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Tim Johnson 2004 Diary
Tim Johnson earned the Stars and Stripes jersey of a national champion in 2000 when he won the elite national cyclocross championship, adding to his four national cyclocross championship titles, one as a junior, two as an under 23 and one as a senior elite. Tim also has the honour of being the first American to medal at a world championship cyclocross race with his Bronze Medal at the 1999 Cyclocross World Championships. This year he starts with Saunier Duval-Prodir, a European Division One team, and will post regular diaries of his travels.
Tim Johnson 2004 Diary: Equipo, Squadra, Team
Greetings From Mallorca.
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For me, these last ten days with Saunier Duval-Prodir have been about building experiences that we can share as teammates and use as a foundation for the long year together. To build a team, coming together, is what it's been all about for me lately. Our team motto is respect- respect between riders, respect between riders and staff and respect for ourselves. Using this ideal will bring us results and create an environment where we can all excel.
I flew in to Spain a couple of days early to spend time at my teammate Joaquin Rodriguez's house. Joaquin is former ONCE rider who won a stage in Paris-Nice and the Vuelta a España and even wore the leader's jersey last season. He was great, he showed me his town outside of Barcelona, made breakfast for me and even put my bike together the first morning. He's a bit of a revelation in Spain and has star power, but coming from ONCE, he's quick to dispel any notion of him being different or better than anyone else. He told me stories about his three years there and I'm not surprised that he's a very confident rider, but willing to ride to the limit for someone else. Those are qualities that I really admire. This year, on Saunier Duval-Prodir, he'll be a leader for Catalunya and at the Vuelta.
Then we drove down to a team training camp on the Costa Azahar. The Marina D'Or hotel is a sponsor of the team. The area is a bit north of Valencia on the Mediterranean coast where it's all about tourism, but the area is not quite as well known as other parts of the Spanish Mediterranean coast. They have a mini-Las Vegas thing going on with a bunch of hotels and tons of apartments. We were styled out in the 5-star hotel with a thermal complex right in the middle. Pretty sweet.
During our five days there we put in some big miles in and around Castellon. Training in the hills, we were having mini-races on the climbs. Climbing is hard, especially when it's balls out and the wind is blowing at 40km/h into your face... Actually, the riding was great and I felt very good in the team's first camp because of my time in Santa Barbara last month. My fiancée Lynne and I stayed with good friends of ours and I had time to ride in the hills above town. It's a great place to train and you can't beat the weather!
The highlight of our time in Castellon was something that Mauro Gianetti, our team manager, introduced to help us get together as a team. He brought in two Swiss guys who run motivational and team building camps. In Italian, Spanish and a bit of Swiss-German, we all talked about our personal goals and team goals. Once we established our objective, it was time to try and reach it. It was a night to change us. We used techniques to help us reach our limit and then go a little past it. We opened a door to a new limit and seeing what is really possible for us to achieve via their techniques.
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After the camp in Marina D'Or, the entire Saunier Duval-Prodir team decamped and headed to northwest Spain to the same hotel where we had our December camp. The Gran Hotel Balneario Puente Visego put on our official team presentation. We got all our new kit and saw the shiny new cars and bikes. Wow! It was like Christmas in January. At the presentation, we were all introduced along with our very own dancing girl escort, the whole nine yards!
I met the people from Prodir, the Swiss Pen company that is our co-sponsor. They've started selling pens in the US and were looking for a way to get the word out... Of course as a perk, everyone got a sweet Saunier Duval-Prodir pen to go home with! The pen went beautifully with our super-cool official team suit! We will wear a nice 3 button suit with shoes and overcoat any time we are on a plane traveling. It's funny to have them, because on my trip over from the States, I shared a plane with a Spanish Basketball team that were sporting their official suits too. They were certainly easy to pick out.
All the hours spent on the bike with the boys have been great. My español is improving all the time; it's still better one on one rather than a bunch at once. We are all real teammates now and have the same objectives in mind. We will be racing to win and it's a great feeling and a team that I'm proud to be apart of.
Now I'm in Mallorca for my first races of the season, my first races on a Division One team. Beside that, I'm going to have a real distraction while on Mallorca. It's Super Bowl Sunday coming up with my Patriots and also cyclo-cross World's in France. So I'll be glued to Eurosport when I'm not on my bike!
Thanks for reading!
Adios,
Tim Johnson
