Inside Adageo: Part 3
Adageo Energy Pro Cycling team director Josh Horowitz shares his team’s secrets for staying in top form.
TL: What’s it like directing the team and being a member of it?
JH: When I’m racing I try to just be one of the guys on the team, a good team player. Cycling is very much a team sport. It’s all about strategy and teamwork. It’s not just one person out there. When we win a race it’s one guy up on the podium but we split the prize money and consider it a team win.
TL: You’ve said that you’re aiming for long-term rider synergy. What do you mean by that?
JH: We try to find riders who are going to lift each other up. Guys who have talent but have not been able to maximize their talent on other teams. We have tried to pick guys who we have seen developing and hope will really blossom. We’re not a big budget team so we can’t just go out and buy the best riders out there. The other thing is finding the right guys. If you have too many top guys then it just causes problems.
TL: How do you guys improve communication? Do you all hang out?
JH: When we’re on the road we’re together for days and sometimes weeks at a time. We also do two training camps. We did one in January in Los Angeles and that was about three days. The whole team rode together, we ate together, we basically did everything together for three days. And then the big training camp we did, which really cemented the team bond, was in Lake Mead in February. We stayed on houseboats for a week. We had three houseboats that we crammed the whole team onto. I do sports psychology and some hypnosis stuff, so we did a team guided visualization session to help cement the bond, so those camps are a big part of strengthening the team bond.
TL: What’s your favorite ride to do when it’s just you and your bike?
JH: Well, I live in Los Angeles and most people think that it’s not the best place to ride a bike, but I can be on the Pacific Coast Highway in about half an hour and from there I can do any number of climbs. One of my favorites is a canyon called Encinal Canyon. It’s in Malibu and it comes straight off the coast. You’re on the ocean one minute and then 20 minutes later you’re 2,000 feet above it looking down. It kind of reminds me of why I ride a bike.
Click here to see part 1 of this interview.
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