Ivan Basso with his family (Image credit: Ivan Basso)
Ivan Basso has been making headlines recently during Liquigas' mountain retreat. After bringing you the first installment of his new diary on Cyclingnews, the Italian has returned with another journal entry about his latest activities. We sneak a peek at his second entry as he talks about family holidays, team camps and what lies ahead after Christmas. Read on...
Starting the season right
Lately I've been on vacation with my family and attended the first of many team camps. Our week-long holiday in Zanzibar was beautiful, the first vacation I've taken with a clear head, as previous holidays have all been about getting away from my problems. This one was for the family though, and a chance for us to relax. I dedicated all my time to my wife and children and forgot about any work stuff because this would be the last chance to spend a lot of time with them as the season will soon be off and running.
The camp has gone well and I am very happy with my teammates – we were able to find a good rhythm. Like many off-season camps, we did a lot of off-the-bike work; plenty of cross-country skiing, hiking and mountain biking in the snow. It was very different from what we will do at the next camp, which will be focused on the bike. This time together allowed us to gather and enjoy time with work, something that helps us get to know each other better this way. Check out the photos, and you can see we had a lot of fun.
Liquigas is a big team and one of the strongest in the world, and we have a budget to do have these camps. It's far cry from how things used to be. When I made my debut with Riso Scotti [1999] there was only one day set aside in December to hand out the team materials – bikes, racing and casual clothing. We would do a proper camp in January and start racing in February. Now, we have 10 days in Bibione and San Pellegrino, we will do a ten-day camp in Spain, and – whoever goes to Argentina [Tour de San Luis] – will do another 10 days of camp before the race.
