Race Report: [2022 Suisun Harbor Crit - Men’s Cat 3]

Race: 2022 Suisun Harbor Crit - Men’s Cat Cat3

Date: Aug 14, 2022

AVRT racers: Conor Austin, Grant Miller, Jack Liu, John Janetzko

Top Result: Jack (4/31)

Course: Simple 4-corner and super flat course (https://www.strava.com/segments/621954). 

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/7637945469/overview

Video: when we started our leadout: https://youtu.be/tqlgxdVn0gU?t=1914 

Nutrition: One bottle of Skratch mix.

Recap: 

Given the short course (<1 minute per lap), our plan before the race was to get in a break with good composition and try to lap the field win from the break. John, Bernardo, and I attacked multiple times in the first 25 minutes, but frustratingly nothing worked. I got a $10 prime (just enough) to remedy all those efforts though. Grant attacked and a counter from Conor formed a seemingly promising break, but everyone was motivated to chase and that got caught back too.

So time for Plan B.

From 7 laps to go, we had John, Grant, and Conor lined up at the front leading out me. John and Grant each did ~3 laps of super hard pulls. While I still had to constantly fight with people from right and left trying to steal my wheel, I think I’m more used to assert dominance of my position behind our leadout train and keep myself protected now. Going into the last lap everything all looked perfect as we still got Grant and Conor in front of me. When Grant pulled off with half a lap to go, Conor accidentally touched Grant’s wheel and went down (who fortunately only had road rash and apparently back on his bike the day after). I immediately brake hard and swung left to dodge the crash. Half of the group was affected by the crash and there were pileups of bikes and riders, but fortunately everyone walked away from it. One rider who wasn’t affected by the crash carried all his speed and got a good gap so I basically started my sprint early to chase him down. I got onto his wheel but didn’t have the legs to outsprint other riders and ended up with the 4th place.

photo credit: Beliera Photography 

While it wasn’t exactly what we planned or would expect, crashes are part of the races and we were fortunate not to have more severe injuries. More importantly, our leadout execution was perfect (until it wasn’t) and I think we’ve asserted dominance in local Cat 3 races now. (Pretty sure every cat 3 mentioned Alto Velo with fear after this race.) I’m looking forward to putting on my AV jersey and racing together as a team in the next race!

-Jack