Cycling: Racing into the Headwind

"First, let’s congratulate Stephen Williams of the Israel-Premier Tech Team on winning the general classification of this year’s Tour of Australia.

As the only Professional Team in the race, for them to come from behind and beat eighteen World Tour Teams to take the title truly required a combination of skill and luck.

It just goes to show that in competitive sports, anything is possible until the race is over.

Next, we have to congratulate China’s one and only World Tour Cyclist: Huang Chong. Thanks to his exceptionally brilliant, even insane, breakaway performance, he successfully won the final stage of this year’s Tour of Australia.

Combined with his coronation as the King of Willunga in stage five, he has taken home two climbing stage victories in this tour.

As a rookie making his debut with a World Tour Team, the fact that he’s maintained last year’s red-hot form and continued to win stages should put all his fans and supporters back home at ease.

The only slight disappointment is that due to team tactics in the first four stages, he had to drop 59 seconds in the general classification during stage two to protect his lead sprinter, ultimately taking him out of contention for the overall title."

"That’s right. The Bora Team won a total of five stages in the Tour of Australia, making them the biggest winners in that respect, yet they missed out on the final overall title. Whoever set the roster before the race will definitely have to take some responsibility for that failure.

However, according to the unwritten rules of the World Tour, it’s common for a rookie like Huang Chong, no matter how talented, to start at the bottom as a water carrier when he first joins. It’s standard practice.

Even someone as strong as Pogačar came up the same way, so we shouldn’t be too quick to criticize the Bora Team.

In any case, his outstanding performance in the Tour of Australia—replicating last year’s sprint victory from Nongla Mountain Peak on Willunga Hill and then pulling off a breakaway win in the final climbing stage—proves that his future is absolutely limitless.

Moreover, with these two very different stage victories, he’s practically proven that, like Pogačar—the current number one in road cycling—he possesses the talent for both one-day races and stage races.

I’m confident that after this absolutely insane debut performance, the Bora Team is sure to elevate Huang Chong’s tactical standing."

"Yes, after this debut, I’m sure the fans back home have a very clear picture of Huang Chong’s riding style.

He has superb climbing ability and terrifyingly explosive power. Add to that his victory over Kazakhstan’s Alexey Lutsenko in the ITT event at last year’s Asian Games, winning a precious gold medal for our country. It all proves he’s an incredibly well-rounded, all-rounder type of rider with virtually no obvious weaknesses.

The only thing he needs to improve now is, ironically, his most fundamental FTP Power.

Once he develops to the level of Pogačar and Vingegaard—for instance, being able to sustain a power-to-weight ratio of over 7.0 for a high-mountain climb in the Tour de France lasting more than 40 minutes—then he’ll have a real shot at competing for the highest honor in road cycling: the Tour de France title—"

In the live stream’s comment section, the Chinese fans watching the race felt like they were celebrating New Year’s early after hearing the official host and commentator praise Huang Chong so lavishly.

A flood of bullet comments spamming "Awesome!", "666!", and "Unbeatable!" completely covered the screen.

Meanwhile, the cycling viewing groups organized by various streamers were buzzing with activity, all discussing whether Huang Chong would compete as a team leader in the next World Tour race.

However, to the disappointment of the fans in China, not long after the Tour of Australia ended, the Bora Team’s official social media accounts posted some bad news.

Due to extreme fatigue from the Tour of Australia, with several riders even suffering from heatstroke, the team had decided to withdraw from the second World Tour event in Australia, the Ocean Road Race (a one-day classic), scheduled for the following week.

As soon as the news broke, fans in China were initially disappointed, but they quickly flooded Bora’s official page with inquiries about Huang Chong’s condition.

The top-rated comment, without a doubt, was one asking if Huang Chong was among the riders who had suffered from heatstroke.

Ultimately, to respond to and thank the Chinese fans for their concern, the Bora Team had Huang Chong—who was attending the post-race celebratory banquet hosted by the organizers—record a special vlog to thank his supporters back home.

「Hangcheng. Feichi Bicycle.」

As Huang Chong’s best friend and now his most die-hard fan, Dewey was naturally following the Bora Team’s official account.

When he saw the vlog of Huang Chong thanking his fans for their concern and support, stating that he was in good condition and hadn’t suffered from heatstroke, and explaining that his future race schedule would depend on the team’s latest arrangements, Dewey finally breathed a sigh of relief.

In truth, when the Bora Team had announced that several of their riders had heatstroke and were forced to withdraw from the Ocean Road Race, his first reaction had been to worry about his best friend’s health.

Seeing his friend safe and sound was great news, but after personally witnessing his brother win two stages for the Bora Team in the Tour of Australia, Dewey had a new problem to worry about.

The number of orders at his bike shop had suddenly exploded.

The customers calling in the past two days were all his regulars—part of the wealthy "Brother Fu" circle from the Yangtze River Delta Region. He couldn’t refuse them even if he wanted to.

Their orders were, without a doubt, all for the same team-edition bike Huang Chong rides for the Bora Team, as well as the water bottles he used, the Bora Team kit, Lightning cycling shoes, helmets, goggles, and so on.

In short, Dewey was now getting a taste of what the celebrity effect really meant. As Huang Chong won on the World Tour stage, his shop’s business was blowing up right along with him.

Of course, most of these customers knew about his relationship with Huang Chong, so the orders were half business, half favors based on connections.

The problem was, orders were coming in fast and thick, and he had no Bora Team-edition frames in stock—

Even on the official Lightning website and in all the major flagship stores in the country, any frame with the Bora Team’s official paint scheme had sold out almost overnight!

This was directly related to the Lightning brand’s own low inventory, as well as scalpers who had smelled an opportunity and deliberately bought up all the stock.

"Sigh... I’m screwed, Old Liu.

This afternoon alone, I got another five orders, all for Huang Chong’s team-edition SL8 road bike frame, and they all want it delivered within a week—

Over thirty orders for frames or complete bikes in just two days! I’m not the f*cking prince of the Bora Team, where am I supposed to get my hands on that many team-edition frames?

Tell me, what the hell am I supposed to do?

Just let the world end! I might as well close this damn shop!"

Hearing his boss complain like this, senior technician Liu Chaoyang felt a surge of jealousy and bitterness.

It’s like they say, "when a man gets to heaven, all his friends and relations follow." He was seeing it with his own eyes.

He remembered back when he had his own bike shop. Back then, business was so bad he was living hand-to-mouth, barely scraping by.

Nothing like Dewey, who was seeing his shop’s business explode just because he knew Huang Chong.

You have to understand, the Bora Team road frames were already nearly impossible to find. Dewey was selling them for one or two thousand more than the official website price, with a single frame costing over 40,000, and that wasn’t even including the integrated handlebars.

Getting over 30 orders in two days... and with all this hype, more wealthy clients—more ’Brother Fus’—were sure to place orders. At this rate, Dewey would basically hit his quarterly sales target in a single week.

’But it’s better not to think about it too much,’ he thought. ’It’s just too depressing.’ So, Liu Chaoyang just replied with a deadpan expression:

"General Manager Du, the more orders you take, the more bikes I’m the one who ends up having to assemble.

The better your business is, the more I have to work overtime, day and night. So don’t ask me about the business side of things.

Besides, I’m just a mechanic who builds the bikes. How would I have any way to get you Bora Team frames?

You’re seriously overestimating me!"

Of course, Dewey hadn’t actually been asking Liu Chaoyang for a solution. He was just complaining to show off, flexing his connection to his famous friend.

So when he heard the bitter, resentful tone in Liu Chaoyang’s reply, he couldn’t help but feel a secret thrill of satisfaction.

But he had only a moment to enjoy it before another phone call wiped the smile right off his face.

It was Zhou Ming.

That guy also wanted one of Huang Chong’s team-edition bikes, and he said he was coming to the shop in a bit to demand that Dewey give him whatever stock he had on hand!