Race Report: 2022 Dunnigan “Hills” Road Race - Men’s P/1/2

Race: 2022 Dunnigan Hills Road Race - Men’s P/1/2

Date: 8/28/2022

AVRT racers: Austin King, Shane McGuire, Cameron O’Reilly

Top Result: Shane 11/36

Course: 2 laps of a ~45 mile loop. Mostly flat terrain with several small rollers. Little wind and relatively mild temperatures (for Dunnigan in August) on race day. 

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/7716671954

Nutrition: Started the race with 3 bottles, as I believe is mandatory for these long hot August races, loaded with ~90g of carbs plus some electrolytes and caffeine (malto + nuun). Bottle in the back pocket was frozen to start, which feels great on the lower back. Pocket food included the usual fig bars, shot blocks, and some emergency gels. If I’ve learned one thing about nutrition over the last couple years, it’s that the key to these long hot races is to put as many carbs as possible in your body to have the best chance of not cramping and having some juice at the end for the finish. The benefits cannot be overstated.

Race Recap: We came into the race with several race strategies within a race strategy, which ultimately may have been our most significant mistake. We agreed that Austin and I would cover moves in the first lap, making sure to be smart about which ones we followed (i.e. only ones where strong riders or members of the big teams were present). We had three riders, Pen Velo had 3, Ride Bikes had 3, the Olympic Club had ~5, and Performance Bicycle had ~7. On the second lap, I was to chill out in case of an eventual field sprint, Austin would continue to cover moves, and Cameron was to go for a late race break. 

An attack went immediately from the whistle. Austin did his job and jumped on it right away while I surfed wheels in the main pack and made sure to stay nearish to the front to be able to respond to anyone who might try to bridge. This section of the course was highlighted by rollers and sharp pot holes. The pace was pretty furious for the first 15 min or so until the early move was reeled back in. At this point I went to the front and did my part to cover moves, bridging across to one or two before we made the left hand turn that would transition from tailwind to crosswind. At this point Austin took back over as echelons formed and many riders were put in the right gutter. The wind wasn’t particularly strong, but even at 3-5 mph, it still felt significant at the pace we were moving. During this section I was able to hide in the gutter and take a nice draft, doing fairly little work. I would occasionally drift to the very back of the pack and always found Cam back there hanging out, trying to conserve energy. 

After the initial cross wind section I moved back up to relieve Austin, who told me that his normalized power was 340 and that he needed to back off. I covered a move or two and right around when Austin and I were trading guard duties, a group went off the front. We had done a great job to this point of not letting anything serious go, but unfortunately we missed this one and it happened to have representation from all the other teams and some strong riders. Shit. 

Austin and I took turns on the front and started clawing the gap back. Since all of the other teams had someone up the road, nobody wanted to work with us. After a little while of this I decided that if none of the solo riders would work, I would just start attacking. Austin I supposed like the idea and would counter as I came back. After a bit of this I think the message was received and we got a few strong solo riders to rotate with us on the front. Austin did a ton of work and Cam even came up from the back to help. Learning from my mistakes the week prior at San Ardo, I was careful to not push beyond my limits and would step out of the rotation every so often to recover. By the time we approached the end of lap 1, the break was close enough for the pack to smell blood. I rolled up to Austin and warned him to be prepared for attacks as we went into the rollers for the start of lap 2. No sooner than I said this, the attacks started going and the pace became vicious. 

As we crossed the finish line for the second lap, Cam was near the front, looking for a move to go with. I drifted towards the back to begin my role of conserving energy for a sprint finish and saw Austin, who had done too much work to bring the break back, drift off the back. I would spend this entire lap tailgunning and generally doing very little work. Cam would stay near the front and make sure that no big move went without him in it. Having lost Austin, we noted that having just 2 riders was to some extent advantageous, as other teams didn’t look at us to pull moves back. 

There’s not too much else interesting about this second lap, at least from my vantage point, until we made the final left hand turn with around 2k to go. I’ve raced this course several times before and know how tricky it can be to time the finish correctly, having never gotten it quite right. With this in mind, I decided to pick a wheel of a known strong rider and trust that they would go at the right time and look to come around them in the final uphill sprint. I noticed that Jackson from TMB had been tailgunning the whole second lap with me and figured he would be a strong contender for the sprint and decided to follow his wheel coming into the finish. We took the left side of the road, which was advantageous for being sheltered from the cross wind, but unfortunately, on the narrow road, this was not the side where you could easily move up. Leadout trains started going and guys started pulling off. Unfortunately for me, TMB guy sat up early and I missed my chance to hop onto the lead group up the final riser. I gave it a half-hearted sprint anyhow because why not for 11th. In retrospect I should have made an effort to move up towards the front earlier and trusted that Cam would have enough left in the legs to keep me in good position. Easier said than done and overall I’m happy with the way our team raced. Looking forward to the offseason and an exciting 2023.

Thanks for reading.

Shane