Overcoming A Challenge: Taiwan's KOM Breakthrough to Worldwide Recognition

By the late morning on October 20, the sixth edition of the Taiwan KOM Challenge winner circle was in the books while the remaining masochists on two wheels lurched toward the summit of Wuling Pass for several more hours. The effort may have been an immediate triumph for those fortunate enough to stand a meter or two above the 3275m summit atop a small wooden podium, it was also a victory for each participant brave, dumb or crazy enough to commit their names and bodies to the event.

More than this, it was a triumph for the event as a race in general.

For well over a decade Wuling has played host to numerous locally sanctioned, and some not so sanctioned, hill climb events from both sides of the mountain. Most of these events had been organized (and dis-organized) by local cycling clubs. With the explosion in recreational cycling beginning in 2006, the strain on organizers, infrastructure and interests groups threatened to turn any Wuling climbing event into a dangerous Tour de-farce. I recall a couple of events where traffic control was pulled while hundreds of riders remained on the roadway. Other events were held with dangerously low levels of medical support.

In 2012, just as Wuling rides had reached a critical mass, the inaugural Taiwan KOM Challenge was held as an open event with only 380 riders of all levels scrapping for the same prize--a KOM jersey and about $USD2600 for the men...and about $USD330 for women. The initial run was a mere 100km, and was won by the Danish rider, John Ebsen, who has essentially been adopted by Taichung as a hometown hero.

Thinking back, it was a really big deal. Ebsen held off some Protour riders with grand tour pedigree in Jeremy Roy, with other top contenders in Anthony Chartreau, Peter Pauly and the former Tour of Taiwan GC winner, David McCann.

For Taiwanese who constantly have to struggle for international visibility against China's desire to have Taiwan's lands, peoples, cultures and systems subsumed by a neocolonialism with Chinese characteristics, the attention and recognition by an accomplished anybody from abroad who can recognize Taiwan as an entity in and of itself is already enough to make headlines. This was pretty sweet stuff in 2012.

For 2017, the Taiwan KOM turned things up to eleven. The freshly minted 2017 race was built upon the nearly 600 participants who threw themselves at that mountain for 106km, with over half arriving from abroad to compete.  In six short years the event has broken away from being a scrappy local race into the punctuation mark at the end of the international cycling season.

This year the Taiwan KOM was won by Vincenzo Nibali (3:19), the stringy Italian who made his name as a tenacious climber in the 2010 Giro di Italia and has spent the past seven years battling at the head of the GC leaderboards of all the grand tours with GC victories in each of the big three. Nibali is seen as one of the most talented riders of the post-Armstrong era... and he chose to close out his season in Taiwan. Its is enough to make any cyclist in Taiwan get all rosy cheeked. The fact that one of Nibali's major sponsors at Bahrain-Merida is a major Taiwan bicycle manufacturer may have been the nudge he needed to postpone his vacation until late October.

"It was a hard race because we went from sea level up to 3,275 metres. I've never ridden such a long and hard climb before in my entire life," Vincenzo Nibali--Cycling News

The second and third spot were taken by dueling KOM winners Oscar Pujol and John Ebsen with Cameron Piper, Edmund Bradbury and the famously unretired Phil Gaimon in the final podium spot.

Moreover, cleaning up at the 10th spot was the 40yo. Cadel Evans, the winner of the 2011 Tour de France, which is one of my favorites of recent memory. The retired Aussie, who now serves as a brand ambassador for BMC, was treated to tea with President Tsai Ing-wen.

Taiwan's Peng Yuan-tang finished 17th as Taiwan's top finisher.

The women's race was again headlined by the former British road racing champion, Emma Pooley, who successfully defended her title in a resounding fashion with a gritty 3:52. Pooley led a near British sweep of the women's podium with Hayley Simmonds and Emily Collinge in the second and third steps. Claudia Lichtenberg from Germany held up the fourth position with Brit Helen Jackson and the Japan's 51yo. sensation Yukari Nakagome in the sixth spot.

Aside from the illustrious resumes and glittering palmares held by the top participants, what really stood out about this year's race was parity between the men's and women's categories. While men's sports in general tends to  use guidelines taken from the Old Testament when appraising the value of a woman, the initial 2012 running of the Taiwan KOM saw a naked disparity between the awards in the male and female categories. In recent years the monetary value has increased, but the disparity remained. Until this year the women's winner could take home $USD6600, while he men's winner could claim approximately $USD30,000 in prize money. The 2017 Taiwan KOM set a major precedent in establishing parity in the prize money awarded, setting the amount at $USD16,000 each.

But the KOM is an unusual race. Not only does it seek parity in gender, it also is open to any rider willing to pony up the entrance fee and make the time to race on a Friday. While they have an elite level, like a Grand Fondo, there is nothing to stop Joe and Mary Saturday from making a charge for glory at the finish line at Wuling Pass if they can qualify during the Road to KOM races during the Spring and Summer. If I  had not just come back from three months off the bike, I may have thrown my hat into the ring just to have a semi-factual tale to tell about racing against Cadel Evans, Vincenzo Nibali and Emma Pooley. I wouldn't have been lying.

It has been a real source of pride as a cyclist in Taiwan to watch as we give our gift of Wuling to the world and the world fully accepts it.

There are no caveats about Wuling. It is not a hard ride "for an Asian race". It is a hard ride for any race. And for Taiwanese it adds a dash of validation that we are "world class".

Aside from the topography and participants who really make the KOM, a lot of the credit needs to be handed to the event organizers. They have done a fantastic job in transforming this event and this mountain into something more than Taiwan's local favorite. The Taiwan KOM is gaining the mythic status often reserved for European monuments like the Alpe d' Huez, the Iozard and the Galibier.

Moore than that, to top off the goodness from this year's event. The race organizers were even able to lure GCN, the professional cycling broadcasting outfit to Taiwan to televise Taiwan's KOM. The entire thigh snapping spectacle can be viewed in English HERE.

Yes, this is more than a bike race. This is Taiwan's soft power hard at work. With full televised coverage of the KOM, cyclists around the world can watch the image of Taiwan as a mere production facility dissipate into the thin alpine air to be replaced with enough of a dream to entice one more rider to take the next step in discovering the complexity and beauty of Taiwan. Lets face it, recreation cycling is an industry built of fantasy and Taiwan is just learning how to tap its potential.

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For anyone sick of the KOM coverage, here is a link to another type of ride in Taiwan.
The intrepid Michael Turton from the View from Taiwan has a fantastic piece from Taiwan's East Coast. 

Hualien To Iilan The Hard Way: Taiwan Cycling Perfection

My good friend and riding buddy, Dom, is signing off on his life in Taiwan and moving back to New York. The reasons are his own, but it certainly isn't about the lack of any exciting cycling.

He was not going to be allowed out of the country without one last adventure through some of Taiwan's most impressive landscapes, and thus we decided to take a couple of days and ride from Hualien on Taiwan's east coast, to Iilan on Taiwan's northeastern corner.

On a map this looks like nothing for a couple days of riding, until you consider the route would take us from sea level to 2374 meters on the first day... and then leave us spending the second day skimming the 2000 meter mark before dropping us off in Iilan. We covered over 4000 meters of climbing in two days.

We picked the perfect two days for the trip as the wet weather has been sucked out of the area by a looming typhoon. Things couldn't have been better.



The trip had been on and off the calendar for a couple of months. I was the biggest threat to the trip as I had to come back from a sore knee that prevented any serious climbing... and as soon as that was clear, I lost a week to a pulled muscle in my back from stretching. There were several times I thought I would have to cancel.

My back seemed manageable, so I kept with the plan. I had recently only done a few local climbs and nothing over 100k.

My next obstacle was the Taiwan Rail Administration. I originally bought a ticket on the Zi Chiang Train with a bike car. When my wife went to double check to see if I needed to purchase an extra ticket for the bike, they misunderstood and sold my seat. Then, they had to try to get me a new seat on the train, which put my bike in car 12, and I was seated in car 2.

I was fine with this arrangement, but when I went to put my bike on the train, I asked If I could load it in with the rest of the boxes they were loading into the car 12. I was told I would have to enter through the passenger door of the car.

This was a brilliant idea as it was packed and I would be forced to stand with my bike in the hallway until Ruifang.






I finally had a seat and I could roll down to Xin Cheng outside Hualien with a group of girls from make-up camp, which is far less exciting than it sounds.



At Xin Cheng Station there were several groups of cyclists headed out for various projects. There were baseball teams, Taiwanese expat groups, single speed enthusiasts and more. Lots of people using the bike to make a statement.



Our trip was actually two and a half days. I met Dom at the station, and we decided to take it slow and easy up Taroko Gorge. This would ensure we didn't feel rushed for pictures and scenic stops. The plan was to land at Tian Xiang and launch our attack on the mountain from there.



The road through Taroko is metered to a ten minute window every two hours due to the most massive avalanche I have ever seen. We lucked out and the road was closed for lunch and we just ambled through at out own leisure without the storm of vehicles waiting to burst through.



Taoroko Gorge is an awesome spectacle of towering rock. The Central Cross Island Highway chisels its way through tunnels and along cliff sides to bridge the terrain. Taiwan's mountains have an immediacy about them. They are high, like mountains in other countries, but unlike other places, these mountains are compressed very tightly against one another making for some very severe walls and roads to navigate those walls.



We arrived in Tian Xiang with plenty of time to spare, so we thought a few beers might help us load up on carbs for the real climbing.



The second day started after breakfast at the China Youth Hostel in Tian Xiang. These mountain trips are always made fare more difficult by the lack of a good breakfast anywhere. I put three tea eggs on my plate and tried to put as much peanut butter on my toast as I possibly could. It would have to fuel me to Guan Yuan and over 2000 meters.



The second day was as fine as the first. We hit the road beneath another scar from an old avalanche and hit the opening climbs.



The road out of Tian Xiang starts out with an impressive grade for first thing in the morning, but it warms the legs up pretty quick.



We were soon high up above the valley, but still burning in the heat. A cool waterfall can be a great fountain of rejuvenating goodness.



For much of the way, the road is quite manageable. It is still climbing and takes its toll, but ever so slowly.



The next major obstacle is "The Wall"; a massive hump of a ridge with switchbacks stacked one on top of the other. There is a little store right at the base for refreshments and snacks before the climb.



From the top of "The Wall", the climb really starts to impress. The air is a bit cooler and clouds begin to catch on the peaks above.


We stopped for lunch at the restaurant near the God Tree, and then continued on our way. A little mist sprinkled down on us and the pedaling started to get much harder with the altitude beginning to come into play.



We finally rounded a corner to the gas station and our lodging at the China Youth Corps Hostel.



We woke up the next day and got to the breakfast buffet ahead of the annoying camp/club that had been staging some kind of mix between a fascist parade and a hoot nanny. Seeing the breakfast spread, it was decided it would be okay to eat a quarter of the scrambled eggs, in exchange for leaving the pork floss to the other guests. Seemed fair enough.

The worst thing was the lack of drinkable water (or anything to drink) that wasn't scalding hot. Try filling water bottles with plastic melting water....



A third sunny day was ahead as we pushed out into the chilly morning air. I was happy to have worn all the clothes I had packed.



We punched through the mountain at the tunnel and started an amazing descent toward Lishan. Before we could even whorl up our descending smiles, we were forced to stop for some construction. We passed the time letting the road worker ogle our bikes.


Finally, we were in free fall toward Lishan. It was nice to be on the other side of the ridge. I am so used to the Wuling route, I was happy for the change in scenery, which looks a lot like northern California... but more grand.



We hit Lishan; a high mountain agricultural town famous for pears, apples, and tea. It was nice to have phone reception again. It was also nice to sit down for a cup of coffee and take in the morning. We couldn't stay long as we still had well over 100km to cover on our way to Iilan.





The Highway 7甲 starts on a wonderful descent over some uneven roadways. It takes a moment to realize you are still at altitude and this is merely a round ridge between two opposing mountains.



The descending comes to an abrupt end. Suddenly it becomes another day of climbing. Each hill dissapoints in its promise to offer a badly needed descent. The altitude needle bumps 2000 meters a few times, but the descent never comes.



A headwind made things feel all the more desperate. I started to have my doubts. I started to regret the picture taking and coffee breaks.



Then it came. The most wonderous descent imaginable. As far as covering ground goes, I can't thing of a better sight. It was a slalom course to Iilan. It was a natural thrill machine. It screamed 45kph.



We blew down the mountain and through the green cabbage farms. The legs were buzzing. Dom was in excellent shape and would lose me when my power failed to materialize midway through a bump in the road. I would then race to catch up on the low sections.


This carried on for kilometer after kilometer. The speeds were incredible.


We finally lunched with some locals who were happy to admonish their buddy for touching my bike. After a good laugh we were on our way again...



Iilan was in sight and it was as pretty as ever. We made it into the city by 4:00pm and had our bikes loaded up within the hour.

It was as perfect a trip as you can find. I was honored to do one last big ride with a great friend.

This also makes for a great post before I take the show on the road to ride a little in the United States.

Vacation starts here!