Vincenzo Nibali is set to finish his year with one last hill-climb test, joining fellow Tour de France winner Cadel Evans in the Taiwan KOM Challenge on Friday, October 20.
Italian Nibali and Australian Evans will tackle the 105-kilometre hill climb, rising to 3,275 metres from the coast to the mountainous interior of Taiwan.
Recent Il Lombardia winner Nibali will be taking part alongside his brother Antonio, Bahrain-Merida team-mate Feng Chun-Kai, and a few thousand amateur riders. Also present will be American former-pro-turned-Strava-KOM-hunter Phil Gaimon.
Watch: How to master a long climb
As for the course itself, well that puts even the Vuelta’s huge summit finish to Sierra Nevada in the shade with both its length and steepness.
Starting off at a steady gradient of three to four per cent, the climb gets steeper and steeper as the road goes higher and the air gets thinner for the riders.
Cruelly the steepest section is saved for the very end, with a long section at more than 20 per cent and a maximum gradient of 27 per cent after nearly 100km of climbing.
