Stepping out of Juan Ayuso’s cosy rented apartment that has been repurposed from a ski chalet into a cyclist’s cabin, the setting sun is casting its last golden rays against Pico Veleta. At 3,398m high, it’s Europe’s highest road, inaccessible beyond 2,900m and blocked by eight-metre snow walls.
But figuring out a way to the top of Veleta is not The Athletic’s principal interest right now.
Four-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar and his partner, AG Insurance–Soudal rider Urška Žigart, are holding hands like a pair of teenage lovers. Up ahead, 2026 Paris-Roubaix winner Wout van Aert is engrossed in a phone call.
Across the road from them at the Sierra Nevada ski station in southern Spain, Paul Seixas and his Decathlon CMA CGM team-mates are absorbed by what appears to be an impromptu game of hide and seek, with four or five of them crowding around the back of a telecommunications box, laughing and joking in French like the school-age child Seixas was just one year ago. They are seemingly oblivious to the five deer that have just skipped straight past them.
Scattered along the road are dozens of other WorldTour cyclists, each of them dressed in oversized puffer jackets and woolly hats.
It’s an absurd, surreal scene. Like a real-life sitcom of cycling superstars set on what feels like Europe’s most isolated street.
At the far end of Calle del Torcal is the high performance CAR centre which at 2,320m above sea level houses the continent’s highest soccer pitch, athletics track and Olympic-sized swimming pool. Not to mention pole vaulting apparatus, boxing rings and other sporting facilities. It’s a playground for the sporting elite.
By May the region’s ski season has long passed (Chris Marshall-Bell/The Athletic)
Along the rest of the street, apartments and ski lodges are playing host to pretty much the entire Tour de France peloton. Jonas Vingegaard, en route to comfortably winning the Giro d’Italia, is one of the absent few.
For several weeks every May, riders who will be fierce adversaries in the month of July come together as neighbours in Sierra Nevada. They live in the same communal blocks, share the same roads, and exchange smiles and the odd wave. But friends they are not — they are here to build the foundations for their next tussle.
The plot structure of this bizarre soap opera is mindlessly repetitive, but incredibly effective: every day the cast wakes up, whizzes down towards the beautiful city of Granada to complete a training loop, and then slogs 1,500m of elevation back up to what has been converted from a buzzing and bustling ski resort (with the world’s fourth highest snowfall this past winter) into a mostly abandoned settlement, where just two of the 100+ bars, restaurants and nightclubs are open.
A sense of loneliness pervades Sierra Nevada in May (Chris Marshall-Bell/The Athletic)
There are no adoring fans, no champagne bottles to be uncorked, and no trophies to be lifted. Professional cycling isn’t too glamorous at the best of times, but a Sierra Nevada altitude training camp in May certainly isn’t.
One rider jokingly quips to The Athletic “it’s like being locked in a prison”. A part-obligatory, part-voluntary sentence it is, though.
To be at one’s best at the biggest bike race in the world, altitude training is a necessity.
“If you are not doing an altitude camp it’s very difficult to perform well in a Grand Tour,” says Lidl-Trek veteran Carlos Verona. “You see all the Tour de France is here now preparing for the race because it’s something we all need to do. In the past it was something extra; now it’s a basic part of training.”
Verona will be riding at the Tour in support of his 23-year-old compatriot Ayuso, who, along with Pogačar, Seixas and Remco Evenepoel, each request extra days and weeks to soak up the oxygen-boosting benefits of living at altitude before hopefully reaping them at the Tour.
Life in remote confinement in Europe’s southernmost winter resort is where Tour de France winners are built. So The Athletic heads along to experience what it’s like to live (for a few days, thankfully, not weeks) on cycling’s peculiar answer to Days of Our Lives.
Training at altitude was first popularised for endurance athletes after the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City which were held at an elevation of around 2,200m. Those who had prepared in high-altitude environments performed significantly better than those who did not, proving a turning point in sports science.
Since the Mexico Games, studies have highlighted that spending two to three weeks at an altitude between 2,000m and 2,500m increases the production of red blood cells and natural erythropoietin (EPO) levels, which in turn allows athletes to perform longer and more difficult efforts.
A common misconception is that there’s less oxygen at altitude. Oxygen levels remain at 21 per cent. But there is less oxygen pressure — essentially the air is thinner — forcing the athlete to work harder to adapt to a less oxygen-friendly environment.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that cyclists started embracing altitude — or sleeping in hypoxic altitude tents at home which simulates high-altitude environments — but that was mostly limited to the top riders.
Team Sky (now known as Netcompany-INEOS) changed the game in the early 2010s when they started taking all their riders to altitude — usually to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, and since post-Covid it’s become the norm for climbers and GC specialists to spend more time training at altitude than racing.
“I’ve done one altitude trip every one of my 16 years as a pro, but in the past few years I’ve done three a year. In 2023 I spent more than 100 nights at altitude,” Verona says. Most WorldTour pros don’t ride more than 75 race days per year.
“I remember coming to Sierra Nevada in 2017 with Astana and we were alone,” says Aritz Arberas, a coach at Lidl-Trek. “Nowadays Teide is full, Andorra too, Livigno and Isola as well. Find any altitude location and you’ll find athletes.”
The reason is simple: not only does science extol the benefits, but results — the most influential form of evidence — do, too. “I’ve worked with maybe 500 different riders, and I only know three for whom altitude doesn’t work for them,” Arberas says.
One of those riders is Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen. “It doesn’t help him, and he can achieve very good values and his perfect performance without altitude but there are very, very few riders who are like that,” Arberas adds.
Mads Pedersen is one of the few WorldTour pros who doesn’t derive any benefit from altitude training (NICO VEREECKEN / BELGA MAG / Belga / AFP via Getty Images)
The first thing that strikes any May visitor to Sierra Nevada — which means the snowy mountain range in Spanish — is how soulless it feels.
Lonely chairlifts rock back and forth in the wind, nightclubs are shut, and car parks lay empty. The resort has slipped into hibernation, leaving behind a concrete skeleton of hotels and apartment blocks that on the busiest winter weekends can accommodate 20,000 visitors.
Right now, there’s no one up here and little to do. It’s nothing more than a ghost town.
The Athletic heads out for for a run in search of people and activity. Lidl-Trek’s Mathias Vacek is sympathetic when we tell him of the struggles in the thin air. “The first two days you’re here… woah, everything is so much tougher,” he says. “Everything feels doubly as hard.”
It’s not all training. Ten riders and staff members from the Norwegian Uno-X Mobility team are returning to their apartments with several foot-long model airplanes that they had been flying with remote controllers.
Then we see Pogačar, Žigart and a few more UAE riders admiring the setting sun which Verona describes as “the best sunset in the world.” He adds: “Every day it’s amazing.” He’s not wrong.
The sunsets from high on the mountain are something to behold (Chris Marshall-Bell/The Athletic)
The next day it’s Seixas’ turn with his Decathlon squad to head to the sunset vantage point which is ordinarily a rudimentary guardrail at a fork in the road. A sign says: ‘Granada 32’. Thirty-two kilometres to civilisation.
“I sleep as long as possible to kill the time,” answers 24-year-old Vacek when I ask him what he does in his free time. “I have my computer and play some games like Call of Duty, and with Lenny (Kämna, his Lidl-Trek team-mate) we also play table tennis which is quite fun.”
Lidl-Trek’s Tour leader Ayuso reveals that a penalty shootout has also been organised for the team’s next recovery day. “We’ve found some activities, yeah,” Vacek continues, “but it’s not like you can go into the city and drink a coffee.”
Some do more than socialise, though. Juanpe López, formerly of Lidl-Trek and now of Movistar, met his girlfriend — a runner — at the CAR centre two years ago.
The vast majority, however, are away from their loved ones. Staving off boredom and keeping insanity at bay can lead to questionable decisions.
Last year, riders from multiple teams holed up in Sierra Nevada held unofficial races to try to claim downhill Strava KOM segments. Riders crashed, team directors fumed, and according to Vacek, the race is no more. “It can be dangerous and we said on day one we don’t want to risk anything on the downhill,” the Czech says.
But a new fastest time from UAE’s Florian Vermeersch on June 2 of this year — 23km at an average speed of 75kmh — suggests that not everyone has adhered.
An unidentified ‘Secret Pro’, writing in Escape Collective last year, gave an indication of why. “It was our only way of escaping… the only time to have fun at altitude is when going downhill.”
Even the lonely vending machine housed in the CAR centre is stripped back of all joy: one solitary bag of tempting Oreos is the only snack that can be considered unhealthy, sitting incongruously next to a range of nutritional and protein bars.
Riders killing time with a game of table tennis (Chris Marshall-Bell/The Athletic)
There’s a reason it’s like this though: it’s a place to knuckle down. “I was really looking forward to coming here even one month before,” Verona says, “because it’s where you do everything as best as you can to try to be in your best possible shape.
“I felt from the first day I was here that this was the moment to work hard. It’s difficult to be away from my kids and my family, but it’s very easy to be focused when I’m here.”
Sierra Nevada isn’t the only altitude destination, but in May it’s where the Tour peloton comes to build their condition.
“There are a lot of benefits of being here in May,” Lidl-Trek coach Arberas says. “The weather is key, and it’s often hot weather which helps us get ready for the summer. The routes are also very good: you can find long climbs, flat sections, and roads at altitude. Lots of different options that in other places you cannot find. And then there’s the CAR training centre, where we use their resources like the sauna, ice baths and gyms.”
Verona and six of his Lidl-Trek team-mates were training at Sierra Nevada from May 12 to May 29, while Ayuso stayed on an extra week before the Tour Auvergne Rhône Alpes (formerly known as the Critérium du Dauphiné) where he finished third overall.
Lidl-Trek riders get their lactate levels tested during a training ride (Chris Marshall-Bell/The Athletic)
Alongside the riders were 15 staff members and three team vehicles. “When you came to altitude in the past it was basic and you did everything yourself,” Verona says. “Now it’s easy as you’re surrounded by team-mates and staff.”
It’s a team effort to make sure the riders are in optimal condition. “Every morning we measure their weight, heart rate variability, resting heat rate, oxygen saturation and various other values with the doctor to understand how their fatigue is evolving,” Arberas says. “We’re very careful about monitoring their training volume to make sure that their bodies adapt to the altitude as best as possible to be able to train well.”
“We’re paid to only think about riding our bikes,” Ayuso says. “We come back (from training) and we have everything done for us. We eat super good food and we’ve got the best soigneurs (masseurs), physios, doctors, whatever. I just feel super grateful.”
A light frost on the ground greets the riders when they wake up on the day that The Athletic sits in a team car following Lidl-Trek’s training. They descend to Monachil, a village just outside of Granada, in full winter clothing, and then take off layers and apply suncream. The temperature difference from peak to valley is a staggering 15C/27F.
The seven riders have a 175km route planned with 3,500m of elevation gain, and on each of the three climbs they will perform a 15-minute interval test riding at 80 per cent of their heart rate.
“We’re looking at their lactate, power and heart rate figures,” Arberas explains at the start of the day. “We last did this training session in January. We want to see how their power rates have changed, and how their power decreases from the first to the last climb.”
Arberas takes a blood sample from each rider’s ear — “it’s easier and cleaner than the finger,” he says — and a machine delivers the lactate results in 15 seconds. His helper, ex-Ethiopian pro Mulu Kinfe Hailemichael who escaped the devastating war in Tigray on foot in 2020 to pursue his cycling dream, asks each rider for their perceived rate of exertion (RPE) from 0-10.
A machine can deliver lactate results 15 seconds after a rider’s blood sample has been taken (Chris Marshall-Bell/The Athletic)
It’s a hot, sunny day, and the riders feel the effort more and more as the ride progresses. On the first climb, La Gallina (translated as ‘the chicken’), the average RPE is two. On El Purche, the final ascent, Mattias Skjelmose moans, “I was f***ing cooking,” and Kämna says, “It was nasty in the heat.” Two riders give an RPE of 5.5.
Yet isn’t just on the climbs that the riders are made to work hard: the seven Lidl-Trek riders are split into three different groups on the road. “We realised that when they’re training as a group, the ones at the back aren’t pedalling enough and are riding at a very low intensity,” Arberas explains. “So we put them into smaller groups so they have to pedal at their power target.” No drafting on training camp.
Other riders from other teams are suffering too. Decathlon’s riders begin a time trial session from the Mayerling cafe 12km south of Granada, which every May doubles up as the WorldTour peloton’s rendezvous spot.
Meanwhile, Julian Alaphilippe, agonisingly close to winning the 2019 Tour de France, is panting and breathing heavily when he and two Tudor riders come past the Lidl-Trek car. The Frenchman does have enough energy, though, to jokingly ask Arberas, “What’s the time gap?”
This isn’t a race, it’s training, but everyone’s competitive. Everyone’s eyeing everyone else up. By the end of this ride, Ayuso has burned 5,000 calories. He’s also got a visit to the doctor scheduled.
Just before the day’s second climb, Puerto del Legionario, Ayuso is stung by a bee on his left bicep — almost exactly a year to the day since he withdrew from the 2025 Giro d’Italia due to a negative reaction to a bee sting on his right eye.
Calls are frantically made to multiple team doctors to conjure up the best plan in case of another flare-up, and The Athletic leans out of the team car to pass Ayuso ice to apply to the affected area. The first ice cube pass him falls out of his sleeve. Multi-tasking on the bike is difficult even for the pros.
At first the Spaniard seems as concerned as team staff, but it soon becomes apparent that there will be no repeat of the Giro drama.
Come the final climb, his bee sting is forgotten, replaced by another flash of adrenaline. “Enorme” — enormous — he says of the large snake he’s just ridden past. “Increíble.”
But the decision is made that Ayuso will not ride the final 10km up to Sierra Nevada on his time trial bike as per the rest of his team-mates. Why? Because managing physiological stresses at altitude is far more critical than when at sea-level, and Ayuso’s body now has a bee sting to react to on top of the high-altitude environment.
“Spending 24 hours a day at altitude is an extra load for the body, and the lower oxygen saturation means the body has to work harder and therefore consume more energy,” Arberas says.
The city of Granada sits at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains (JORGE GUERRERO/AFP via Getty Images)
Fortunately, Ayuso is fine. His four weeks at altitude will not become defined by a bee sting. He, like everyone else here, experiences the benefits of living in a deserted ski town vacated by everyone else but them.
“When riders get used to the altitude after a bit of time — for some it takes only a few days, others a bit longer — there are changes in blood haemoglobin concentration, vascular adaptation like blood plasma, and a bunch of other adaptations that leads the body to have a better performance after the training camp,” Arberas says.
It’s why riders simply must come.
It’s nigh-on impossible to give an accurate percentage figure of each individual athlete’s improvement at altitude, but the anecdotal evidence speaks for itself. “If you have a very talented young rider and he is responding to altitude, we can expect to see power records broken for every duration,” Arberas says.
The aforementioned Seixas, France’s 19-year-old darling, seemingly did exactly that when at Sierra Nevada in May, racking up a Grand Tour equivalent of 48,000m of elevation gain across 16 days of training. Two days later he went to the Col du Tourmalet in the French Pyrenees and reset the Strava KOM.
Pogačar, the man everyone is gunning for in the Tour, made an impression on others. “He looked very thin,” Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe’s Maxim Van Gils said.
His leanness is not a surprise. “A benefit of being up here is that your metabolism is faster and it’s easier to lose weight without making such a big sacrifice,” Verona says.
But to maximise altitude’s many advantages, athletes have to respect the extra strain placed upon the body. “You need to be really careful in the first few days and take it easy, not do anything stupid like training your arse from the first day,” says Vacek. “The most important thing at altitude is the adaptation and slowly building up.”
It’s not just climbers who decamp to the high mountains. “Cycling is mostly aerobic, and altitude helps improve aerobic capacity,” Arberas says. “In the case of a sprinter, if you’re stronger aerobically, you arrive at the end of the stage fresher and can sprint better.”
To illustrate the point, Lidl-Trek sprinter Jonathan Milan was at Sierra Nevada for three weeks last May before his maiden Tour. “Sprinters feel it’s unnatural for them, but then Jonny had incredible results in the Tour, winning two stages and the green jersey (usually won by the best sprinter),” Arberas says. “The altitude effect definitely worked.”
Sprinter Jonathan Milan benefited from altitude training before winning the green jersey at the 2025 Tour de France (MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images)
Most Tour riders, with the notable exception of Giro winner Vingegaard, rode the Tour Auvergne Rhône Alpes or Tour de Suisse in June to test their race sharpness before Le Tour.
Then, for many, it was back to solitary living, escaping to abandoned towns perched on top of mountains only accessible by a long, winding road. Tignes, Isola and Livigno in the Alps were the most popular choices. Sierra Nevada in late June, and especially the valleys below, is just a bit too hot. Africa, after all, is only 200km away.
Others, like Vacek, return home but sleep in an altitude tent. Some go to hypoxic altitude hotels, like the Syncrosfera in Dénia, Spain, favoured by Mathieu van der Poel.
Wherever they go, the rewards — if everything has gone as it ought to — are the same.
“It depends from person to person, but for me and how I experience altitude, if I didn’t come here I’d be 20 per cent worse off,” Vacek says. “It’s the whole package: I lose weight, climb better, and it’s where I can really focus. I’m here only for work, that’s it. If you want to compete in the Tour, coming here is really important.”
Arberas, one of the coaches tasked with ensuring Lidl-Trek’s riders are in their best possible condition at the Tour, echoes Vacek’s beliefs.
“If we were the only ones not coming to altitude, for sure we wouldn’t win anything,” he says. “You’d be losing a big percentage.
“If everyone didn’t come then riders would be less consistent at the Tour. It’d be a different cycling. But cycling has evolved and we do come to altitude. Nowadays it’s not an extra — it’s a minimum. It’s what you have to do.”
That’s why riders flock en masse to some of Europe’s most isolated mountain hideaways. In July, the watching public will see the finished product. But it’s in the thin air of Sierra Nevada in May where the Tour de France is won.
