A week with Culture Velo in Lloret de Mar
The training camp for me overall was an incredible experience and will hopefully have benefited me very positively.
Once arriving at the camp we barely had time to unpack before heading out on an easy 40 mile spin to loosen up the legs. After this we settled down into our rooms, being with 4 other French guys in my room made initial conversation difficult however, after a while I started to pick up the language and by the end of the week was more than able to hold a decent conversation with any of the guys.
On Sunday we had the first of two races in the week, a 25 mile looped circuit with rolling terrain and a section of cobbles. With roughly 150 riders and being my first proper race of the season took me a while to acclimatise to the size of the group, but the break had gone whilst I was. Thankfully a teammate was in the break so spent the majority of the race blocking to let him get clear. I tried a dig myself with 10km to go and stayed solo until 3km, unfortunately this killed me for the final climb a vicious 500m hill at around 15%. I finished in the pack and 4th Culture Velo rider.
Monday’s ride was a mountain time trial with 400m of climbing in 8km in which I managed to put out my threshold for 22 minutes.
Tuesday was an easy recovery day before the race on Wednesday, a flat course dominated by strong winds and with the best amateur French team and two other junior French squads it was always going to be an interesting race. Fortunately the pace was kept high so no breaks could go leaving a final bunch gallop in which there was absolute chaos as 120 riders were bundling towards the line. I was slightly too far back to contend for a win though was able to salvage 11th weaving through the group, with three Culture Velo riders in the top 10 and one taking the win.
Thursday’s ride was team time trial efforts where the weather finally cleared up so the sun appeared for the first time that week and with all the guys being dead from the excursions on Wednesday made for a hard set of efforts.
Friday was a very tough day on the bike as we headed out to Montseny mountain range for 85 miles with 2km of vertical up. The main climb being 25km long with me averaging a very high tempo for the hour it took us to climb it.
Coming to the end of the week we had a ride for recuperation on Saturday before heading out to do a tough 90 miles on the Sunday finishing in Girona to conclude the week of training.
I found the week to be very useful both on and off the bike as my abilities in Bike Handling, French and my overall Fitness all received massive boosts. I’m hugely excited to be riding Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne this weekend with them and am looking forward to hopefully a good result.