Training Camp and Easing in to Argentina

Id seen some photos from the Tour de San Luis last year that included the peloton crossing a fairly sizeable river, up to the wheel hubs in water.  So I guess I wasn’t too surprised to see the rig below waiting for us to pick up our gear at the airport.  Yes, that’s a proper Land Rover type 4WD vehicle, complete with a snorkel.  I havnt seen any other teams with such a set up, so surely if it comes to river crossings and barren rocky deserts, team Liquigas Cannondale will have the most able follow car out there…

In reality, I havnt seen this thing do anything but pick our bikes up from the airport and then sit in front of the hotel all week.  But mayble ill be in for a surprise in a few days.

Anyways team Liquigas-Cannondale is pretty popular down here.  My teammate Vincenzo Nibali won the race in 2010 en route to the Vuelta Espana victory latter in the year, and we are looking to repeat his successes as well as pop in there for the sprint stages with our star speedster Elia Viviani.  We arrived a week prior to the race to adjust to the heat and the time change and to check out some of the stages.  We havnt really done a whole lot of reconn at all actually but fortunately (or not) a few of the stages are literally out and back on a long straight road.  good fun.  Stage 3 will definitely be a doozy…we rode it the other day.  A massive 25 km stair stepping climb in the middle followed by a ripping euro style descent on American sized road,  littered with South American style debris (rock fall, sand traps, water crossing, and a herd of goats). Im sure the organizers will do their best to clear it out come race day though. 

Other than training, you eat and sleep and training camp.  So ive been sleeping a lot.  Eating wise, the culinary aspect has been less than exciting.  We did have a nice dinner at a proper Argentinian steak house one night with some of our VIPs in town for the race.  While the steaks were quite large and tasty, the weiters didn’t serve them on swords or offer a few more kilos of various meat products to our plates, like they do at an American “Argentinian Steak House”.  which was fine…a nice steak and a glass of malbec made me happy after a week of eating this….

Oh, its nice to be back in race mode.  flavorless grilled chicken and steamed vegetables.

After the race ends, I will be first in line for one of the “King of Panchos”  famous…pancho…or whatever it its he makes in this little shed on the side of the road.  Im sure its delicious.

And in other news, I like San Luis.  The people are nice, roads are good, the city is safe.   My daily evening jaunt has provided a few entertaining moments.

Theres a lot of awesome old cars still kicking around, including this horse towing the back of an old pickup truck as a trailer, with two people inside.

Its all about meat here in Argentina.

well that’s all the entertainment for now.  An easy day tomorrow and the team presentation, then the 2012 season will be underway on monday!