The Shack Breaks Camp

“Summary Highlights from Team RadioShack’s First Training Camp in Tucson, Arizona (USA)”

As Team RadioShack broke their training camp this past Monday, there had to be an air of satisfaction and excitement. The week’s events included both road and trail team-rides, sessions with management and the sponsors, some off-the-saddle extracurricular team-building, the requisite publicity events and a philanthropic aspect as well.

The riders and management arrived on Sunday evening, traveling in from literally the four corners of the globe, including Asia, Africa, and Europe, as well as North America. In addition to the ProTour Shack team, the U23 development team, Trek-Livestrong, was also at the training camp.

For the likes of Bjorn Selander and Sam Bewley, both riders on the Trek-Livestrong U23 squad for 2009, it was a nice reunion with the chance to remember stories from the ’09 season, and begin the next chapter of their racing career. Old Astana teammates, including Chris Horner, Levi Leipheimer, Yaroslav Popovych, Andreas Kloden, Jani Brajkovic, Tomas Vaitkus, Haimar Zubeldia, and Jose Luis Rubiera came together again. And of course, there were new faces in the room as well, riders who rode for other teams in 2009 and who had now joined Team RadioShack.

The week began early Monday morning with a team meeting and then a ride through the streets in and around Tucson. The Shack’s peloton could be seen rolling through the city, riders dressed in colorful assortment of kits (uniforms) from their respective 2009 teams. In addition to the team-rides on the Tucson roads, including a “sponsors ride” on Thursday, there were a couple of team mountain bike trail rides, where it sounded from Twitter posts that good fun was had. The mountain bike racing champion Brian Lopes was along for a few of the rides during the week as well, including the mountain trail rides.

The Shack squad and U23 Trek-Livestrong team came together in the training peloton during the week, helping to build camaraderie and rapport between the development team and their ProTour counterparts. There was also a team-building event Friday afternoon featuring laser-tag, bumper boats, and go-cart racing (according to tweets by Sam Bewley).

Team RadioShack also held its first official press conference, lead by Johan Bruyneel and Lance Armstrong. As was reported elsewhere on www.teamradioshack.us and Cycling News also, Armstrong made it clear that the team won’t be built around him. The focus and goals will be for the team as a whole, and especially several of the other highly qualified cyclists on the squad.

Later in the week, the team kits were previewed to mixed reviews from the public (at least from the 137 comments posted on the fan site). The final design won’t be unveiled until the team’s first race in January. Trek Bicycles was also present in Tucson to outfit the team with their new Madone model that the team will be riding during the 2010 season. Each rider received a racing bike custom-fit to their measurements.

There was a team dinner toward the end of week where both the ProTour and U23 squads were together again to dine and listen to presentations by RadioShack, Trek, and the Livestrong Foundation. Accounts from the evening indicate a strong sense of support from the sponsorship group and a further strengthening of the team. RadioShack representatives made everyone’s night by presenting iPods (Touch model) to the team, so they’d always be connected!

The underlying theme that Armstrong has promoted since his rise to the top of the ProTour in 1999 — his crusade against cancer via the Livestrong Foundation — was present throughout the week (evident too by the Livestrong kit he wore during the team rides). As Armstrong himself has stated, his decision to return to professional cycling in 2008 was meant to help create a platform of awareness and to promote a global cancer campaign. His new book just released, Comeback 2.0, chronicles first-person his return to the ProTour and experiences in 2009. There was a book signing event at a Tucson bookstore near the end of the week (see the article Lance Armstrong Book Signing, Tucson by teamradioshack.us staff writer Todd Huff).

Finally, there was a surprising development and tremendous gesture of philanthropy associated with Livestrong fundraising efforts that played out during the training week as well. A blogger and amateur cyclist’s on-line humor turned into a similarly outlandish challenge by team manager Johan Bruyneel. The exchange ultimately resulted in more than $100,000 being raised in a week’s time for the fight against cancer (see staff writer Fitzalan Gorman’s piece, The Fat Cyclist Joins Team RadioShack for a Day for a great recap of that story).

At the end of the week, goodbyes were exchanged and members of Team RadioShack and Trek-Livestrong’s U23 squad departed their Tucson camp to head home. In the coming weeks they’ll be training individually, and enjoying the December holidays. Soon enough, The Shack will be making final preparations for their first competition at the Santos Tour Down Under Australia at the end of January 2010. All in all, a great week, and great things to come!

By Jeff Ludlum, staff writer