AthletiCamps Gift Certificates - Always the right gift!

A gift certificate from AthletiCamps is the perfect holiday gift for that cycling fanatic friend or family member. We offer a variety of values to fit your budget. Just click on a value, make your payment, and AthletiCamps will contact and send you a customized gift certificate of your choice!

Purchase your gift certificate here....

Mt. Diablo is Conquered

This past Sunday, the Diablo Challenge, otherwise known as the Bay Area World Climbing Championship, took place. For those few of you who don’t know, Mt. Diablo is a 3300 foot climb that takes place over 10.8 miles. It is one of the landmarks of the San Francisco Bay Area. There were approximately 1000 participants in this mass start hillclimb. AthletiCamps athletes did extremely well in this event, taking 3 of the top 5 spots! One of our coaches, Dave Levine, came in 5th with a time of 48:16. In 3rd place was first timer Jonny Moskowitz at 47:22. And, last but not least, Brad Hillebrandt came in 2nd place with a time of 47:15, just 5 seconds away from first place. Congratulations to these athletes and their cycling coaches, Bruce Hendler and Matt Larson, on their outstanding performances.

AthletiCamps' Italian Trip a HUGE Success

AthletiCamps cycling coaches took a small group of 12 to the commune of Laporecchio in the heart of the Tuscon countryside. Our hosts were non other than Andrea and Gloria Tafi. Andrea of course has won such famous races as Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders. The trip was fantastic, every day packed with great rides in the Tuscon hills, the best food, wine and oil and surprises from our famous host around each corner.

We cannot wait to go back next year. if you are interested, please contact Athleticamps to reserve your spot soon. It's already filling up!

2010 Camp Calendar Announced

AthletiCamps has published it's 2010 camp calendar. Our cycling coaches are truly looking forward to a special year with the goal of helping more and more athletes thru a variety of cycling camps and different cycling training plans.

Contact us for any questions.

Are you ready to join the AthletiCamps movement?

Check out the 2010 calendar here....

Interview with the Newest Canadian Master's National Champion

Here is a great interview with Dan Martin, winner of this year's Canadian National Masters Championships. Again, congratulations to Dan for a great effort:

Read the interview here...

Two New NorCal District Cycling Champions!

Congratulations to Dave Morton and Eric Fischer. They both won district road championships on the Ft. Ord course this past weekend. Eric had just returned from Cascade and the U23 nationals up in Bend and his victory comes with alot of hard work and help from his Safeway teammates. Dave targeted this race earlier in the year as a major goal towards achieving his upgrade points Again, congrats to both and continued success the rest of the year.

Sattley District TT Course Paved

Good news for our district, as our time trial course up in Sattley is finally being paved after all these years. The course has been slowly deteriorating for some time now, having major stress cracks. The pavement project goes from Highway 49 to the Plumas county line. After the county line, the road improves.

Great news and motivation for next year.

Kyle Leto Smokes the SF Triathlon with the Big Guns!

Kyle Leto competed in the San Francisco ITU Pro race, his very first ITU race and finished 5th overall. Kyle was one of the fastest swimmers of the day, 3rd out of the water. He had a fantastic bike and road the entire course with the Olympic gold and silver medalist from the 2000 and 2008 Olympic games respectfully, Simon Whitfield from Canada. Kyle then had a strong on the run, placing 5th over all at the end of the day.

Kyle’s next race will be the Elite National championships, in Tuscaloosa Alabama, August 22, where he will be competing in the 23 and Under Elites category. As a Pro triathlete Kyle is now looking to earn points via his races in order to eventually qualify and compete at races such as Olympic trails, Olympic games, World Championships, etc. He is off to a great start.

Continued success to Kyle!

Dan Martin Wins Canadian National Championships!

We would like to congratulate Dan Martin (Safeway) on his victory this past weekend at the Canadian National Championships. It's been a long term goal of Dan's to win this particular race and we congratulate him for all his hard work. Continued results over the rest of the season!

Roemer Wins 2009 National Road Championships

Congratulations to Craig Roemer for winning the 2009 Masters Nationals Road Race championships in Kentucky. Craig made the long trek with this goal in mind and came thru. Continued success. All that hard work and sacrifice paid off!

Marisa Asplund Wins Vail Hill Climb!

Congratulations to Marisa Asplund of Durango, CO. as she won the 2009 Vail Hill climb time trial up the 1400+ foot Vail Pass this past weekend. Keep up the good work Marisa!

Auburn Criterium

Congratulations to Jane Robertson (Metromint) for her victory in the 2009 Auburn Crit.  Jane won a sprint of a four person breakaway in an exciting race on a new Auburn course.  A great day for racing and a great victory for Jane and her team!

Susan Lannoo Wins Wente!

Congratulations to Susan Lannoo for her win at the Wente Vineyards road race.  Susan arrived at the bottom of the last climb with 5 other riders remaining from the 50 original starters and rode away for the win!  As a bonus this gave her enough points to move up to Elite 3's.  Congrats Susan!  All the hard work is paying off.

Dan Martin Loves Cat's HIll

Congratulations to Dan Martin (Safeway) for his extraordinary win at this past weekend's Cat's Hill criterium in Los Gatos.  Dan won the Pro event in 2007 and now adds the Master's event to his resume!

Pre-riding a Race Course

It’s a well-known fact that pre-riding a road race course is one the primary to-do’s of race preparation. Knowing the intricacies of the course is one of those things that coaches request their riders do before any race.  Having a good understanding of the course you are about to race can give you a competitive advantage that other riders don’t have.  For this article, let’s go into more depth about how you can take advantage of your pre-race ride experience in order to translate that into a better race day result...

Read the rest of the article here...

Announcing the AthletiCamps Race School

Bicycle racing is a difficult and challenging sport. Riders of all abilities who want to be successful in this sport need a diverse package and skills, knowledge and experience to make the most of their individual physical abilities. Most of a rider’s bike racing education is gained “on the bike” and this leaves many learning opportunities to chance along the way. We believe every rider can improve their racing performance more quickly by participating in a “full-immersion” program of race proven techniques and skills. The goal of each weekend Race School Camp is to flatten the learning curve and teach you the skills and techniques you need to be a more effective and successful rider.

With over 75+ years of combined racing and coaching experience, instructors Bruce Hendler (AthletiCamps owner), Kevin Metcalfe (Team Specialized Racing) and Larry Nolan (Team Specialized Racing) have developed a curriculum that will fill your bag of tricks with things that many riders will never learn in all their years of racing.

This is not a racing fitness program, although you will complete many hours of riding that will certainly benefit your conditioning. When you come to the AthletiCamps Racing School you will learn “how to” race your bike to make better use of the fitness you have and will build in the future. Come join us for a truly remarkable and rewarding experience and let us help you become a more successful bike racer.

Sign up here...

Margraf and Safeway Win San Dimas Stage Race

With an incredible team effort, Mike Margraf (aka Junior) won the San Dimas stage race this past weekend by .29 of a second! Going into the last day, Mike was 18 seconds down and in third place. There were 40 bonus seconds up for grabs in the final crit. Mike and the team worked hard and got the amount they needed to secure the victory.

Just a great effort! Congrats to Mike for his second San Dimas win in 3 years. He obviously likes the race:-)

Preventing Overtraining with Proper Recovery

I realize it may seem early in the race season to write an overtraining and recovery article. Well, that is exactly why I wanted to approach this important subject. It’s the end of March, a lot of the country is just getting ready to race (except here in California of course) and spirits and motivation are high. This is the optimal time to discuss this all-important topic, so you can prevent it from happening this year and have a long, successful season. For this article, I took a slightly different approach by first asking a coach, Dr. Aldo Sassi of the world-renowned Mapei Center in Milan, for his perspective and advice. We then took the riders perspective with Dario Cioni, our trusted professional, all around good guy, who just happens to work under the guidance of Dr. Sassi...

Read the complete article here....

Berkeley Hills Time Trail - Martin and Margraf Come Out on Top!

Congratulations to Mike Margraf (aka Junior) and Dan Martin for there impressive Berkeley Hill TTT win this past weekend. Mike and Dan took on a lot of impressive Bay Area competition and came out on top. Continued success for both them and the Safeway team as they go into two great stage races over the next couple weekends: Madera and San Dimas.

Also - congrats do Dan for his win at the Merco Crit the weekend before.

The winning continues at AthletiCamps!

Routines and Checklists

We are always attempting to think of new topics to explore in our articles to help make our readers better bike racers.  Most of the time, we are writing about some physical or mental aspect of training, which of course is necessary and important.  This time, we wanted to explore something a little more “off the beaten path.”

Read the complete article here...

Attend Camps - Get Upgrade Points!

Did you know that by attending one of our camps or clinics, you can qualify for upgrade points? The Northern California district of USA Cycling (NCNCA) allows upgrade points for certain categories. Here is a summary:

• For Men's category 5's - Five mass start races of the ten needed to upgrade to category 4


• For Men's and Women's category 4's - Three points towards your upgrade to category 3

Currently, this only applies to the Northern California district. If you are coming to camp from out of district, we recommend you contact your USA Cycling district representative and tell them how our district allows camps to count towards upgrade points. They may very well do the same thing, since it's something that is under district control.  You can contact us for more help.

This applies to all scheduled AND custom camps and clinics

Also - this is retroactive for the past two years. So, if you attended a camp in 2007 or 2008, please contact us for a certificate.

Member of Facebook?

We've created a new Facebook group and would love for you to join. You must be a member of Facebook, so if you haven't done so, sign up (it's free) at www.facebook.com and do a search in groups for "AthletiCamps".

Facebook Homepage

The 2009 Cycling Season is Here!

The 2009 spring racing season is fast approaching and motivation is high with the holidays behind us. Racers of all levels are planning their training and racing schedules for the upcoming season. Let’s start off January with a Pro Shop featuring two of our most trusted (and all-around nice guys) resources for training and racing information: Dario Cioni and Burke Swindlehurst. Dario has moved to the new ISD team and will play a different role as the elder statesman of the group. He will now be able to assume the role of mentor and team leader. Burke will enter his 12th year as a professional with Team Bissell and plans to do all the major US races. For this month’s questions, we talked about early peaks and a general training approach to the year. Burke is doing the Tour of California and Dario’s team is currently also trying to get in the race.

Read the complete article here....

January Four Day Camp - Still Time to Register!

Happy New Year!

Our first four day camp of the year still has openings. If you were thinking of attending a camp to help your cycling this year, January is a great time to visit. Please visit our website for more information.

January Four Day Testing and Endurance Camp

New Cycling Workshops Scheduled for May and June

Workshops are back this year! AthletiCamps will be a leading two three-day cycling workshop spread out over a three dates that will teach athletes of ALL levels to train smarter. Participants will learn their true lactate threshold, heart rate and power training zones and how to apply them to their riding during two on-bike instruction training sessions.

Click here to see all the details and sign up now.