This is just a rough summary of a recent post on the Taiwan Cycling Festival Facebook page, most of which (like 99.99%) is in Chinese.
The Spanish rider Amets Txurruka was one of the international celebrity cyclists invited to the Taiwan Cup last weekend. Due to typhoon Megi’s impact on the Yilan district and the Suhua Rd. route through which you (used to) travel to get to Hualien and the Rift Valley area from the north, he donated NT $100,000 and auctioned off the bike that he used in the TDF in 2007 . Referring to the efforts that Government and Private groups had put in to make the event great, the least he could do, he said, was this. He hoped that this sort of action could be a catalyst for others to help out as well.
On the Sunday he got to ride part of the Iron Ass climb (some background here and here) up to the final section at Cui Fong. The start of the climb is only a 20-30 minute ride from Sun-Moon lake where riders spent Saturday. He took a car tour from Cui Fong to Wuling and was impressed by both the climb and the scenery. Spectators were certainly impressed with his ride. The bike he rode to Cui Fong he also auctioned off with proceeds going towards the Megi disaster. He also donated the “Red Envelope” (in which gifts of money are traditionally given in Taiwan) that Giant had given him (NT $10,000) in addition to the 100k already given.
Next year the event will be held in early November, so we will have to be extraordinarily unlucky to be hit by a typhoon disruption in 2011.