You may have seen some of the blogs about the Tour de Korea 2012 by some of the professional riders taking part, as there were many incidents that made the headlines. However, there was also an amateur race taking place at the same time, and this is my story.
Back in February/March, there was a request for female riders who were needed to attend the Tour de Korea. I thought nothing of it, as it seemed too good to be true. However, after having received an email about it, and, being without anything better to do, I thought, why not, as it would be an opportunity to visit a country that I would never probably do otherwise.
The emails we received suggested that it was basically a PR exercise for women’s cycling in South Korea, where we would be expected to ride 50km a day for eight days, with local people, giving women’s cycling some publicity. I thought that it would be good opportunity to get the miles in, whilst visiting somewhere I had never been. Everything was paid for by the South Korean Government, all we had to do was get to London Heathrow.
Admittedly, in hindsight, I should have known that it wouldn’t quite work out that way – the major clue being that we had to be in Seoul for 21 April, when we would meet Dossa fans (a cycling community in South Korea) at lunchtime, however our flights were not getting in until 4pm local time, so the flights were quickly rescheduled so that we flew out a day earlier instead – the reschedule taking place on the Monday before we were due to fly out. Yes, a big clue really.
I met up with my fellow team mates for the trip at Heathrow on 19 April and we flew to Seoul. When we arrived in Seoul, we were then told that in actual fact we weren’t taking part in any fun rides, we were actually taking part in the amateur stage race which was supporting the professional stage race, over 674km over eight days. Bearing in mind I had been preparing for fun 50km rides, this came as a bit of a shock. But it got worse. Not only were we racing in a stage race with over 300 other riders, although we weren’t technically competing as we were guests (go figure) for some reason unbeknownst to us, everybody thought we were top GB cyclists and were professional riders – which is not true at all!
So, we get on the start line on day one, with a gale blowing, driving rain and it’s so cold that our teeth are chattering on the start line. We had no mechanical support and our team manager was doing a brilliant job at blanking us. Next thing we know, the race has started and all hell breaks loose! My handlebars slip after about 10 minutes but rather than helping me fix them, I have to find my Allen key in my bag, which is in the back of the team car and fix it myself – all whilst being filmed by Korean TV. I chase to get back on but it is futile. Lyndsey also punctures, which was a disaster as we had no spare wheels, and we end up getting in the team car, after Lyndsey manages to borrow a wheel off one of the teams. We then have a madcap chase through Seoul traffic trying to catch the race back up, before being let out of the car 5km from the finish to finish the race, as it was important for the cameras to show that we could ride bikes.
When we finally arrived at the finish, Adel had been there for about 15 minutes waiting, as she had been mixing it with the blokes, although she had been brought down by some random riding with 3km to go, whilst at the front of the bunch.
The rest of the days continued in a similar fashion, with our bus driver taking us the scenic route so that he could keep the money for the tolls that the Korean Government had given him. There was no support from our team manager and the guy who invited us did not get the whole concept of bike racing at all.
Each day, the average speed was somewhere between 40km/h and 50 km/h, depending on whether there were hills in the stage, but our main worry was staying upright in the bunch. The riders were fast but they lacked the technical bike handling ability, which meant that they would crash whilst going in a straight line on a four lane dual carriageway/motorway. In our race, one of the teams saw their riders break the following bones – femur, wrist and two collar bones – that is just one team, whereas there was a crash on a descent which saw eight riders fall, with one guy head-butting a wall, so he must have done some damage to his skull as he had blood pouring from his head.
Adel was knocked off three times and Lyndsey once – for my part, I decided that it just wasn’t worth getting killed, so I started off at the front, waited for the bunch to drift pass me and then sat on the back for as long as I could before getting off and getting in either the team car or the broom wagon. The lack of support from our team manager was legendary, and it soon became clear that everybody just felt sorry for us.
It was a totally new experience for me, although I have raced in stage races abroad before. We kept hoping that the average speed would drop as riders tired however it wasn’t until day seven that we found out that riders could get in the broom wagon one day and start again the next, and although they did not feature on GC, they would work as hard as they could for their team before getting in the broom wagon, only to do exactly the same thing the next day.
Hats off to the organisational team of the Tour de Korea – they did a fantastic job bearing in mind that they don’t really have much experience of organising races, as you might see elsewhere, say in Europe or Australia, however it is a shame that there doesn’t seem to be the infrastructure underneath to support the event. I’m all in favour of organising races, but when the riders themselves don’t know how to ride in a straight line or in a bunch, then you need to really have another look at the sport from the bottom up.
Having said all that, I was glad I went but I’m not convinced I would go back to do the race, as there doesn’t seem to be the same value to life as there is in the UK. A special mention also goes to Jen Taylor, who had never raced in a bunch before going to Korea – some learning curve!!! We’ve all got some good memories and hopefully it has given the five of us some confidence for when we race again in the UK. Well done girls!
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