I am just home after spending a week staying at Cycle Sierra Nevada in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range of southern Spain. I was selected as part of their CSN Scholarship which allows young cyclists to experience a professionally organized training camp.

On Saturday 28 December I had an early morning flight out to Malaga, I landed late morning in Malaga and had to wait in the airport for a few hours before getting my transfer out to Velez De benaudalla where Cycle Sierra Nevada is based. We got to see our apartments and meet the other riders before heading out on a short spin to test out the bikes and loosen the legs after the travel. After we got home from the 1.5hr ride we went to dinner and prepared for the first real day of riding

We had 3 hrs coming up with our first taste of some of the climbs within the district, we headed along the coast before heading up our first climb of the trip, after we reached the top we enjoyed the long descent back down to the coast before a nice coffee stop, we then had 45 mins of easy riding back to Velez. 

Monday we headed out for 4 hrs with more elevation than yesterday. The roads were rolling at the start but then later on in the ride we had a climbs of around 30 minutes before a coffee stop and a nice descent back down to the valley before finishing the ride back in Velez, these first 2 days everybody was still pretty fresh but tomorrow we all knew a bigger day was coming and the legs would start to feel it.

Today was the longest ride of the camp with just short of 5 hrs completed and the longest climb we would do. We headed down to the coast before climbing ‘The Goats Path’ . This climb is 36 km from bottom to top which is a monster climb with an average gradient of 5%. The first 16 km is a drag then the alpine climbing begins to the summit at 1300m. This was definitely the hardest climb of the trip but I kept a slow steady speed as my coach had told me to stick to endurance riding today. Everyones legs were feeling it after this spin but the views were unreal and the climbing was amazing.

After the savage ride today it was new years eve so after dinner us riders decided to head out and meet some of the locals to celebrate the new year, we arrived home quite late but thankfully we had a rest day the next day.

On the rest day we rode 1.5 hrs down to the coast and then stopped for a ‘cafe con leche’ at the beach bar outside Motril, this was a nice spin to recover the legs for the last few days of camp. We finished the day off with a walk down to the river to jump in.

After the rest day we had the hilliest ride of the camp coming up which was 4.5 hrs long up to Trevelez. This was personally my favourite ride of the camp today and I had very good legs today. After the climb to Trevelez we stopped for a cafe stop and then descending back down towards Orgiva, We done at extra climb of 5 km up to Canjar, i raced up this climb with some of the lads and this effort was the best my legs felt all week and i had a strong effort up this climb which i was really happy with. This was the penultimate ride of the camp with just one ride left before our morning flight home on saturday.

To finish the camp we did a 4hr ride, starting on the coast then heading up the Haza climb to the summit. This was another long climb of 22 km and was very hard. We also raced up this climb to get a good final effort before the camp ended. I set a nice tempo at the bottom of the climb and held that to the top. We then had a nice descent back down through the valley towards Orgiva and then back to Velez to end the riding of the camp. After this ride I was smashed from the efforts of the week, we all enjoyed a good post ride smash burger. 

We headed to the airport early on Saturday morning and we all said our goodbyes as most of the lads were heading to england but me and 2 others travelled together and landed back in Belfast International for mid day. After I got home I went straight for a nap…. I guess that proves the tiredness. 

What a week. 6 days of riding and 23.5hrs of riding done. My first experience of a proper training camp and one that I will never forget. A huge thanks goes out to Cycle Sierra Nevada, Cormac and Kevin for all heading out with us on the rides everyday and Reuben for ensuring the bikes were running well everyday. Thanks guys,I will be back soon!

Now I have 1 week to go until the National CX Championships which are my main goal of the winter so I hope this camp has been the icing on the cake with the final preparations ahead of the big day.

Thanks for sticking to the end, Caleb