Rouvy route used: Tatajia Hill Climb | 32.06 miles | 7165.34ft

Route 3 of the Taiwan Cycling Paradise B challenge.

14 Registered | 6 Completed | 1 dnf | 7 dns

This looked hard. Even my estimated time figure on Rouvy had me at over 3 hours 30 minutes so I for one had to start prepping for this the day before. Carb loading and an early night allowed for a well rested feeling as I got up Sunday morning, but, actually feeling quite nervous about this 7000ft route that lay ahead. Luckily when the map came up, there was only 2 little parts in red (phew) so I felt pretty confident but thought I would pace myself and see how it goes.

7 of us on the start line and everyone of them a strong rider! 💪

The positions pretty much stayed in this order (apart from “Heny” and “FredAloneForEver-RFR” swapping places) until 1st place at the time pulled out around the 14.7 mile mark, and the rest of the very spread out train over took him one by one. Everyone up front were putting out decent power figures and at the half way spot there was about a mile in between 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th with myself a further 3.36miles behind in last place after deciding that Zone4 heart rate was the way to go for me and my glitchy Wattbike.

First to Finish was “p1stolero” with a superb time of 2:29:15.0, followed just under10 minutes later by “leon_ledoux“. Muckerworldwide.com joint founder “kylofski” claimed the bronze just three minutes behind Leon with a total time of 2:42:10:9. A massive well done to these guys as any time up here under 3 hours is incredible and they all smashed that!

4th place went to “heny” who came over the line just 2 minutes over the 3 hour mark, then “FredAloneForever-RFR” a further 14 minutes down the road in 5th

And finally “Mucker1974” (yep, yours truly) came over in 6th/Last place, but only 20 minutes behind 5th due to trying to put a zone 5/6 effort in for the 2nd half of the climb as I was falling back way too much in the first half paced zone 4 and was going to end up finishing in 4 hours if I wasn’t careful!! I closed the 3.5 mile gap down to just over 2 miles on him and ended up with a time of 3:36:46.7, well over an hour slower than 1st! But, extremely glad I completed it.

So what happened to “Simon_Hahnenbruch” who was doing so well before pulling out? Hope he lets us know in the comments and please, everyone else, drop us a comment on how the race unfolded for yourself as well if you get the chance.