Race Report: 2023 Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men’s Cat 3

Race: 2023 Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men’s Cat 3

Date: 2023/04/29

AVRT Racers: Daniel Fonyo, Flo Costa, Fraser Bulbuc, Matt Carvell, George Wehner

Top Result: Fraser 1st, Flo 11th, George 12th, Matt 17th

Report By: Fraser

Course: Roughly four laps of an 18.7 mi loop with 1,650 ft of elevation gain each lap for a total of ~74 miles and ~6200 feet including the neutral rollout. The main feature of the course is the “Three Bears,” which is a sequence of short climbs in the second half of the loop. “Mama Bear” is the first and takes about 2-3 minutes to climb; “Papa Bear” is the second and takes about 3-4 minutes to climb; and “Baby Bear” is the third and takes less than a minute to climb. There’s a short descent between Mama and Papa and a longer descent between Papa and Baby. The rest of the course is mostly flat with some rolling hills.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8980004293

Nutrition: 90g carbs per hour courtesy of Andrew in the feed zone + some gels.

Recap: The race officially started at the corner of Bear Creek and San Pablo Dam roads following a neutral rollout from the Orinda Bart station. It was only four minutes after the neutral rollout ended when a solo rider attacked at the bottom of a small roller. They established a gap, and no one responded until about a minute later, just as we were about to crest the roller, when three riders decided to bridge across. I was around third position at the time, so I got on the third rider’s wheel and followed the move.

We quickly caught the solo rider and the five of us, all from separate teams, began working together. I wasn’t sure about the ambitions of the others, but my only intention in joining a break so early on was to warm up my legs more thoroughly than the five-minute parking lot spin I did prior to race start. I knew my AV teammates would let us go up the road, but I didn’t expect that we’d stay away for long.

The five of us increased our gap on the descent down San Pablo Dam road and were able to get out of sight. Shortly after the right hander at the bottom of the descent, we caught and passed the P1/2 field. Though we knew the P1/2 field would pass us later on, this was a good chance to grow our gap since we didn’t expect the E3 field to be able to pass the P1/2 field given the narrow roads, even if they were riding fast enough.

We worked together well until the first ascent of Papa Bear when two riders started skipping pulls and were dropped. That left three of us in the break. We continued at a steady pace only slightly increasing our effort on the climbs.

Back in the main group, attacks were happening on Mama and Papa Bear each lap and Daniel, Flo, Matt, and George were following them as well as disrupting the chase. In hindsight, I think this was a big advantage of being in the break; we rode the climbs at around threshold, which was more sustainable than the surging, supra-threshold efforts that the main group did.

About a lap after we initially passed them, the P1/2 field caught and passed us. In passing Cam shouted a reminder not to do more work than my breakmates, but truthfully, I still expected that we’d be caught so I had been doing the minimum amount of work that would satisfy the other riders since I joined the break.

The three of us continued working together until the third ascent of Mama Bear when another rider was suffering and was dropped. That left two of us with about a lap and a half remaining.

Despite asking multiple times, the moto refs weren’t giving us time checks, so we’d been relying on line of sight to estimate our gap. We knew we had at least two minutes as we crested Mama Bear for the third time since the field was nowhere to be seen. This was the first moment at which I thought that we might actually be able to stay away, and we picked up the pace slightly in an attempt to stay out of sight going into the final lap; we didn’t want to give the field any extra motivation to chase.

The fourth and final lap was much the same as the others. The two of us shared the work, and we never ended up seeing the chase group. The finish ended up being pretty anticlimactic as the other rider was clearly on their limit for most of the final lap, so I was able to drop them on Papa Bear without ever really attacking.

Many thanks to Andrew for the feed, and Daniel, Flo, George, and Matt for disrupting the chase. There’s no way I would’ve stayed away without their efforts to control the race behind me.