Race Report: 2023 Bariani Road Race - Men’s Masters 3/4

Race: 2023 Bariani Road Race- Men’s Masters 3/4  

Date: March 12, 2023

AVRT racers: Nat Green, Shai Traister, Brian Shreeve

Top Result: Nat (9/45), Shai (12/45)

Course: Six clockwise laps of a 10-mile loop.  Original plan was 3 laps of a 20-mile loop, which is the normal Bariani course, but the course was changed a few days prior to the event because of mud blocking parts of the road.  The course is mostly flat or rollers, with a short, not-very-steep hill on the back stretch before a right hand turn onto a section with terrible pavement, and then a left hand turn shortly before the finish that pitches down and then right back up.  We had the late start time (11:30, but the race didn’t start until after noon), by which time the rain had picked up again and came down consistently until the last lap or so.  The wind was a major factor, blowing quite hard from the south, which gave us a strong tailwind for a two-mile section by the highway, and mostly hard cross-winds for the majority of the course, with a cross-tailwind on the northern part of the course, and a cross-headwind on the southern part. 

Strava: Bariani - masters 3/4 - 9th of 40 or so. | Ride | Strava

Nutrition:  I brought two bottles of Skratch mix and a bunch of gels.  With the mid-day start time, I wasn’t sure whether and how much to eat before the race, and in retrospect, probably should have just gone for a normal breakfast, but instead just had a few stinger waffles. I also dropped a few gels on the road during the race, probably because I was wearing thick gloves, so had nothing to eat for the last hour.  Luckily one of the other riders in our breakaway handed me a bag of sour patch kids, which, while delicious, were quite chewy and difficult to eat while cycling hard. 

Recap:  We had three riders in the race for AV, as did a few other teams (Dolce Vita, Velo Kings, and Rio Strada), along with a few teams with two riders (including SJBC).  They started the Masters 35+ and 50+ together with very similar race numbers, so it was difficult to tell who was who, and we all treated it like a single race (it ultimately didn’t matter, since only one of the 50+ riders ended up in the break, and he was dropped after a lap or so).  It was a large field, and with the center line rule in effect and a moto official policing the line, it made it very hard to move up.  With the crosswinds, we knew there was likely to be a split soon into the race, and that it would therefore be important to stay at the front.  Unfortunately this was easier said than done (for me, at least), and with a neutral rollout, I found myself swamped by other riders and near the back by the time racing started, and spent most of the first lap trying to move up whenever I could.  Luckily no one got off the front in the first lap, but on the second turn of lap two, I could see the group starting to string out and realized that I needed to do a max effort immediately or I would miss the split.  It took 2 minutes at 430 watts to reach the group at the front that was pulling away, and I was just able to latch on. 

There were about 12 others in the break, and while we quickly put quite a bit of distance into the group behind, we never settled into a great rhythm.  Part of this was a function of the crosswinds on most of the course, which didn’t allow for normal pace-lining and required echelons that the group was having difficulty organizing consistently.  Part of it was also that there were a number of riders who clearly just planned to sit in, which caused other riders to attack in frustration, further preventing any real organization.  The result was difficult and tiring riding, with minimal draft to recover and a lot of surging.  By lap 4, we had dropped three riders (including the only 50+ rider), and there were nine of us left, with one rider each from seven different teams, and two individual riders.  At this point, an SJBC rider went off the front.  We got a bit more serious about organizing at this point, but there was still a lot of gamesmanship and arguing, with some riders refusing to pull through and others attacking in frustration.  This resulted in the SJBC rider remaining about 15-20 seconds out through laps 4 and 5.  We finally got a good rotation going through the cross-tailwind on lap 5, and I could really feel the difference as we were going a lot faster with less effort.  As soon as we made the turn onto the next section, though, the attacks and gamesmanship resumed, and we hadn’t much, if any, progress catching the SJBC rider.

By lap 6, I was really feeling low on fuel.  I had already dropped a couple of gels and dropped another one at the beginning of the lap.  Another rider in the break took pity on me and gave me some sour patch kids.  That was a nice gesture, but unfortunately I was already getting bad cramping in my legs, and by about a third of the way through the lap, I could no longer pedal and realized my choice was between slowing for a minute to try to work through the cramps or getting off the bike completely.  I was able to work my way through the cramps by soft pedaling for a minute or so, but that coincided with another surge by the break, so I realized I had no hope of catching up, and just did a steady effort to the finish line, since I knew I had a comfortable distance to the group behind. The SJBC rider was able to stay ahead of the rest of the group through lap six, so an impressive effort by him to ride away solo in these conditions.  At the finish line, I met up with Brian, who unfortunately had flatted out (but conveniently did so right near the end of the circuit, so he had a minimal walk). 

According to Shai, who was in the main group, when he realized there was a gap and a group was pulling away he tried to bridge up, and made it to a group of riders ahead of him only to realize there was another group further ahead (the break). He tried bridging across to that group but was getting tired after a big effort in the headwind. He took a quick look behind and saw that he was pulling a group of ~10 riders strung behind him. Shai also saw that I had made it to the break, so he decided to shut it down and let other close the gap.  A couple of riders attacked trying to bridge across, but he saw the gap to the front group keeps increasing and we never saw them again. Shai was not sure if this was the best choice at the time – it was still early in the race (lap 2) and the break was fairly sizable – but it would have required a massive effort in the headwind, which Shai wasn’t sure he could do.  Shai’s group wasn’t well organized, but several riders took turns at the front. After realizing they were not going to catch the break, Shai pushed the pace on the uphill section and the chase went down to four riders, who took good rotations for two additional laps before dropping two more riders. After another lap, the rider Shai was with opened a small gap on the section with the potholes/water on the road, and Shai could not quite close the gap in the strong headwind, and Shai rode mostly solely on the final two laps to finish 12th.

Overall, the team was happy with the effort in difficult conditions, and I was pleased to have made the split and stayed with a strong group of riders until the last lap when I cramped.  Two clear areas to improve would be (1) nutrition – it might have been more effective to get more of my calories from my bottles, rather than gels, given the heavy gloves I was wearing in the cold and rain – and just generally I should have consumed more; and (2) staying near the front in a big field on narrow roads – I knew I had to, but was not nearly aggressive enough during the rollout to maintain my position, which ultimately resulted in my being forced to do a bigger effort than I should have had to do to make the split, which likely contributed to cramping later on (or at least burning matches that I could have used on the last lap had I not cramped).  The third area of improvement that I am less sure about is in terms of organizing the group better in the break to chase down the rider off the front.  I’m not quite sure what we could have done to convince non-working riders to help chase – it might just have been too big a group to organize successfully, with the difficulty exacerbated by the windy conditions that required different formations after every turn to work together effectively.  If anyone has good ideas, let me know.