Tom Pidcock, who finished third in last year's Vuelta, and six of his Pinarello–Q36.5 teammates are preparing for the new season at a high-altitude training camp in Chile. They are training for 25 days at the El Colorado ski resort and will return to Europe in early February. In the Andes, they are living at an altitude of 2,780 meters above sea level.
"It’s through these extreme experiences that we should be ready for top-level performance in March," said Brent van Moer. "I’m not saying I’m riding 5 km/h faster than I would training on Teide, but the conditions here are good, and it’s nice to be somewhere else for a change."
Pinarello–Q36.5 performance manager Kurt Bogaerts said that difficult weather conditions make typical destinations like Sierra Nevada in Spain or Livigno in the Italian Alps impractical, and Mount Teide on Tenerife is often overbooked.
The local conditions are quite extreme. Xandro Meurisse added that even at 2,700 meters above sea level, it was over 20 degrees at eight in the morning, and in the valleys where they do their interval training, temperatures reached 36 degrees. "It’s like an oven," said Meurisse. "The sun beats down mercilessly here. The UV index is currently 14. If you sat in the sun for ten minutes without SPF 50 sunscreen, you’d be completely burnt."
High-altitude training camps in South America are not entirely unheard of for European teams, although Chile is by no means a standard destination. Sprint legend Mark Cavendish and some of his Astana teammates spent time in the mountains of Colombia in January 2024. About ten years ago, Giro d’Italia winner Richard Carapaz mentioned that he was inspired to pursue a professional career when the Astana team bus appeared in his high-altitude home region of Carchi in neighboring Ecuador during an off-season.
The Pinarello–Q36.5 riders are also really enjoying the opportunity to see plenty of wildlife in the exceptionally beautiful landscape. "The terrain is completely incomparable to European mountains. When we have to ride for an hour and a half up to El Colorado after training in the valley, we see wild horses on the mountain slopes and condors in the sky," said Quinten Hermans. "This ski village is almost deserted, and currently, there are more condors living here than people."
Tom Pidcock is preparing for the season in an "oven" at an altitude of 2800 meters (VIDEO)
