Courteney Lowe: Training camp, Ventura, California.

When I eventually arrived at LA airport I met up with my new team and then Rachel (team manager) picked us all up and we travelled to Ventura, about an hour outside of LA. The next 10 days were spent training, eating, sleeping, getting regular massages and getting to know our team mates. It was amazing. We were handed on head to toe. Adrian, the team mechanic spent hours
and hours getting all the bikes fitted, running perfectly, cleaned and set to ride (there are 12 of us, we have two bikes each that mean 24 bikes, he is amazing.. not to mention the time trial bikes that will be arriving soon). Jeremy, the soigneur, gave us massage, filled and cleaned all of our bottles and provided us with delicious Cliff bars every morning before we rode. Last but definitely not least, Rachel Heal the team manager. Rachel makes everything happen, run smoothly and teaches us everything whether it be on or off the bike. So basically the only thing we had to be concerned about was having a good time, getting to know each other and riding fast.. I could get very used to this.

At the end of the 10 days we had a sponsor evening at the guys house (There are 18 males and 12 females in the Optum Health p/b KBS team). A marquee was set up on the beach with tiki torches around the sides and tables in the middle, with some pretty delicious catering. Was an awesome
evening getting to know the men’s team and all of the sponsers. It was finished off by the guys having a ‘plank off’ where they try to do a plank for 15 minutes, and if they made it then 200 dollars would be put towards World Bicycle Relief. Unfortunately the longest was about 9 minutes.. So Emma and I have made a goal of reaching 15 minutes by the end of the season. We are up to 6 so almost half way.. sort of.

Below are some photos of the camp, thanks to photographer Casey B. Gibson and Emma Grant;

It is going to be one awesome year and I cannot wait to be part of Optum Pro Cycling p/b Kelly Benefit Strategies. Thanks to all of the sponsers who make this possible;

- World Bicycle Relief http://www.worldbicyclerelief.org/.

- Solve http://www.solve-ideas.com/

- Schick http://www.schick.com/

- Orbea http://www.orbea.com/

- OptumHealth Performance http://www.optumhealthperformance.com/index.php

- Medifast http://www.medifast1.com/index.jsp

- Mavic http://www.mavic.com/en

- Look http://www.lookcycle.com

- Large Format Graphics. inc http://www.largeformatgraphics.biz/

- Kuhl https://www.kuhl.com/

- Kurt Kinetic http://www.kurtkinetic.com/

- HED http://www.hedcycling.com/