Race Report: 2022 Patterson Pass Road Race - Men’s P12
Race: Patterson Pass Road Race - Men’s P12
Date: 8/7/2022
AVRT racers: Austin King, Cam O’Reilly
Top Results: Cam 8/19
Course: 4 laps of a hilly 22 mile loop. Two main climbs: Patterson Pass Rd and Flynn Rd with fast descents in between. Strong West wind, meaning the Patterson climb.descent were directly into a headwind and the Flynn climb/descent were with a tailwind.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/7600113060
Nutrition: 5 bottles of Skratch/Maltodextrin for 350g carbs and 250mg caffeine, plus to bottles of neutral water which I half drank an half dumped on myself
Race Recap: Patterson Pass is known to be one of the hardest races on the calendar and this year was a nice reminder why. The day was extremely windy, making the Patterson climb even harder/slower than usual and meaning the Flynn climb was in what felt like still air on sunny, 80-something degree day. As such, the only people who lined up for the start were those who had a shot at a result, so we started with a field of 19. The field was full of extremely strong climbers, including Tim McBirney and Quinn Felton who went 1-2 in the race last year as teammates on Team California.
Since there were no large teams at the race, I expected us to have a slower first lap where the course would do more damage to the field than the riders would. That was not the case. About 10 minutes in, Tim attacked out of the group. At first nobody responded (80 miles is a VERY long way to go solo), but then Quinn attacked. Had this been any other combination of two riders I would have let them go and trusted the peloton to reel them in, but given both their strength and history as teammates the chances of them working well together and staying away were high enough, so I followed. Aden, who I raced with at Pine Flat earlier this year, followed me so we formed a group of 3. The next two laps were absolutely brutal. I dropped back from the break, joined a chase, made contact with the break, we were joined by some riders and lost some riders and all generally suffered.
The third time up Patterson I couldn’t quite hold the pace and was dropped just before the summit. I knew I had a large gap on any riders behind (but no idea what their composition looked like), so I focused on saving energy and maintaining speed wherever possible. The fourth time up Patterson I was caught by the remnants of field. Again as we neared the summit somebody attacked, but this time I was strong enough to go with the move. We rolled turns fairly well through the flatter sections, picked Aden who had been dropped from the front break, and made our way to the finish.
As we made the final turn with about 2k to go I attacked. I didn’t expect to get away here, but rather to shed some riders and figure out who still had the legs and will to chase. Four of us settled into a tempo. At 1k to go I positioned myself in 3rd wheel and prepared to sprint. Aden was riding the front and with about 300m to go surged and began to ride away. The rider in 2nd didn’t respond, but rather than close the gap immediately I waited another ~100m so I could jump across with a harder surge that was less likely to lead out other riders. I slipped into Aden’s draft, then passed him with about 100m to go to take 8th overall.
Looking back I definitely went in over my head by joining the early break, but even so I’m glad I gave it my best effort. I put myself in a position to win rather than settle racing for a top-10 finish, and had I ridden a little smarter or had slightly better legs on the day I might have stuck with the front 7 riders and been sprinting for a top-5 instead of a top-10. I’m also happy I made the most of the situation and came first in the bunch “sprint” at the end, as that’s been a significant weakness for me both this season and last.
