Get Ready For Your Best Season Yet:

Women’s Race Craft Skills Development & Training Week in Mallorca

March 7th - March 14th, 2020

Join our professionally coached training camp in Mallorca specifically designed for amateur women racers looking to take the next step to improve their crit, TT and road racing skills.

Through a combination of coached long endurance rides and drills based skills sessions on Mallorca’s beautiful roads, our week long camp – modelled after professional women’s cycling team camp -  will help develop both your early season race fitness as well as master race specific skills.

And what better place to do this than in the sunshine on the very same roads where so many of those professional women’s training camps take place?!

£850 (based on two sharing) or £1050 (w/single supplement)

Race Camp Schedule

Day 1

After your transfer to our camp’s training base at the Hotel Astoria Playa in Alcudia, we will build bikes and head out for a 1-2 hour warm-up ride giving you a chance to meet the coaches and other riders who will be a part of your team for the week. Dinner this evening in the hotel will be followed by an overview of the week ahead.

DAY 2

To kick off our week together we’ll have an opportunity to join World and Silver Track Medallist Lydia Boylan for a steady paced 4 hour endurance ride on some of Mallorca’s best roads. This is where Lydia does her own winter training and both Lydia and the coaches will give us some tips on how to get the most out of a true endurance focused ride.  Dinner at the hotel will be followed with a Q& A session and an opportunity to speak with Lydia about her experiences in the professional women’s peloton. 

DAY 3

After a good rest last night we’ll head out for a three hour ride including a stop at one of the best local climbs for some power data testing. Forget FTP tests on your turbo in the kitchen and try a power test on open (traffic free) roads! You’ll have the other riders to push you on and a coach to analyse your results and provide you with a power profile and report that you will able to use for the rest of the training week and to guide your training back at home.  

DAY 4

After yesterday’s all out intervals, today we will have a two hour recovery ride along some of the Mallorca’s famous lanes for coffee in the beautiful old town square of Petra.  Be prepared for tables full of cyclists, cafe con leches and plates of oranges.  Today is all about the recovery, scenery and coffee.   Spend the afternoon relaxing in the hotel or exploring Alcudia.  All riders will receive their own power profile report today based on the results of yesterday’s testing.  This evening’s Q& A session will give you an opportunity to ask questions about the report and training. 

DAY 5

Time to get back to work.  In addition to spectacular roads rolling through Mallorca’s inland villages, today’s ride is designed to include a variety of coached intervals, race specific scenarios and Team Time Trial efforts. 

DAY 6

After yesterday’s day of skills and intervals today we’re back for another professionally paced long endurance ride.  Today we’ll have Claire Steels (winner of 2019 Rás na mBan) joining us for a long ride through her favourite mountainous training ground along Mallorca’s beautiful coast road.  Be prepared for some of the most stunning scenery in Mallorca. Following the ride there will be a Q&A session with Claire about strength and conditioning and how she is preparing for her first year in the pro peloton.

DAY 7

We’ll finish the week up with another ride designed to include race specific scenarios, lead out sprint sessions and other race craft work.   We’re certain you will finish the week feeling fitter and ready to put some of the skills you have been honing into practice at your next race back home. 

Our last meal together will be a celebration dinner!

DAY 8

Morning Transfers back to Palma Airport for flights home!  

**Schedule subject to change at Coach’s discretion based on weather and other circumstances

The Coaching

Our coaches are experienced in helping athletes develop and become more proficient, and confident, in the areas they wish to improve. All riders who register will be given a pre-camp questionnaire to indicate their race experience level and areas where they would like to make progress. 

Along with seven days of riding in Mallorca, some of the skills and topics that could be included both on the bike and in evening Q&A sessions include: 

• cornering and descending in a group

• lead out efforts

• sprinting

• bunch skills tactics for all wind conditions

• team tactics

• TT pacing

• training, recovery and nutrition

Riders will have the opportunity to practice and develop their racing skills while receiving on going feedback both on and off the bike.  

Racers will leave this week with an individual power profile to guide their continued training as well as be better prepared both physically and mentally for the 2020 racing season.  

Read more about Coach James Spragg and Spragg Cycle Coaching.

Accommodation

For the spring 2020 Race Craft Skills Camp we’ll be staying at the four star Hotel Astoria Playa in Alcudia. Simply put, we love this hotel. Great amenities, adult only, central location, quiet, fantastic restaurant and spectacular pool for relaxing at after a hard day on the bike. With a state of the art bike center and mechanic on site - this hotel in the North of the island is the perfect base camp for our week.Price is based on twin sharing, with single supplement rooms available.

IS THIS FOR ME?

Yes..  If you’ve discovered the fun of “pinning a number on” and given bike racing a go! You enjoy the fun and thrill of riding in a pack of women and are now looking to step up to the next level in your racing journey.  Be it to the next category, more open road races, or just more confidence in your racing skills and tactics to initiate more moves and drive the race.

WILL I BE FAST ENOUGH?

This week is about developing your race skills and fitness, not competition. Whether you are an individual woman just starting out with racing for your local cycling club, or a member of a small women’s team this week is designed for you.  Our coaches are experienced at working with riders with a range of racing experience and skills and have designed a week that will benefit amateur women racers of all speeds, experience and ability levels looking to improve their race skills and performance.  After a week of experiencing the camaraderie of working as a team you may just leave the camp having made a few new teammates.

THE FINE PRINT

Please note that for this camp we ask for a 50% deposit on booking, with the balance due 22 February, 2020

For full booking terms and conditions please click here.

MEET THE COACH

James Spragg is a British Cycling Certified qualified coach. He is  also a member of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Scientists and has completed a MSc in Applied Sport Science focussing on improving endurance performance in elite cyclists. In addition, he is a member of the prestigious UK Coaching Performance Coaching Association. 

He has worked with, or continues to coach, Olympians, European Champions in Cyclocross, National Road Race Champions, National Track Champions as well as World and Europeans Championship medallists across a number of disciplines.

Having raced professionally in the past both on the road and at the highest level of cyclocross, when not coaching now he is most likely to be found hiking or skiing in the Austrian alps with his dog Buddy.

Read more about James and Spragg Cycle Coaching.