In an underground movement that is quite literally picking up a lot of pace, David Erwin known as the messenger by his colleagues here at Natooke, recently participated in an unofficial race consisting of 24 other hardcore cyclists on the 3rd of August. Promotion of the event was raised by his bike group ‘Big Dirty’ through social media website Weibo and within the time frame of 12 hours, 40 places were soon confirmed. David, pictured on the right, sat down at the Natooke office to give us a deeper insight into the current trend in the underground Beijing racing scene and to describe to us how he pulled off his very impressive 2nd place finish.

The first topic of discussion was the race itself, entitled ‘rage’ which was a lot longer and less traditional than many of the mainstream Chinese events. Racking in at an impressive 95 miles, the 4 hour cycle from Tianjin to the heart of Beijing spanned many hilly roads, and tough terrain that is unheard of in the Chinese cycling culture of recent times. David described how the group of competent cyclists successfully completed their journey by conducting a pre race scout ride to get to grips with the challenge at hand, he especially praised the memory of Londoner Andrew for keeping the team on the right track, without getting lost.

Additionally, with only one minor accident along the way, not even serious enough to stop the rider from completing the race, it was a huge sigh of relief for the racers involved as it is this very issue that the Chinese government is concerned about with long distance cycling. The messenger did however, draw light to the issue of cyclist fatigue being the only tough task to deal with whilst participating, as he stated that many of the cyclists were already feeling the heat just 50 miles into the race. Luckily David was one of the very few who didn’t feel the pain, modestly praising his pre race prep of eating and resting well, installing a new larger gear to his bike and most importantly the good team cohesion as being the most important factors leading to his impressive performance.

David then explained how he finished off a can of red bull before heading for the home stretch in Beijing, where he then stepped up the pace and began to power past the group he was in. Averaging around 27 miles per hour, David then glided past two competitors in front of him to sweep 2nd place, coming only 5 minutes behind the winner. David was quick to praise fellow group members Angus, Nico and Peter for doing an excellent job at organizing the whole event and to the sponsor Oryx bike shop for supplying the prizes and support. Finally when asked about the future of these unofficial races, David was keen to reinforce that this will be the first of many and hopefully each event will get bigger and better, with some even becoming annual. All in all it just goes to show that a bit of careful planning and team effort can lead to some truly epic biking events in China!

To learn more about The big dirty and any events coming up be sure to head over to their official website: http://bigdirtycycling.com/