January 31 2006, Forest Row, Sussex I'm home - back to reality and the cold weather. Yes, I am back in the UK again. The Discovery camp wound up on Saturday when we had a sponsor ride, basically anybody could come, along with the team and any sponsors who felt they could handle a fifty mile ride. It was a well organised affair, we even had a police escort, which meant the roads were closed. It was a pretty steady ride, but we did have the obligatory burn up at the end. Most of the boys had had quite a heavy night, celebrating the end of camp, so they were not really in the mood for a burn-up with the locals. So it was left to myself, George Hincapie, Michael Barry and Max van Heeswijk to fly the Discovery flag. On the Friday night we had a dinner where Bob Roll was the compere, introducing the team to the diners with his customary wit. Lance was there and in fine form, although he turned round early in the bike ride - a few too many shandys I think. Overall the camp was a great success, we had the most fantastic weather throughout, we did more kms than last year with fewer days riding, we also had more sessions where we pushed it a bit. Reports had been coming our way that the CSC boys were flying at their camp in Tuscany, although by all accounts the weather was pretty bad. With the Tour of California coming up in Feb we knew we had to raise our game a bit. Although having been at a few CSC camps I know that they are training like crazy, in actual fact they will be going to the same hotel in Solvang in a few days time for another camp. I believe they are bringing around 70 people out. I think they are having their team presentation out there because it is now CSC America who are paying the bills. I did join the guys for a few more rides, but my climbing did not get any better. Hopefully all the suffering will have brought me on a bit for the few races back in the UK I have lined up. I did, however, impress the boys one day. It was the last long ride of the camp, six hours or so. At the end of each ride there is a sprint for the Solvang sign - yes - even the pros do it. Anyway, two of the riders launched themselves with help from the team car at about 70kph with around 2km to go. That is definitely cheating and with around a 1.5km to go they had a 00m lead, I turned to Roger Hammond and said, 'shall we go after them?' he turned to Eki and said: 'it's a bit late isn't it?' 'No, let's go' I said, and went, I got it up to 56kph, held it for around 500 metres and slung Eki in. The only problem was Roger never got onto the wheel, but Fumi Beppu had and those two closed the gap in the last 200 metres and Fumi took the prize. I knew he really wanted it because he had his own film crew over from Japan filming him, he is apparently a bit of a star in the Land of the Rising Sun. So, camp over for another year. My next trip with the team is back out to the Tour of California, were as I said we will be taking on the CSC gang. It should be a great race and we are all really looking forward to it. Before that I have a couple of races. Next sunday I have the GS Stella 42km TT, then on the 12th I have the Perfs Pedal road race season opener, an event I won back in 1978. I will file a report on both of those events as soon as they are done. Until then. January 21, 2006 Hell, that was hard. Six hours out in the hills with the Tour contender group of the Discovery Cycling Team. Actually, they weren't really hills, more like mountains, 15km ones. After the ride I promised the guys that the next time I drove by them on a mountain climb in the team car I would be a lot more sympathetic. Because although I know that I am now almost 46 years old and my pro years have long passed, those mountains are just no fun, especially when you are not a climber, which I am definitely not. As I said in my previous entry I was riding a Trek Madone that the team lent me. Now I know that this bike has won the TDF for the last seven years, plus a couple of other Grand Tours. But I much prefer my Omega, which I had to leave at home because the guys here did not want anyone to be seen on anything but a Trek. I would definitely have felt a lot better on a bike that I am used to. My SRM worked well and made for some interesting reading. My average output for the six hours was 182 watts, with a maximum of 720 watts. The weather is perfect for riding at the moment. Although I don't think I will be tempted to go out on the bike tomorrow, more like a rest day. The guys have another long ride on their program. I will be in the team car for this one, with Johan, talking about who is going to be riding what in the upcoming races. I will see what I am allowed to tell you. Till next time. Sean Back

Professional cyclist for 15 years
12 Tours de France
Tour de France yellow jersey
Tour de France stage winner
Fifth in Paris-Roubaix
Tour of Belgium winner
UK pro road race champion
UK 25 and 50-mile TT champion