GIO Paying For Press... and I am so jealous!

Taiwan's GIO goes all out to host cycling and travel writers to promote Taiwan cycling. This time they are paying for the cyclist, writer and blogger, Mark Blacknell, to cycle Taiwan's East Coast.

Blacknell is currently soliciting advice and I hope some readers here will stop by his site and offer up some alternative plans. The GIO has a very political agenda and they are very good at mucking up a good junket so the writer doesn't get to see what they really should be seeing.

Links:

• LOHAS and riding in Taiwan.
• Nathan Miller finally posts his Central Cross Island adventure.
• Bicycle Diplomacy? Taipei Riders from the TBLA (Taiwan Bike Leisure Association.. and nothing to do with Transgendered, Bisexuals or Lesbians like I had originally assumed) visit Tokyo and extend goodwill amid the troubling Senkaku "crisis".

Contador Fails Second Test For Second Illegal Substance

The embattled Tour de France champion, who last week held an emotional press conference to deny the use of clenbuterol, has tested positive for a plasticizer in his blood at levels eight times higher than normal.

A plasticizer is a chemical used in the type of bags employed by the medical profession to store body fluids and indicated Contador my have received an illegal blood transfusion during the Tour. Link

This is no Operacion Puerto, but it is a further indictment of professional cycling.