T-Mobile's snowy training camp

By Susan Westemeyer

T-Mobile is holding a one-week training camp in Badenweiler, Germany, for those riders who aren't currently racing and had hoped to concentrate on time trialing and team time trialing. But Mother Nature had other plans.

"Here we are in snowy Germany and we are making the best of it!" says Australian Adam Hansen on his website, adamhansen.com. "Every day has been fully filled with many things to help us, and the snow here doesn't stop us."

Many riders are using the camp to let themselves be tested or checked by the nearby University of Freiburg clinic. 25 year-old Hansen had his sinuses checked out and sprinter Eric Baumann let them look at the leg he broke last year.

However, the team nearly lost Hansen and young sprinter Mark Cavendish to another sport. "The best fun here was cross-country skiing! I've never done it before and neither had Mark Cavendish, but we both have always wanted to try it." So the team management surprised them with skis. "It was heaps of fun, even knowing that I crashed more times today on the skis than I ever did on my road bike! It was a great workout. Some of us asked if we could do another day of it, but I think they might be afraid that some of us might change from cycling to cross-country skiing!"