Italy was great. The idea of the training camp was to get a good solid block of training done.
Monday
Flew out to Forli. Claire and George flew out that day too. Dunks met us at the airport and then we headed back to Cavi. Met the boys once they got back from their recovery ride.
Tuesday
Relocated to the Monestry in Sansapolcro - awesome monestry where we encountered live monks walking around in their monk garments. Jame Burrows took us on a local route to the monestry purched high up on a mountain. 
The heavens opened up and everyone scattered for shelter. By the time I got down to the cross road everyone had disappeared. Thanks to my Garmin 301 forerunner I was able to trace my way home.
Wednesday
Headed out for a ride with the boys. Dunks, Kev, Jamie Burrow and myself continued on and completed 150 km. We did 2600m of climbing. Weather was lovely and hot. Felt knackered afterwards though. Good ride.
Thursday
Went out with Dunks, Kev, Alex and Clayton. We did a hard climb lasting over an hour. Will try and remember the name of the climb. The climb takes you to a dead end where a hole stack of masts can be found and seen from miles away. The climb was awesome. Dunk and Kev raced on ahead leaving Alex, Clayton and myself dragging behind. The descent was pretty scary, but fun. During the last 2 hours of the ride I suffered and discovered later that I was coming down with something... the lurgy. Thanks Briggsy :-(
Friday
Woke up with a really painfull throat. Briggsy had indeed passed his lurgy to me.
Alex Hagman, Neil and Gazza went to ride the crit. After thinking that it might be bullet hard it turned out to be a pozer procession. Was awesome for the guys to ride a race with Italian pros including the likes of Cunego.
Saturday
I just chilled out and tried to recover. Caught up on washing and odds and ends and got ready for the race the next day.
Sunday
Race day - the Grando Fondo was near Moncatini where the weekend-long cycling festival was taking place. Dunks, Kev, Gazza and Neil rode a great race, but it was super-powerful Duncan that rode exceptional. He finished 13th in the end with Kev in 19th. We stayed a while and had some food before heading home on the 3.5 hr journey.
Monday
Felt a lot better. We went for a short ride to the local village for a light easy spin. Then headed back to Cavi to pack and get ready to catch our flight home.
Due to a number of problems with DART, our old bike sponsor, we moved back to Viner bikes as our official bike sponsor.
The paint job is done out in our team colours (light blue) and has been specced with Dura Ace and a Deda carbon chainset. We've also been given arguably the best non-profiled high pressure wheelsets on the market - the Fulcrum 1's.
