2024 UC Davis Flatlands Circuit Race - Women’s 4/N/C/D

Race: UC Davis Flatlands Circuit Race - Women’s Cat 4/N + Collegiate C/D

Date: April 7, 2024

AVRT racers: Robin Kutner, Katie Monaghan, Claire Macdougal, Emily Selman

Top Result: Team sweep! Robin-Katie-Claire-Emily went 1-2-3-4 out of 13.

Course: 8 laps of a pancake flat, 3.8 mile circuit around the Davis airport. There were a few corners, two traffic circles, some significant potholes in one section, and otherwise great pavement. There was ~10mph wind from ~N during our race.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11130391886

Nutrition: Gu on the start line (and then they told us “we haven’t put cones on the course yet so it’ll be about 20 minutes, go warm up more” 🙄) (20g) + almost a full bottle of superskratch (40g) + sleeve of shot bloks (50g)

Summary of the race (written by Robin): 

The field was mostly collegiate athletes, with team presence from Cal, Davis, and Stanford. It was Emily’s first bike race, and Claire was wearing Stanford kit but working with us. 

As the first wave of racers, we got to do a warmup lap on the course. We scoped out some giant potholes, one gravelly corner, and “road furniture”/roundabouts. (Sidebar: I hadn’t really spent time in Davis before this but had heard about it being a transportation-bicycling mecca. Even at the race site on the outskirts of town, we saw lots of high quality, physically protected bike lanes!). On the warmup lap we chatted roles, endgame strategy, when to chase moves or not, drafting in crosswinds, etc. Both Katie’s and Claire’s parents happened to be visiting from out of town, so we had a small cheering squad. 

I didn’t expect the first lap would be slower than a coffee ride, but there it was. I got bored and attacked out of the NW corner of the course, where a headwind became a crosswind. Two Davis riders came with me. We traded pulls effectively, but I kept my effort at low tempo. I wasn’t necessarily trying to make a break stick just 10% into the race, just animate things and see if the pack could shrink. The gap maxed at 20sec, and the Davis pulls became increasingly lame, so I matched that and we rejoined the field. The coffee ride continued. It felt like someone told the collegiate women at some point that they should never ever ride at the front, when in reality, if nobody rides at the front, we will never get to the finish… I did some of the old lady move of barking at people who never took a turn at the front, and I think it encouraged some rotation. 

Nobody else animated the race. Each of us took some time on the front but kept the effort sustainable. Around lap 5, Claire made a move and one of the Davis women from before went with her. They had a 10-15sec gap for almost one lap, and I noticed the Davis girl did no work. I didn’t want Claire to keep putting in work on the front if the break wasn’t going to be effective. I said “Berkeley, are you going to let Davis and Stanford [Claire] get away?” and one of the Berkeley riders chased. The field followed her, but it was clear that some of the riders didn’t know how to paceline.

Through laps 6 and 7, the group was together, and it was a little boring but also with fun, nervous energy that finish drama was approaching. Our squad decided to pull our endgame move at lap 7.5. We did a great job communicating the plan and positioning ourselves at the optimal time. Waiting until the last minute on the headwind straightaway, we lined up at the front with me, Katie, Emily, and Claire. At the NW corner, where the course turns onto a crosswind straightaway, Katie and I would go off the front while Emily and Claire would block. As we approach the corner, a driver turns toward us on the narrow, centerline-less road. If they had waited literally 3 seconds, they would not have driven head-on at 13 cyclists on a narrow road.

I launch off the front but realize Katie has lost my wheel in the group’s scuffle to avoid the white SUV. She is strong and gets on shortly. It was really fun to break together, and we did a great job trading short pulls and echeloning through the crosswind. We took fast lines through the two traffic circles and the final left hand turn. We kept peering over our shoulders; the group initially tried to chase, but we had a big gap. Katie was at the front when we turned onto the 400m tailwind straightaway to the finish. I got out of her draft with ~200m to go and we sprinted side-by-side. Claire and Emily rolled in a few seconds later, having come out on top of the bunch sprint. We swept the race overall, and Claire won the collegiate race-within-the-race! Success!

The race organizers said we needed to give them 20 minutes to “set up the podium”, so we rolled around UC Davis campus bike paths, and we returned for the podium which turned out to be a single milk crate tossed on the ground as the “top step”. Big Aggie energy. We chatted with the collegiate women, they asked us about AV weekend rides, and some of us took a group photo. Really nice vibes. Our squad wasn’t super challenged by the other racers on this day, but we made it a productive opportunity by practicing skills we’ll need when more seasoned teams challenge us back.