People email us about camps for one of three reasons.
The first group already knows they want to come and just need a date.
The second group has a friend who's been on a camp and they're curious. They want to know if it's worth the money.
The third group — by far the biggest — wants to come but is quietly worried about something. They don't want to ask in case the question makes them sound like they don't belong. So we're going to answer those questions in public, in the order they actually get asked.
This is what a cycling training camp actually looks like, top to bottom, and the things first-timers worry about that turn out not to matter.
A typical day
Most serious training camps run to the same daily rhythm. The shape is:
- 07:30–08:30 — breakfast at the house. Oats, eggs, fruit, coffee. Big plate.
- 09:30 — kit on, bikes out. The two pace groups roll out together for the first kilometre and split at the foot of the first climb.
- 09:45–13:30 — out on the road. Coffee stop in a village around the two-hour mark.
- 14:00–15:00 — back to the house. Quick clean-up. Late lunch.
- 15:00–18:30 — pool, gardens, nap, optional gym session, optional spin in the village.
- 20:00 — drinks on the terrace.
- 21:00 — long dinner at one table. Tomorrow's plan over coffee.
Five rides, one day off (usually the middle of the week, an easy roll-out or a swim day). Everything else is rest.
The mistake first-timers make is treating a camp like a holiday or treating it like a stage race. It's neither. It's a structured week of riding with the support of a holiday around it. The riding is the work. The food, the sleep, the long lunches and the friends you make at the table are the recovery.
Pace groups — the single most important detail
Two pace groups is the bar. A serious camp runs Chill and Fast (sometimes called A and B, sometimes named for two fictional characters of dubious morals — same idea). The split is sorted on day one, based on what you actually ride like rather than what you said in the booking form, and it gets adjusted through the week.
If a camp only runs one pace group, somebody is suffering or somebody is coasting, and probably both. Avoid those.
Three pace groups is overkill below twenty riders — the groups end up with three or four people each and you lose the sociability. Two is the sweet spot for a 12–20 rider camp. We run two on the Roadman camps.
A few things about pace groups nobody tells you up front:
- The first day's split is provisional. You'll move up or down on day two if it's wrong. Nobody is held to it. We watch the road, talk to the group leaders, adjust.
- The Fast group isn't always the right group for the strongest rider. If you're strong but you've flown in tired, you'll have a better week sitting in the easier group for the first three days and moving up. The point is the week, not the Tuesday.
- Group dynamics matter more than the speed difference. A Chill group with five new friends and a coffee stop conversation about cycling shoes is a better day than a Fast group with two competitive strangers staring at watt numbers. Pick the group you'll enjoy, not the group that flatters you.
The follow car
The follow car is the difference between a holiday and a training week.
A proper camp follow car carries: a track pump, a full toolkit, two spare wheels (one road, one gravel if applicable), a couple of spare derailleurs, multiple spare tubes, a co-driver who knows how to use all of it, ten litres of drink mix, two big tubs of gels and bars, and a radio with both pace groups on speaker.
When something goes wrong on a Catalan back road — a slow puncture, a snapped derailleur hanger, a rider who's bonked at kilometre 80 — the follow car is the difference between a thirty-minute fix and a six-hour wait for a taxi. It's also why a serious camp can run two pace groups on roads that would otherwise be too remote for it.
If a camp pitches itself as serious and there's no follow car, it's not a serious camp. It's a guided ride.
How fit do you actually need to be
The honest answer: six months of consistent riding behind you and a comfortable 90 km distance on a long weekend ride.
Not a specific FTP. Not a power meter. Not a Strava KOM. The thing that matters is consistency — that your body has done a 4-hour ride recently and recovered from it, that you've been climbing, that you can repeat efforts.
What goes wrong is when riders book a camp on the back of a winter spent on Zwift and turn up with no road hours in their legs. Zwift fitness is real, but it doesn't include eating on the bike, descending in a group, or hour four when the weather changes. You can survive a camp on Zwift fitness alone. You won't enjoy it.
Six weeks out from a camp, your build should look something like this:
- A long ride every weekend, building from 3 hours to 5 hours.
- Two structured midweek sessions — one tempo, one harder threshold or VO2.
- A weekly easy ride, properly easy.
- A practice "back-to-back" weekend three weeks out — two long rides on consecutive days.
- A taper week before you fly.
If that looks like more than you've done in months, push the camp out a season. If it looks like a normal training month for you, you're ready.
Food, sleep, and the rest of the week
Food at a camp is half the experience. Big breakfast at the house. On-bike fuelling every 30–45 minutes (gels, bars, drink mix). A proper Catalan or Mediterranean lunch around 14:00 if the ride finishes by then. Long group dinner at 21:00, sat at one long table.
The dinner is where the camp becomes a community. Solo riders are sat in the middle and end up with friends by Tuesday whether they wanted them or not. The Spanish eat late — adapt to it on day one and your sleep stays better than fighting it.
Sleep is the under-rated piece. The riders who come away with the biggest fitness jump from a camp are the ones who treated 22:00–07:30 as sacred. Eight and a half hours every night, dark room, no laptop in bed. Cycling fitness is built in sleep, not on the bike.
What to pack
The actual list, refined over the years:
On the bike:
- Two full kits per riding day (so you're never riding wet kit)
- A gilet and arm warmers
- A light rain jacket
- A base layer for cool starts
- Padded shorts you actually like — bring two pairs of your favourite, not five different pairs
- Two pairs of cycling shoes (one wet, one dry)
- Helmet, glasses (clear and tinted lenses)
- Multi-tool, a tube, a CO2, plus the camp will have spares
Off the bike:
- A pair of trainers and a pair of comfortable jeans/chinos
- One nice shirt for one nicer dinner
- Charger cables for everything
- A bottle of high-strength embrocation
- Paracetamol, ibuprofen, plasters
- Sun cream
Don't bring:
- A power meter you've never trained with
- New shoes
- New shorts
- A bike you've just had built without test rides
The first time you ride a piece of new kit should not be on a five-hour ride in 25°C heat in another country.
What about hire bikes?
Bring your own if you can. It's dialled to your fit and you'll ride it best. Hire is good in Girona — multiple shops with current-spec road and gravel bikes — but plan ahead in October peak, especially for taller riders. Reckon on €60–110 a day depending on the bike. Confirm pedals, saddle and stem dimensions in advance.
If you're flying with a bike, get a proper bike box (not a soft bag) and pack the derailleur off, the chain in a bag, and the wheels with the rotors removed. Most major airlines charge €40–80 for a bike box. Some budget airlines have lottery rules — check before you book.
What it costs and what you actually get
A serious training camp in Europe runs €1,500–3,000 per person for a week, all-in on accommodation, meals and transfers, depending on the operator and the housing. The Roadman Girona camps run at €995 per camp because we keep the team to three (Anthony, Sarah, Matthew), the housing is a private farmhouse rather than a hotel, and we run the camps lean — sixteen riders not sixty.
What's almost always included in a serious camp price:
- Accommodation (5 nights minimum)
- Breakfast every day
- All guided rides
- Follow car support
- In-ride nutrition (gels, bars, drink mix)
- Airport transfers from the local airport
What's almost always extra:
- Flights
- Travel insurance (required, sort it before you fly)
- Lunches and dinners eaten out
- Hire bike if you need one
- Single-room supplement if you don't want to share
Don't shop on price alone — the difference between a €700 camp and a €1,500 camp is usually the follow car, the rider-to-staff ratio and whether the kitchen has someone who knows what cyclists need to eat. The €700 camps fill up because they sound cheap; the €1,500 ones fill up because the people who came last year came back.
The questions nobody quite asks
A few things first-timers worry about that we'll answer here without anyone needing to email:
"Will I fit in?" Yes. The audience that comes to a serious training camp is overwhelmingly working professionals in their 30s, 40s and 50s who train hard around busy lives. You're going to find your people inside the first dinner.
"Is it weird going solo?" No. Most riders come solo. We pair up rooms by default; you can take a single room for an extra fee.
"What if I crash?" Travel insurance. Confirm it covers cycling. The Catalan health system is good and Girona has a strong cycling-injury network — most local doctors have stitched up at least one pro.
"What if I just have a bad day?" Take the easy group, take the easy line, take a coffee at the bottom of the climb. The whole week isn't going to ride itself perfectly. The riders who come back year on year are the ones who learn to ride the week, not the day.
The Roadman camps
We run two camps in October 2026, back-to-back, in Girona. Road first (10–15 October), then gravel (16–21 October). Same private farmhouse for both. Sixteen riders per camp, three of us hosting. €995 per camp, €1,700 for both.
Anthony's in one of the two pace groups every day. Sarah handles ops and rides too. Matthew runs the follow car.
If you've read this far and you're still nodding, the only thing left to do is pick your week.
See the Roadman Girona Road Camp →
