The XC season has started earlier for me than usual this year with a trip to Banyoles, Spain to race in the UCI Junior Series Shimano Supercup followed by a week’s training camp. Earlier in the month, I also had a joint Scottish and British cycling camp in Cardona which was really enjoyable.
After crashing out on the first day of the previous Cardrona camp it was great to get the whole experience this time. We arrived on the Friday night and had two full days of riding. On the first day, we did a skills session then a trail ride where we turned a chill zone two climb into a zone four ride. On the second day we had a longer ride where we spent some time sessioning some sections of trail and then after a quick lunch we did some short sprint races into a trail.
A few weeks later, I was flying out to Barcelona with members from the Scottish and British XC programmes for a training and race camp in Banyoles. We started with the race on the first weekend. The course was super dry a dusty and consisted of quite a lot of flattish bumpy dead turns and fire road straights. I did not have any luck being gridded near the back in 126th but managed to move up to 22nd to gain some valuable UCI points. Frustratingly, on the last lap, I caught a large group up to about 12th position. However, a tactical error meant I was on the back of this and with limited overtaking opportunities I could not move up. Overall, I was incredibly happy with my ride despite this.
The training camp for the rest of the week was fun. We did a max effort (see pic!) on mountain bikes up the famous Rocacorba road climb which the pros use as a form testing climb. Apart from this we have had some skills session, a few road rides, and a trail ride. I have really enjoyed my time in Spain and the environment has been fun to be in as well as a fantastic learning experience being with the u23 riders.
It has been a great month. Now, I cannot wait for the season proper to kick off with further trips abroad.
