{"id":4280,"date":"2014-06-13T01:25:31","date_gmt":"2014-06-13T01:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crankpunk.com\/?p=4280"},"modified":"2014-06-16T02:17:29","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T02:17:29","slug":"another-podium-another-sunstroke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crankpunk.com\/ja\/2014\/06\/13\/another-podium-another-sunstroke\/","title":{"rendered":"another podium, another sunstroke"},"content":{"rendered":"

last Saturday was the 3rd round in the Taiwan Club Series Championships, a season-long competition run by the hard-working Taiwan Cyclist Federation that I’ve yet to be able to completely participate in due to overseas racing commitments. there isn’t much racing in Taiwan so it’s a shame that i usually miss the good parts of it, but it’s always fun to do what i can and to catch up with the local guys.<\/p>\n

\"10300861_10152237738983152_9059050545662743786_n\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

last week’s event was a short 8km hill-climb that i managed to win last year in a record-setting time of 16 minutes on the nose, but the preparations this year haven’t been as good and i’m still a good few kgs over my ideal weight thanks to a variety of reasons, pizza<\/del> my recent illness chief amongst them.<\/p>\n

me and two buddies set off by bike for the event from our town at 6am, signed on at 7, raced at 9ish – and got home at 3pm. the beauty of racing in Taiwan and indeed most of Asia is that if you podium, they make you suffer by making you hang around a roasting hot car park for hours on end before you get your medal and cash-in-an-envelope.<\/p>\n

\"with
with Greg Grobler of BLKTEC, and Tom Simonson<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

fortunately i’m a huge fan of standing around on melting black tarmac in 38 degree heat in 90% humidity. in fact, it’s what i do most weekends here in summer, just for fun, so i take it all in stride…<\/p>\n

i got home at 3pm and washed down countless ice lollies with a 2 liter bottle of Coke’s finest gut-rot, head bathed in a towel stuffed with ice.<\/p>\n

i did come 2nd though, but a whopping 25 seconds down on my best time (4 seconds down on the winner).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

so, it was all worth it in the end!<\/p>\n

\"10426610_759052094114983_8244872190476599656_n\"<\/p>\n

big thanks as ever to my sponsors, Lapierre<\/a> and Jean-Maxim Guyot and the French crew, BLKTEC and Greg Grobler, Laura and Daniel at 720Armour<\/a>, Colin Leung and the guys at CCN<\/a>, Micki and the mad folk at Lezyne<\/a>, and XEndurance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"crankpunking
crankpunking on my rather lovely Lapierre Xelius EPI 800<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

last Saturday was the 3rd round in the Taiwan Club Series Championships, a season-long competition run by the hard-working Taiwan Cyclist Federation that I’ve yet to be able to completely participate in due to overseas racing commitments. there isn’t much racing in Taiwan so it’s a shame that i usually miss the good parts of it, but it’s always fun to do what i can and to catch up with the local guys.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":40955418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","wpupg_custom_link":[],"wpupg_custom_link_behaviour":[],"wpupg_custom_link_nofollow":[],"wpupg_custom_image":[],"wpupg_custom_image_id":[],"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"another podium, another sunstroke","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[125964055],"tags":[6135348,218295037,720757,24440364,22923,260852,1800781,9543826,767233572,323518,767233534],"class_list":["post-4280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crankpunk-racing","tag-720armour","tag-blktec","tag-ccn","tag-club-series","tag-cyclist","tag-federation","tag-lapierre","tag-lee-rodgers","tag-lezyne","tag-stage-4","tag-taiwan"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t