February 21, 2010 (Tucson, AZ) – For the first time in at least a decade, the Canadian Cycling Association (CCA) held a pre-season camp for members of the national team. The camp, which finishes today brought together road, mountain and one para-athlete in Tucson, Arizona. Over 30 athletes attended, from established stars such as Geoff Kabush and Catharine Pendrel to young riders still looking towards their first world championships. National Road (Vincent Jourdain) and Mountain Bike (Dan Proulx) coaches oversaw the camp, assisted by OCA provincial coach Denise Kelly and mechanic Scott Kelly (no relation). Athletes participated in group training sessions, as well as team building sessions and one-on-one meetings with coaches to plan their programs for the upcoming season.

The riding culminated with the locally famous 25 mile (40 kilometre) climb up Mt Lemmon on Thursday (February 18th), topping out at 8000 feet (2440 metres). All athletes – both road and mountain prticipated in the Mt Lemmon ride.

The concensus from all participants was that the camp was a huge success: “It was a great opportunity to get everyone together,” said Geoff Kabush. “I remember being at the previous ones in Victoria early in my career, and it was a great motivator to be able to ride with some of the top riders. Now, I have the chance to pass on some of my experience to the newer riders.”

“I hope that we will be able to continue with these sort of events in the future,” commented Dan Proulx. “It provided an excellent opportunity to meet with the athletes prior to the start of the season, see where everyone is, and really help build some national team spirit.”

Tucson Winter Training Camp – Blog #3
by Andrea Bunnin
Today was another beautiful day in the desert, although there was something unusual that caught my attention on the ride, there were clouds drifting about in a sky that has been clear and blue for our whole trip so far. But don’t feel down, they soon disappeared into the crystal blue dome above us. The great weather we’ve been enjoying has left its evidence; most of us are sporting rather defined tan lines, some in shades I would say have an overly reddish hue.

Today the mountain bikers and roadies parted to conduct our very important business of the day. We road riders went out to Old Spanish trail for a spin, then we met in a top secret desert location and posed for some well choreographed team pictures amongst the cacti. A few riders got some pricks from the surrounding vegetation during the photo shoots, but they handled them with the strength and composure of true Canadian cyclists.

Speaking of strength and composure, we had a little team gathering at the pool last night where there was some attempted synchronized swimming. I can’t tell you how it turned out, I had to turn away to avoid the large splashes resulting from the event. We had all just spent 5 plus hours on our bikes that day, a ride that included a lovely 25 mile ascent up Mt. Lemmon, but we somehow found the need to explore new and exciting ways to expend energy.

Besides the pool, another enjoyable element to this camp is the organization of riding groups…we make a pretty large group all together, so each day we split up into smaller groups for the ride; it’s great because it puts us with a different mix of riders. One moment I might be chatting up a friendly Ontario-ian or BC rider during the ride, and the next I am practicing my François next to a very patient Quebec-ian. It’s great to get the opportunity to ride with the mountain bikers too, when they aren’t off bouncing off cacti on those springy bikes of theirs. Throughout the camp both MTB bikers and roadies can spend time together; once the race season starts its rare that we cross paths. I must say, the MTB bikers have much more impressive battle marks from their trail rides then the roadies; although, on yesterday’s ride a rock bounced up from some ones tire and hit my toe, it kinda stung.

Back to today’s ride; it was great! Now, moving on… sometimes, at certain times, some cyclists like to drink coffee…and I must admit it is a nice addition to a team ride on the return lag of our daily journeys. Today was one of those times; all it took was for someone to mention the idea of stopping and before I knew it, I had an Americano in front of me along with an ‘it-can’t-be-possible-that-it-is-possible-that-this-is-so-good’cookie. Now I know it is obvious to expect to see talent at this camp, but I am extremely impressed with many of the rider’s supernatural abilities to scout out a good coffee shop. It wasn’t long before another cluster of team-Canada-clad cyclists showed up to join us.

Well tomorrow is our last day, then we will all be parting to continue our training and racing and all that other stuff people do with their time. Bonne chance to all.

This has been Andrea, reporting from Tucson.

Tucson Winter Training Camp – Blog #4
by Stuart Wight

So after yesterday’s epic ride up Mount Lemmon everyone’s legs were a little tender, so the plan for the roadies today was a bit of a shorter ride to Saguaro Park for some more photos for the kind folks at Louis Garneau. Starting out this morning was a little chilly compared to the other days, but we all agreed that as Canadians, we really couldn’t complain.

As usual, we divided up into smaller groups to be sure not to take over too much of the roads through town, and set off to the park. After a while the cool morning air gave way to nice sunny skies and it was all smiles on everyone’s faces.

Upon arriving at the National Park, we met up with Rob Jones of Canadian Cyclist and Pierre Perron from Louis Garneau for some more pictures. It was pretty cool doing a photo shoot amongst all the cactuses and with such awesome desert backdrops and I’m sure Rob got some awesome shots.

After all the hard work of looking amazing at the photo shoot, we got back on the bikes for the voyage home. For this part of the ride National Team Road Coach Vincent Jourdain wanted us working on some double paceline work to get back into the swing of racing before the early season races start for some. With this efficient group riding we were absolutely cruising back towards the hotel, but then we all heard the familiar sounds of a tube going flat. Luckily, it happened right in front of a nice coffee shop, which of course couldn’t just be passed by. While on our break there was an intense competition to see who could remount one of the tightest tires ever seen on the face of the planet, which was won by Spencer with the fine technique shown below.

So, the coffees were downed and bikes remounted for the rest of the ride back. Along the way we always seem to be greeted or cheered for by fellow Canadians down here on vacation, which is always nice for the morale and team spirit. After ripping along the bike paths we made it back to the hotel for a ride of about two and a half hours, which will hopefully leave us fresh for another good ride tomorrow!

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