Your favorite place in the sun for riding or training camp?
ridelikeapro
Posts: 139
Where do you recommend for a training camp, or a week's fun riding? I'm gonna start the ball rolling by giving a heads-up for Italy in general, and Tuscany as a specific area. The roads are great fun, and there's a big cycling culture there.
What are your favorite places?
check our the Tuscany gallery: http://www.gregarios.co.uk/cycling_club ... scany.html
What are your favorite places?
check our the Tuscany gallery: http://www.gregarios.co.uk/cycling_club ... scany.html
0
Posts
Great roads,fantastic views, some good hills and best of all you can cycle 2 abreast and its legal.
Im trying Tuscany in May....more then
Andy
Riccione,Italy. Less hilly but some steep climbs. Some stunning vistas esp. when you are riding on the ridges overlloking the valleys. V.cycle friendly and it's Italy
The Marina Alta mountains are ideal for a week or two of training, lots of long steady climbs and descents, much quieter and smoother roads than Mallorca and loads of small villages with cafes and bars for those who want to take time to enjoy the experience.
This year's Vuelta spent 4 days criss-crossing these coastal climbs, providing some of the best racing of the year. The area is home to the likes of Alexander Kolobnev and Oscar Freire as well as the base for 3 Garmin riders. Guys from the British Endura team are here in Denia for the winter along with former British Road Champion Hamish Haynes.
If you are a sportive rider and looking to get some great coaching thrown in with the riding then ex-pro Dave lloyd and Sportstest's Garry Palmer are running camps in Denia in 2010 (see their sites or check www.traininspain.net for details).
If you do Mallorca every year, why not try something different? It's a great island but it is not the only dish on the menu.
Go a couple of times a year with the family
Last year I rode in the mornings, back for a swim with the kids, watched Le Tour in afternoon followed by more swimming with the kids and then out for dinner - perfect.
I have only ridden in the southwest of the Island same as Magibob as that's were we stay and it takes too long to go any further than Valdemossa or Arenal (it's the wifes holiday too!) but hopefully I'll get a pass next year to go without the family and explore a bit more of the island.
Roads are great as are the car drivers. Climbs meander up the mountain side with loads of hairpins, unlike the climbs here which take the steepest route, making you really feel liker a climber and the views at the top are stunning.
Magibob you have mail.
http://www.gregarios.co.uk/cycling_club ... scany.html
King Canute stood a better chance at turning the tide back than you do at getting UK cyclists to abandon Mallorca. Tuscany, Costa Blanca, Girona, Tenerife etc. all offer great training terrain - much of it better than Mallorca - they all have good hotels, bars and restaurants, they all have great scenery and they all have their devotees - but Mallorca got there first at commercialising it and the island gets a lot of local government support to promote it as a cycling haven.
There are clubs and groups of friends who have been going there every year for 20+ years and they like what they get. They like the predicability of Mallorca and the chance to meet old friends, they know the routes, they know the hotels etc.
Other people like to try new things, go different places, see new scenery and ride different routes. I love scuba diving and think the Red Sea is unbeatable - but I have still gone to Australia, Mexico, Barbados, Bonaire and Tobago to dive other sites.
There is no shortage of fantastic cycling locations, just a pity some get overlooked by not being called Mallorca.
I agree with you completely. There is a sort of "I always go to Blackpool for my holidays" mentality with Mallorca devotees - and I have to admit was one of them, a veteran of around a dozen trips to Mallorca the ultimate cycling destination - until I discovered somewhere else that IMHO is better on many counts - and has a fantastic cycling culture.... Tuscany.
It's going to be interesting to see what other destinations crop up here.
Lanzarote too windy for my liking (and so sparse and volcanic), Tenerife is superb, Masca in the Teno Mountains being some of the most beautiful scenery ever, and the climb of Mount Teide a must!...very tough cycling with huge ascents!
But Gran Canaria tops them all, superb but very,very hard...in fact madly hard! So much so that theres 2 ascents on the Island that are by far the toughest climbs Ive ever did...way tougher than anything Ive experienced in France or Italy.
Great weather all year round aswell.
I'm still for Tuscany - if it's good enough for the British team to base themselves there - and good enough for Paolo Bettini and Mario Cippolini to live there, then I'm headin' back there for the third time.
Tuscany gallery: http://www.gregarios.co.uk/cycling_club ... scany.html
But yes, there's NOT many places in Provence, the east coast of Spain, the Canaries, and Tuscany that are not worth a look. But habit keeps taking me back. Andy Cook is a great guide.
Further afield Tucson is well know as is Southern Cal. Even close to LA is great if you go inland into San Bernadino, the roads up and around up to Big Bear Lake are fantastic. Defo a place for April as Jan/Feb would be a bit a question of how low down the snow comes at that time of the year. Not to say it's cold, you can find low to mid 60s out of the mountains.
Maybe see you for Spring Break in April 2010?
climbing above 1,000m by 9am and seeing a bank of cloud rolling up and over a ridge below bathed in sunlight is a sight to behold.
tuscany also fantastic in the summer and as someone said, it is locked into the cycling culture, plus the food is sensational.
Epic.
Would aim to take on 3 rides (150km ish), mountains and flat.
Costa Blanca
Andalucia
poss.Tuscany or Riccione
www.ciclocostablanca.com