The 2017 Tour de Taiwan, which began at 1988, is classed as the top event of the UCI Asia Tour, the UCI 2.1class. All the famous riders of the Tour de France, Tour de Italy, and Tour de Spain will be invited to attend the 2017 Tour de Taiwan.
http://www.tourdetaiwan.org.tw/
āTour de Italyā ?
Tour de Spain? Tour de Taiwan? xD
The good thing is that ALL the important teams are INVITED 
Are you saying they were invited, but chose not to turn up? Donāt see (m)any on the start list, although the Brit team brought Russ Downing, once of Sky 
The 2017 Tour de Taiwan, which began at 1988, is classed as the top event of the UCI Asia Tour, the UCI 2.1class. All the famous riders of the Tour de France, Tour de Italy, and Tour de Spain will be invited to attend the 2017 Tour de Taiwan. A stage of this event will be held around Taipei City Hall and in the nearby area (Section 1 to 4, Ren Ai Road, Xinyi District, Taipei City) on March 26th, 2017. There will be 24 teams from all over the world competing in this event.
Oh, I see. www.travel.taipei.makeitupcoswecantbearsedtodoanyresearch.com.tw
Leader was out in front for too long.
Lost the lead in the last 1KM.
Tough day to be him.
Love the event, BUT hate, loathe the official website with passion.
Rule 1: write basic information, hopefully in decent English
Rule 2: Make such information available and easy to find.
Since these two rules are ignored, well, that is where we areā¦
A challenging, interesting race in a place that should be considered top notchā¦ aināt happening. Such a cool routeā¦
Compare:
http://www.adventurerace.com/en/
http://www.tourdetaiwan.org.tw/NewsIndex.aspx
Please note race started on the 23rd, last infoā¦3/18.
Yes, the official website is stupid. Donāt get me started on that.
Also, the āstagesā and routes for this race, especially northern Taiwan. They have Yang Ming Shan and they choose the north coast? Granted, itās probably more money and a huge hassle to ācloseā the roads up the mountain, but they couldāve picked a better route for Northern Taiwan.
None of the following stages are of any iconic climbs of Taiwan. Tai Ping Shan? He Huan Shan? Yu Shan/Tataka? So much potential.
Iām not complaining, but I would really like to know why these routes werenāt chosen.
Well, maybe because those are marketed separatedly:
Not really. I mean, apparently there are other bigger events at the moment, so the teams that attend the event are not really top notch eitherā¦ also, as @ranlee points out, the route is a bit plain or dull or just stupid. May be they have something more interesting for the next stages, but I wonder too why they didnāt include any of the roads in YMS in this stage. I think that it could be due to safety reasonsā¦
Anyway, Iām donāt think that this event isnāt first tier just because of their crappy website.
Does it say somewhere in that website that no other UCI sanctioned event other than the Taiwan KOM canāt be held there?
I would understand if it did, but I would continue to question the decision maker of the routes if the Taiwan KOm and Tour de Taiwan regulations for the Hualien to He Huan Shan route do not have conflicting regulations.
Iām a little confused, thatās ok, it happens a lot, but UCI has nothing to do with the KOM race.
Agree, the routes are lame considering what is available to showcase here. I was told the route selection is dominated by politics, literally. Not a lot of constituents at the top of those iconic climbs.
These teams are serious, and many of these riders are just scratching at the top levels of cycling. They deserve mad respect because they are riding at this level with a small percentage of support that top teams provide their riders. As boring as the routes are, theyāve put on a good show the first two stages and Iām happy the event is here and is finally being shown live.
Thatās true, Iām getting a little ahead of myself here. I heard Taiwan Cyclist Federation was trying to get the race sanctioned as a one day UCI classic type event like Paris-Roubaix.
This makes plenty of sense. I think one day we will see some stages go through the iconic climbs. Last year we didnāt have a live feed. This year we did!
Iām at work and I donāt have time for checking the stagesā¦ but I keep receiving email notifications about this thread and I canāt stop thinking of the possible routesā¦ none of the stages include any āseriousā or cool climb or road?
There was three of us and the official race photographer stood at the beginning of todayās KOM climb. Alpe d-Huez it was not. Nice weather mind.
Right. So I checked it and the routes are not very interesting IMO.
Somebody told me that this event was announced in Eurosport yesterday (itāll be broadcasted every night), and they also found amusing the altitude profile chart for stage 4, which looks like the fuckinā Alpsā¦ and it isnāt even 700 m of climb xD
I think that the road widths are something to do with the roads choice.
Well, he attacked the front group about 20k away from the line. Got caught. Same as countless other chancers in bike races, so not exactly a big deal. Indeed, he did a good job - essentially attempting to protect the race leader, albeit failing by just one secondā¦
That said, often the attacks are partly/wholly driven by the need to get exposure for the sponsors. I couldnāt see any sponsorship on his kit, although I may have to go out and buy a black jersey.
Good 1 - 2 for the Brits.
Iām following it. We gotta do our little bit for every little bit to support this little speck in the wind some people call āGhost Island.ā
