Living like a pro…

A little insight into what it’s like to ride your bike 24/7 in Spain.

Firstly, getting there. The closest airport to Huesca in Spain, where I am living, is Zaragoza. However, the only airport in the Uk which flies here is London Stanstead. So we had a 4 hour car journey ahead, before we’d even left the Uk. Once we’d done all the airport shenanigans, we had to fit all our luggage, which was a lot (about 150kg) in our rental car, to take us another 50 minutes in the car to Huesca, which was no mean feat, but we got it done.

We all met up on the first night, me, my parents, Josh and his parents, who came to see us settle in, and Ash. The following day, we went for a 2 hour ride with our team manager, Adrián Barceló. It was great to finally see Adrián again and be able to converse more, with me making a big effort in learning Spanish over the winter. It was also great to try out the new team kit, which there were about 20 garments of, including jerseys, bib shorts, fleeces, bib tights, base layers, socks, neck warmers, glasses, gloves, helmets, overshoes, and of course, the bike. I love the colour of the bike, with the baby blue accompanied by a hint of fluro yellow, I love the fact that it is at the UCI weight limit of 6.8kg with my racing set up, but most of all, I love the ride.

In the afternoon, we then sorted out our accommodation in the afternoon, and then next day we moved in to the new apartment.

The apartment is 3 bed and 2 bedrooms, with me and Ash sharing, it is on the top 6th floor of the building, and we have 2 balconies, 1 large and the other smaller, from the large one, we can see the mountains so it is great to have such an amazing view to wake up to. The apartment also has a nice living area, with sofas and a 42” Panasonic TV (most important to watch Netflix), it has a good size kitchen, and a nice, quite modern toilet. It is perfect for us and we are so happy that we have a nice place to back to, and relax, after we’ve pushed it hard on the bike.

After moving into the apartment, we were straight back out for the weekend on a team training camp, sleeping over the Saturday night, riding both Saturday and Sunday as a team, and being told what is expected of us from the season. Then with an official team presentation at Bodega Sommos, an amazing winery, and where we officially released the 2019 roster to the public, family and various other media’s who attended the presentation. It was so good to meet the rest of the team, they were all so welcoming and it was also pleasing to see that they were all of a high level of ability too, so this makes for a very exciting season.

Since the presentation, the racing has kicked off, in which you can read how it went in an earlier blog. Then, apart from that, we have managed to get lots of good training in, in this beautiful part of such an amazing country. From our apartment, we can be in the mountains in about 30 minutes, which is just amazing. Additionally, we can go south and choose the flatter lands if we want (which I am still yet to do) so this area really does have it all. And if we want, on longer rides, we can even dip into the Pyrenees. So far, we have distributed the cooking and cleaning duties well too, but we’ll see if we can keep it up.

Our team manager, has a brother who is a professional at almost the highest level, Fernando Barceló from Euskadi, with multiple pro wins and podiums, and we have also been able to ride with him. This has been great to learn a little more about what is expected from a paid professional, and learn many other things from him, as he speaks quite good English, although I do still try to communicate in his home language.

Ash has now quickly gone back to Britain to have his ankle checked from a crash involving a car a few months ago, to hopefully get the all clear to be back racing. So we wish him the very best of luck, and fingers crossed, he can get back and tear up our next local race in huesca on 9th March.

We are all so happy with how everything is working out, and we just can’t wait to get properly stuck in to the racing, with multiple Copa Españas coming up in latter March, which are Spanish U23 Nationals and the highest level races which an U23 can race in Spain.