An Autumn Chill

The weather will be cooling off over the next couple of months and it really makes for some ideal cycling temperatures. It has just gotten chilly enough in the evening to warrant a light windbreaker.

It is also a great season for Taiwan to host another cycling event.

The Tour of Formosa is now on, with the Russians taking the early lead.

The Tour of Formosa is a cycling event held between October 29th and November 7th, featuring deaf cyclists in a seven stage tour around Taiwan. The Tour of Formosa is being organized by central and local governments, as well as by the National Sports Committee, which outlines their objectives as follows:

Objective:

To raise awareness among hearing-impaired cyclists the opportunity

to race and friendship ties, as well as enhance the hearing-impaired

cyclist of the technical standards, as well as to cultivate Taiwan's

bicycle more hearing-impaired young athletes, through organized

Tour de Formosa tournament race, marketing the beauty of Taiwan

culture and landscape, and enhance Taiwan's visibility; modeled on

the historic Tour de France tournament, who wish to apply for this

competition to become a major international cycling event. ...read more

Over the past few years Taiwan has been the host of several international sporting events, including the W World Games and the Deaflympics. This is definitely a step to achieving international recognition as a center for sport. Too bad we have to use that gawdawful "Chinese-Taipei" moniker.

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Speaking of chills in the air...

I would like to bring attention to a recent event that, although not directly related to cycling, can have some very severe implications for bloggers like myself who are not shy in dishing out criticism.

Apparently, Taiwan's Ministry of Education has called on National Taiwan University to curtail students activities on the university message board concerning political commentary as far as it criticizes the party in power or their representatives.

For this blogger and others who also happen to teach in schools (where I am blogging right now), this can be seen as a very slippery slope and an attempt to impinge on our freedom of speech. The trend to monitor and limit free speech has been on the rise since 2008 and I hope more people will pay attention to these troubling events.

Anybody else feel that chill?

Read more: here, here, here, here