Most cycling teams can be found in Spain at the beginning of January preparing for the new racing season. The Costa Blanca and Tenerife are popular training locations, but Pinarello-Q36.5 is taking a different, more exotic approach this year. Part of the Swiss team is heading to Chile for a training camp.
Why are Tom Pidcock and six teammates flying to the South American country for a camp instead of staying in Europe? "The reason is simple: it was a matter of finding solutions to do a high-altitude training camp," says Kurt Bogaerts, the Head of Performance at Pinarello-Q36.5, in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad.
"At this time of year, you need a place for your camp where the climate is suitable for consistent training, so you don't have to constantly improvise. On the Teide, there's only one hotel at altitude plus a few lodges. So accommodations are very limited. And even then, during this time of year, you sometimes encounter bad weather there, meaning you have to drive down to the valley to train."
Good training conditions
The team sought alternative training locations and set their sights on Chile. The riders are staying this month not far from the capital, Santiago. "Our training base is comparable to Tenerife in that respect: there’s one mountain where we stay, and you can climb it from different sides," Bogaerts explains. "It used to be a ski resort. We’ll be at 2,700 meters altitude."
"The roads should be good as well. I currently have seven or eight routes the riders can take for training, so there will be plenty of variety. And once we’re there, we’ll probably discover even more new routes. The advantage is that it’s the start of summer there, so Santiago will be around 30 degrees Celsius. On the mountain itself, it’ll still be about 15 to 20 degrees."
