Race Report: 2022 Sand City Criterium - Men’s P123
Race: Sand City P/1/2/3
Date: 9/11/22
AVRT Racers: Cam O’Reilly, Daniel Fonyo, Conor Austin, George Wehner
Top Result: Matt (24th / 54)
Course: Link to the Strava segment. The course was a super-technical 10-turn series of roads outside downtown Monterey. The middle featured a punchy 6-8% climb, which would help me and hurt some of the bigger sprinter folks. The start/finish was located at a brewery and food tents, so it was fun to hang around to watch the other races.
Nutrition: I pounded a quick gel shortly before the start. Had one small bottle of Skratch during the race.
Race Recep: Strategy-wise, since many of us were new to the P/1/2 category, our team had no expectations aside from riding together and navigating our first team crit in this elite field. We were aiming to get our feet wet with higher-category racing.
This race was the first large P/1/2/3 I had ever done, and I was nervously excited. I had zero expectations for myself aside from sitting in, learning the P/1/2 dynamics, and trying to move up through the pack occasionally. I had no problem tailgunning this race.
Since the course was technical, I pre-rode as many laps as possible in the short intermission before our race. Unfortunately, the downside of pre-riding the course was that I lined up last in the peloton — dead last. But in retrospect, I’m very glad I used the extra time to ride the course since the turns were very fast and technical.
The race immediately started with a bang, and it quickly strung out with riders dropping off the back. I tailgunned the first half of the race, happily passing other riders and trying not to expend too much energy at the back.
One difference I noticed from racing the P/1/2 fields vs. the lower categories is that aside from being a faster race, the field is strung out most of the time. The distance from the front to the back of the race (where yours truly rode) hovered between 150-300 meters. Competitors are much less willing to give up their position, so overtaking had to be more deliberate and somewhat calculated.
Cam, our fearless Cat 2 racer with more experience at this level, gave some wise advice about tailgunning and overtaking. He suggested that passing one or two places was a waste of energy since you'd just be trading places with those riders. You'd sprint around one rider, get tired, they'd sprint around you, and so on. Instead, if your goal is to sit in the pack, it's much more efficient to just stay towards the back, where it is easier to hold position. To move up, make one BIG move to overtake many riders.
So, I used this strategy to move around riders who were being dropped and hold my position. Towards the end, I eventually got more confident in the corners. After all, we did a whopping 35 laps of the course. The hill was a great place where I was able to pass riders. On the rare occasions when the pace slowed, I moved myself up through the pack in one big move.
I wish I could say that I duked it out with the leadout trains towards the front of the race (Mikes Bikes ended up winning the race – see NorCal Cycling’s video) – but I was way too far back to contest the sprint.
Overall, I was very stoked to have survived my first P/1/2/3 crit and to feel like I successfully participated. Our team rode well together for much of the race and was so fun getting our feet wet with the professional categories.
Highly recommend this course and hope to race it again next year with more aspiring goals. Only up from here!
My boring GoPro footage of the last 5min: https://youtu.be/d2HZ-1sH2vo
Perspective from another racer w/ commentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJkbdRJfm0A
-Matt Carvell