Sunday 9 February 2014

New Year, New Team

Hi everyone


Here's my winter update.


After a great year experiencing a full season of racing and living in Spain, in 2014 my focus and goals are the races in the rest of Europe and the UK.

My new racing team KTM road-and-trail.com are based near Manchester. It's a newly formed top British team with lots of experienced riders and younger developing ones. KTM are our bike sponsors and shared backer through British based FLI distribution and road-and-trail.com is an online KTM bike seller. The team is also supported by Herbalife 24, Datatag, Continental, Kalas and Dulux. More sponsor info on my support page.

The team ethos and aims are to challenge in foreign stage races and classics in Europe which appealed to me as a rider. It has the ambition of being UCI continental. Follow the team on twitter @ktmroadandtrail.


Most of the team lined up in our new race kit, you can find out more about them here. (Photo from KTM Cycling.)
Training over the winter has been great. I have a personal coach for the first time and I have been making the most of the indoor Glasgow Velodrome each week through out the winter. The track sessions and racing there have been hard and fast and I am really enjoying it.


Training round my local roads like up Glen Fruin on the KTM winter bike.
In December, I was at a 10 day training camp in Gerona with the Scotland team. There was a big squad of guys there, a mixture of some of the top road, track and mtb riders from Scotland. We got some solid training hours in and I have found it has been great gaining the endurance from it earlier than I would normally. It's a nice region, Catalonia is, and a good mixture of terrain to train on.


900 metres on the summit of the Rocacorba climb. Steep 13 km climb. Stunning scenery over looking the town of Banyoles. 

The Scotland squad was joined by Garmin's David Millar for most of the camp which was awesome. (Photo by David Brandie)

Me and Gary Hand posing at the end of  our ride, just along the road from our digs. This is the KTM Revelator which we will be racing on.

In mid January for two weeks, I had my own team training camp in Calpe near Benidorm in Spain. It was good to meet all my new team mates and get to know them. A couple I already knew from Herbalife LLB and Endura development team a couple of years ago.


On the first week, we put in plenty of hours each day in with specific team efforts and also individual stuff. Unfortunately mid way through the camp I developed a knee cap injury. I then had to limit myself on the bike for the remaining days as I was agony pedalling. This was frustrating but I have good strength and fitness in me anyway.


Some of the team riding out of the coastal town of Denia on the flatter Costa Blanca roads.. (Photo by David Clarke)  

Getting ready to do some through and off efforts at Xabia. (Photo by Rob Adlard)


(Photo by David Clarke)

The Commonwealth Games RR in Glasgow is being held in August, I am working hard to earn my selection to race for Scotland. It would awesome to help Scotland win a medal in front of the big crowds in my home city.

My race calendar planning is still on going but so far it looking strong with some stage races in Austria, France and Ireland to look forward to so far.

The team kit and bikes look and feel brilliant. All the team are keen and looking strong and I am sure we will all have a great season racing.


Thanks for reading


Robbie

Follow my racing on twitter @robbiehassan

Calpe in Costa Blanca
(Photo by David Clarke
Cafe Stop at Guadalest. Really fast and fun descending roads here. (Photo by David Clarke)