Much like the day before the race started off fast and furious with attacks going all the time and average speeds in excess of 28 mph for the first ¼ of the race.

Our team was active and about 1/3 the way through Chris Jones and Dan Holt got into “the” break of the day.

Giant Asia soon chased it down and much like the day before a group of 2 Merida guys and some other scrubs got away.

On the last lap Nicholas Clayville from our squad crashed pretty bad in the danger turn and broke his Giant Carbon bike.

It was within the last 3k so he got packtime and overall was pretty lucky not to get hurt considering his bike’s top tub was snapped!

Merida took 1st, 2nd and won the top 2 spots in the field sprint for 5th and 6th so basically they kicked out butts again.

Everyone got pack time and we placed 2 guys in the money yet again.

After the race we took a 2 hour bus transfer to the next hotel. Food wasent nearly as good!

Stage 3 –

Hakka Circuit Race –

After a yet another 2 hour bus transfer to the start, with wet roads, we got to stage 3

A “simple” circuit race shaped kinda like a rectangle.

Very scenic countryside but not much time to check it out.

Roads dried up just in time for the race. As usual, we started out at 50kph and eventually it calmed down.

Each rider from out squad attempted to get away an finally Tom Peterson and Chris Jones went up the road in a group of 12 guy.

Giant Asia, once again, chased it down and it came down to one hell of a field sprint nearly 40 mph!

Chris got in the money at 20th place and the rest of us managed to stay safe in the field.

Hard part about this day was the 5+ hour bus transfer to the next hotel.

Food sucked, bed were rock hard, which to my amazement was pretty great to sleep on, and our sink broke and flooded the bathroom.

Anyway

Stage 4

The premier mountain day of the Tour of Taiwan

We take another bus transfer of 45 minutes to the start at Sun Moon Lake.

You can see some of the photos attached to get an idea of how amazing this place is!

First, we set out and do a lap around the lake for about 45k and it seemed like we did that at about 50kph!

There must have been over 100 turns, well to really sum it up, there were NO STRAIGHTAWAYS.

After the loop the field was all together and we went into town and started the climb.

We weren’t really sure how to handle the whole 40 mile climb so our team parked themselves at the front.

In the Green Jersey Sprint Competiton we found that Chris Jones, Myself and our main climber, Tom Peterson, were in the what seemed to be the “front” of the race.

We gave it some gas and soon enough had a 3 minute gap on the peloton.

I got dropped after about 10k of climbing and Tom went on to place 3rd on the stage!

He is now 3rd overall, with Chris Jones in 20th spot.

The rest of us crawled in ranging from 30 minutes to 1 hour down.

Let me tell you, its REALLY hard to breathe at over 10,000 feet and riding a 8 to 10% grade in a 38x25!

Ouch..

Ok, Im tired of typing.

Im sure I left out soooooooooooooo much stuff

Best

ds

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