If there is something with which a
Globero You can dream about sharing route and hotel with one of your idols. If they are called Gilbert or Alaphilippe much better, but it is the almost complete Quick Step and with an invitation to their concentration hotel, everything becomes almost a fairy tale.
That was what we could live in Team Ciclled. Quick Step took us to his training campus on the Costa Blanca in January to live in the first person how they train and how is the day to day of the preparation of the season. Also to experience some of the sacrifices that are required to be able to roll in a professional squad.
But we are going step by step. What is a professional team preparation like?
The first challenge of the day is breakfast
In the morning, the first thing is to resist
buffet Breakfast free. A difficult task considering that there were like a hundred different types of food. And see how professionals did it without a face of resignation.
[capt
At the hotel, with Fernando Gaviria[/caption]
It is easy to get carried away by the availability of so much food and take kilos despite training 3 and 4 hours a day. It is not easy to live at a hotel in hotel when you need to care for your diet to stay in your ideal weight. I, as good
Globero, I ended up succumbing with some
Croissant the rest.
Exercises before having the first coffee
For most professional cyclists, training begins before breakfast, performing stretching and exercise series. Years ago there were exercises that were not taken into account to train in cycling. Today, however, they are the basis for preventing overexertion injuries. We talk about exercising the
Core and make plates, squats and stretching.
After this first training and breakfast routine at 10 am. It is time to get on the bicycle. It has previously passed through the hands of the mechanics. In the Quick Step concentration there are up to half a dozen of them that are responsible for making last -minute adjustments before each output.
During concentrations, cyclists distribute the afternoons between massage sessions and technical talks to continue learning
Quick Step bicycles are Specialized and draws attention how clean, placed to the millimeter by the mechanics equipment. The days we were the team made test sessions, and each cyclist had three bike models: the ultraligeres for the high mountain days, the Aero for the flat routes, and those of counterreloj for the special training days with Crono.
A Wheel with professionals
The Quick Step has this season 27 runners on payroll. In it
Stage To which we went there were missing the 6 that were competing in the Tour Down Under of Australia -among them Enric Mas -the 3 South Americans who were preparing the return to San Juan, plus the 4 who were doing six days in Holland.
Despite these absences, the payroll of professional cyclists present at the Stage was not bad for a
Globero Friki like me. You can take pictures with Gilbert and Alaphilippe or chat with Juels and Gaviria naturally.
[capt
About to start the training session[/caption]
With this
Grupetta Of great runners, plus the Serry, Vakoc, Keisse, of Clerq, Lampaert, Senechal, Martinelli and company, it became difficult to pull the group. So I had to go to a wheel and enjoy a constant rhythm.
Massages and continuous learning
After checking how difficult it is to follow the rhythm with cyclists of this level, it touches food to recover while the mechanics continue to adjust the equipment bicycles. That day there was a presentation session with the press, but it is not usual in the training days of the Quick Step.
The normal thing is that the afternoons of a training campus are divided into massage sessions (up to 4 masseuses had brought the equipment), evidence of material and talks about biomechanics and data. A very important part of a cyclist's training is to learn, not just give pedals.
