding on the wheel of Wei Kui for the majority of the time with John right behind me. A few times he would lose my wheel as the attacks would string out the field and I would find him and pull him back to the front. Sometimes it was not always necessary to be behind Wei Kui.

About 5kms before the Temple climb, there was a dangerous breakaway of about 8 riders and I took it on myself to bridge the gap with John in tow, it took several minutes but I made the catch and coming into the climb I was on the wheel of Wei Kui. When the road pitched upwards, Wei Kui rose out of the saddle and accelerated hard. I followed immediately and John was still right with me as we motored up the climb - however, within the first 1km my legs had exploded, perhaps due to the altitude; I was no longer able to sustain power and it was up to John to look after himself from here on. In a blown state, I managed to get over the climb about 30 seconds in arrears and managed to get with some other riders to rotate hard to catch the front group 10 minutes later. But not without some drama from some of the Chinese riders who refused to contribute evenly to the collective effort of the chase group. I recovered somewhat in the front group and was able to survive longer with the front group up the climb before getting dropped yet again just after the half-way point. I caught up with Shannon Bufton who was 5th on GC and was clearly not having a good day. He was struggling on the climb that I gave him a quick push and then helped pull him back to the main group right as the 12km climb begun. I had worked extremely hard to make the catch yet again after the Temple climb that I was already well into the red-zone as we climbed towards the 3,000m mark. With about 7km to go, the front group surged forward, most likely the attack from the young wonder-boy Lv Xianjing, which broke up the front group into pieces. I was already out the back when this happened. I was climbing solo for quite some time, before a group of three Chinese riders caught me with 3km to go. It was weird, I was riding steady tempo and they would have been riding faster in order to catch me. When they made the catch, they slowed down. I don't know why but thats what they did and the pace was slower than the pace I was riding at on my own. When I pulled to the front, they all slotted behind me. Clearly they wanted a draft and easy ride to the top. I swung wide and forced them to do the pace-setting; they responded and the pace went up. But soon they slowed down again, obviously watching for the foreigner (me) who was barely clinging on at the back. I had enough of this cat and mouse games with 1km to go, so I attacked. As I went by, I yelled some Chinese words that obviously riled them up. One of them yelled at me as he charged ahead with vigor. I wonder how come he was not expending this energy earlier? My surge forward was short-lasting, at this altitude I notice that my attacks are shorter and it takes longer for me to recover. So I rode the last kilometer up Jade Mountain with heavy lead legs with absolutely no acceleration left at all.  At least I gave my all and made the Chinese riders fight hard. It was truly an epic end to an epic week of racing in Yunnan. 

With the finish up at over 3000m, the wind was icy cold and it was important to get down the mountain before we got too cold. It was a splendid downhill run all the way back to the city of Lijiang. I did not want to leave this region, it was so beautifully majestic with the jagged peaks of Jade Mountain as the center-piece and the numerous rolling hills unfurling out across the horizon. This region is what many cyclists would die for to have the opportunity to ride in; we had only barely scratched the surface with the 82km raced from Lijiang to Jade Mountain, there are plenty of other roads and other vistas waiting to be explored. It is the collective hope of the peloton that the Yunnan Gran Fondo 2015 edition will see more stages held in the Lijiang region.   It is also the bicycle tourist dream region, do consider adding Yunnan to your cycling destination bucket list whether its for the 2015 Colorful Gran Fondo or if you are embarking on your own organized adventure!

Visit the official website: www.granfondochina.com and also "like" the page www.facebook.com/asiacyclingnews .

Thank You very much for your help during the week Daniel,we wish you merry Xmas to you and your family.

SaddleDrunk Team

UK Blog Award 2015

Hello SaddleDrunkers from around the world.

We have only one week left to get the voting in for both categories.

We have been nominated into 2 categories.Travel and Lifestyle.

Therefore, we remind you to vote and to spread the news to  friends, family, lovers, haters, enemies, animals, ghosts, literally everyone.

I have included the 2 links below, it is easy,simple and painless. It is like 1+1=2..Simple,NO?

For Travel Category:

http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/candidates/SaddleDrunk/

For Lifestyle Category:

http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/candidates/SaddleDrunk-2/

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Many Thanks

SD Team


Latest Updates for 2014 Colourful Yunnan Granfondo,China

From the heat of China, SaddleDrunker Daniel Carruthers keep reporting for us.

Our SaddleDrunker's Shadow

Our SaddleDrunker's Shadow

Stage 3: Mountain iTT 23km

As the race moved West of Yunnan, the scenery and the weather has become pristine; we have well and truly left the urban industrial areas that were sprawled around the Kunming city area and now we are surrounded by Majestic mountains and deep blue skies. 

As we witnessed during stage 2, the local Yunnan teenage sports team riders continued to raise eye-brows; the fastest time of the day went to 16 year old Lv Xiangjing who posted an unbelievable time of 44 minutes, 1min 30 clear of second placed Mongolian Myagmarsuren Baasankhuu. The Green Jersey, Wei Kui from Specialized was only ninth with 48.11 but retained his GC lead. English rider, John Cattrall moved from 4th to 2nd with his solid 50.37 time. The biggest mover of the day goes to Australian Shannon Bufton (Serk Cycling), who was in 12th position at the start of the day and posted a highly respectable time of 49.14 to vault into sixth overall.

Carruthers perspective

As for myself, bad luck seems to continue here at the Colorful Yunnan Gran Fondo. While out checking out the mountain climb the day before the ITT, I unfortunately wiped out on a steep off-camber corner with some slick on it. I was descending like I normally do, not too quick and within control; so it seemed! Up ahead was a slow moving truck, so my attention was more on the truck rather than the corner that was looming. I applied a little too much front brake and my front wheel slipped out from underneath me and bam I was on the ground sliding on my back. I lay there stunned for a few moments trying to recollect my thoughts. Shannon Bufton was behind me at the time and was scrambling to get my bike and fallen Smith eyewear off the road. I slowly twisted myself to the side and got up. I was pleased that I had not broken any bones but I had some nasty road rash on my right thigh and my leg had also received a nice heavy thump. Not ideal preparation for the mountain time-trial! 

Time Trail Start

Time Trail Start

I was pretty stiff when I woke up in the morning, but fortunately my start time was not till 1.27pm so had ample time to rest. It was a brilliantly clear sunny crisp day in Chuxiong and I eventually got out on the bike just after midday and had a banana for lunch. My warm-up was a good 45 minutes and I felt a little more relaxed. I had several tablets of ibuprofen to dull the pain of my crash and I got to the start in time.  Despite the crash the previous day, I was able to find a rhythm and I did not run out of gas during the climb; in fact I should have dug deeper. I felt fresh when I crossed the finish line with a time of 51:56, which is not a bad time for the 23km iTT for a rider like me who’s speciality is sprinting and breakaway style of riding.  I was pleased that this was enough to retain my 7th on GC, just three seconds behind Bufton who had been the biggest mover of the day.  I was looking forward to the Kunming stage: it was a stage that was highly suited to my type of riding and I was looking for a top finish.

Stage 4:  Dali 108km

The parcours of this stage was not particularly challenging as it was predominately flat with a few undulating spots and a couple of short climbs, but it was one that blew the peloton apart as the race entered the small winding roads that fringed the edge of the Dali Lake. A breakaway of four riders managed to get clear after 52km and put 4min 53 on the peloton by the end. It really shook up the GC as John Cattrall was in the move and in the process he became the new leader of the race with a 46 second lead over Specialized Wei Kui.  This stage was a crazy one as many riders punctured or crashed out.

Carruthers perspective

It was quite a chilly start to the Dali stage, most riders were shivering on the start line but it was a beautiful crisp sunny day. The cold did not dampen the racers enthusiasm for racing hard from the gun. It was attack after attack, especially from the Mongolian Attila team quartet. The speeds were over 46km/h average and never really slowed down. I was consistently in the mix and was in a few moves but nothing stuck.

My biggest bad luck was about to come. Coming through the 51km mark, there was a short climb and I had positioned myself in about 10th position going up and I drove over the top, looked behind and it was quite strung out. So on the descent I maneuvered up to the front and only one rider remained in front of me, he was riding down the middle of the road so it looked like I would have plenty of room to get by him on the inside. I was in the opening phase of my attack - I had planned on attacking hard at the bottom of the descent once in the clear; but disaster struck. The rider cut into my line abruptly and my yelling did not stop his curvature so I was forced to veer off the road into the rough. Boom, my front wheel pinch flatted and I could do nothing about it. I rolled to a stop and was totally deflated. My GC hopes were over. I did not have a pump or spare tube as I normally do races that have neutral support. This race is billed as a Gran Fondo, however we are racing every day for GC and prize money. While the Gran Fondo flavor is there, there are aspects of this event that make it more like a proper stage race, thus requiring the need for neutral support. 

I waited for over an hour before I got a ride in a bus full of other cyclists who had just finished the 51km short course event. The bus ride gave me the opportunity to appreciate the stunning scenery around the Dali region. The mountains tower up to over 4000 meters and provide a majestic back-drop to the Dali Gran Fondo Stage; it also gave me the opportunity to witness the “belly” of the Gran Fondo, the riders who are participating for the fun and touring experience. Many riders sported cameras slung over their shoulders and would often stop to take beautiful photos. They were not even exerting themselves and were enjoying the total road closure experience. For the masses, this is what Gran Fondos are about, taking part in a challenging event, enjoying the companionship and new friendships forged, and of course capturing moments/scenery along the way. 

Thank You Daniel.

SD