February camp 1 starts tomorrow, though for me it started this afternoon with a four hour drive to the Marseille airport. I picked up our Japanese rider Yukiya Arashiro, who is fresh from 35 degrees in Thailand to 3 degrees here, our Swiss rider Johan Tschopp, Vincent Jerome, who's getting better and better after a nagging injury kept him off his bike for 42 days over the winter, and Mat Claude.

As soon as we got to the hotel I made a round of the rooms to visit the riders fresh out of Tour of the Mediterranean. Some looked pretty fresh though they all confirmed they were a bit worn. The weather and race conditions are always a challenge there, with snow up the climbs and temperatures at zero and below for most of the races..not to mention race kms changing from day to day.

Anyway, we'll start tomorrow with a mellow 3-4 hour ride, bodies and minds pending, before doing some quality punch work for the rest of the week.

Cheers and thanks for reading,
Marion