Training and Racing in Sunny Spain

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BY: TORQ Performance

Published: 8th March, 2011

Well at last we have reached the end of yet another wet and grey February, or so I hear! I've been busy living it up in Spain, part of my 'pretend to be a pro' lifestyle change for 2011 so wet and grey weather hasn't really featured. Think at least 15degrees (most of the time) clear blue sky's and amazing snow capped mountains to rip up on a bike and you are somewhere near.

 

 

For the first part of my trip I was staying with Simon and Emma at Freeride Spain a guiding company based in the small town of Lanjaron in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Lanjaron is about an hour and a half from Malaga airport so is perfect for a winter break. Most days were spent on epic 6hour rides out in the mountains. The trails here are nice and technical so after the initial shock of steep rocky switchbacks my skills have sharpened up nicely. The roads rides were pretty spectacular as well. Nice wide open roads with silky smooth tarmacs leading to small twists narrow descents, just like single track for a road bike! It's fair to say that I had an amazing 3 weeks there (even if I did have to do a 6h ride in the pissing rain and half freeze to death!) and will be back at the first opportunity.

 

The second part of my trip included my racing debut for my new team, Torq Performance. I was due to race the new 6 day Andalucia Bike Race (www.andaluciabikerace.com) with team mate Ben Thomas. Unfortunately Ben decided to hug a tree at high speed and ended up having his fingers superglued back on in the hospital. This left me with no one to race with only a week and a half before the race. After some manic searching a heroin stepped forward to save the day in the shape of Cait Elliot, Irish National champion of WXC fame. So we changed the entry to a mixed pair and set off to Cordoba to begin racing. The level of the race organisation was amazing. Through out my stay in Spain I was continually amazed by the levels of public support for bike racing. We began each stage in the centre of town and all the local people out the cheers us on and we had full police escort with major roads shut, all the while a TV helicopter was hovering about recording footage for the local news each night! A pretty amazing experience.

 

 

The race went pretty well. The courses were brilliant (apart from the fireroad heavy 'transition day' on stage 4) and there was plenty of climbing. Cait and I also dominated the mixed category. It's always nice to win the first race of the year, even better the first 6 races of the year! It was a really fun week and a great experience racing with Cait in a pair. This was the first time I had raced in a pair and after a few days it became quite natural to stick together and made the day better as we were able to feed off each other and push harder. It seems weird this week not riding with anyone! Wearing a leaders jersey everyday was awesome as well (and saved a load of kit washing in the sink!), I could get used to it!

 

I wont go into details about each day.... you can see for yourselves on my blog as I had camera on my bars every day, a picture is worth a thousand words so a video must be worth at least a million!

http://www.joshibbett.com

 

Elsewhere my teammates have begun racing regional events with Ant and Sion O'boyle racing the first 2 rounds of the Welsh XC Series picking up some good results including a podium finish. Now I'm back in the UK I'll be joining the other TORQ riders completing a busy few months of XC racing and interval training before the final build up to my first goals of the year the national and European 24hour championships.

 

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http://twitter.com/#!/TORQfitness

http://www.torqfitness.co.uk/

 

Thanks for reading Februarys blog instalment. See you at the races!

 

 

 

Written by TORQ endurance mountain bike racer Josh Ibbett.