February 16, 2010 (Tucson, AZ) – The first road, para and mountain bike combined National Team camp in over 10 years officially kicked off Friday in Tucson, Arizona. Most of us arrived on Thursday but with over 30 athletes in transit there were the inevitable travel delays. As a result, there wasn’t a structured ride but most were able to get bikes thrown together and head out for a spin to wake up the legs. After a quick introductory meeting, dinner included Chipotle for many to get in the southern mood.

As this is the first camp of its kind in a while, not everyone knew each other coming into camp. A three-strike rule was laid down for remembering peoples’names and over the past couple days everyone has begun to get acquainted with each other. I think that one of the parts that most people are looking forward to with this camp is the opportunity to talk to a larger number of teammates and we’ve already been able to take advantage of learning from each other’s experiences.

On the eve of the opening of the Vancouver Olympic Games, National Team Road Coach, Vincent Jourdain, sent out an article including in interview with Clara Hughes; Canadian flag bearer and former National Team cyclist. This served as source of inspiration before we headed out on our first ride of the camp to tackle Mt. Lemmon.

The excitement was palpable at the start of the ride, partially as it was the first chance some athletes had to get off the trainer and onto the road. The sun shone for the entire ride as we wound our way up Mt. Lemmon in several groups but we did see some snow the higher we rode.

After the ride we had our first introduction to the Integrated Service Team (IST) we are going to be doing some work with over the camp and looking forward. Having the access to this information and programming is another part that is pretty exciting, as most haven’t had much previous access to it.

Most of the athletes wrapped up the first day with watching the opening ceremonies. Somewhat fitting as we set off on a week of prep towards our own Olympic goals and dreams. With good routes, good riding partners and good weather everyone is looking forward to putting in the hours.

Look for more camp updates from road, MTB and Para athletes. You can also follow the team on Twitter here.