Race Report: 2023 Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men's Cat 4

Race: Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men's Cat 4

Date: April 29th, 2023

AVRT racers: Jeremy Besmer, Ian Twamley, Riley Chapman, Drew Mathews, Maxime Cauchois, Logan Allen

Top Results: Jeremy Besmer 2nd, Ian Twamley 11th (of 70 starters)

Course: Roughly 3 laps of an 18.7 mile loop with 1,650 ft of elevation gain, which totaled about 55 miles and 5000 feet of climbing. The primary feature is the “three bears”, a series of 1-3 minute climbs in the second half of the loop leading to the finish. “Mama bear” is the first 2-3 minute climb followed by two rollers, before descending to the start of “Papa bear”. Papa is a bit longer than Mama, being closer to 3-4 minutes long, and is followed by another roller before the longest and steepest descent of the course. After that descent comes “Baby bear”, the shortest but also steepest climb, generally lasting less than a minute.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8980325034

Nutrition: Two bottles of Skratch with 40g carbs each and two sleeves of caffeinated shot blocks (50g carbs), plus one bottle of water from neutral feed.

Recap (written by Jeremy Besmer)

I went into this race nervous and frankly anxious to just get it over with—my previous race two months earlier ended with me in an ambulance fearing I had broken my neck after a very hard crash. I somehow came away from that without any broken bones or other major injuries, but that experience left me feeling pretty uncomfortable with the idea of racing in a large field (70 starters!). As a result, I resolved to prioritize safety over outcome, so I went in a bit ambivalent about my personal goals for the race.

This was a huge field, but knowing that we had one of the largest teams with several people capable of winning, we planned to take an aggressive approach. We wanted to keep the pace high throughout, with Drew, Riley, and Logan pushing the pace on the flats and watching for attacks. Meanwhile, Ian, Max, and I planned to push the pace on the climbs to reduce the field through attrition.

Things went according to plan for the first lap, where our team did a great job of completely controlling the field for the flat and downhill sections of the course leading into the hills. As we started the first climb of the day up Mama Bear, Ian set a very hard pace (>6.5 W/kg) at the front while Max and I followed a few wheels behind. This stretched out the field along the climb, but it came back together on the descent into Papa Bear. Ian again set a hard pace up this climb through the rollers and brought us into the fast descent with most of our teammates near the front of the group. After the descent we started the second lap having successfully whittled the field down from 70 to ~40.

As we started the second lap, my rear derailleur suddenly started shifting poorly, so I took some time on the uphill rollers to glance down at my bike and figure out what was going on. My thru axle handle seemed to be at an odd angle, and it had moved again when I looked a few minutes later. My thru axle was coming unscrewed?! I moved up through the peloton to the front where Ian and Drew were controlling things, and sprinted by them while yelling that I needed to fix something. I found a spot where I could safely stop on the side of the course, hopped off my bike, tightened the thru axle, and jumped back on. I rode at a hard pace for a few minutes and finally caught back onto the field just in time as they were heading into a fast descent, which then gave me a few minutes to recover. Disaster averted.

Unfortunately, this meant I was in the very back of the ~40-person peloton heading into the narrow second half of the loop where it’s difficult to move up. I had teammates at the front of the race who I trusted to keep any moves in check, but we were down a couple climbers (Maxime flatted, Logan was feeling sick) so I needed to get to the front before we reached Mama Bear. I tried to not panic, and waited for opportunities to move up without spending too much energy. I had no idea at the time, but I later learned that there were a series of attacks at the front, which were well covered by Ian, Drew, and Riley. I managed to reach the front just before Mama Bear, where Ian again led the charge at an even harder pace up the climb. Just before the top, he attacked and got a few seconds’ gap that he held until the base of Papa Bear. While this attack didn’t lead to reactions from others in the field, it did keep the pace high through the rollers in this section, which successfully shattered the field. The lead group pushed hard again up Papa Bear and into the big descent. During the descent I surveyed what was left of the field: the attacks and hard climbs had further whittled the field down to ~20 riders with one lap remaining.

As we started the final lap, the pace was pretty mellow as people were looking to save energy for the final climbs. We still had three AV riders (me, Ian, and Riley) among the lead group but there were several other teams with 3-4 people, so we discussed how we were feeling and what the best strategy would be. Ian and Riley said they were tired and cramping, so we should try to set it up for me to win. A few miles out from Mama Bear, the field was moving slowly, so Riley attacked on a kicker in the flat section. He managed to get a 5-10 second gap that held for a few minutes, which successfully forced some of the other teams to work to bring him back. This led us into Mama Bear, where everyone pushed hard up it through the rollers that followed. We were fighting for position leading into the descent and spread across the full lane. During this shuffle, I ended up stuck in the very back of the field and had lost contact with Ian, so I spent the 2-minute descent frantically looking for opportunities to move up heading into the finishing climb up Papa Bear. It turned out everyone else was trying to do the same thing, and I wasn’t willing to shoot through narrow gaps at 40 mph, so I was still boxed in at the bottom of Papa Bear. I watched as a lead group of ~5 broke off the front of the group at the bottom of the climb. I almost gave up at that moment, frustrated with myself for being out of position to follow this likely winning move. A few moments later, I thought to myself: people go too early on this climb, so I’ll ride as hard as I can and hopefully make up a few places to get some upgrade points (I needed to finish 5th place or better to get enough points to upgrade to Cat 3).

I found a gap on the right side of the road and pushed as hard as I could up the climb (while setting a new 3-minute power record of 420w / 7.2 W/kg) and found myself passing gassed people left and right while going up. About 200m from the line I saw two people from my field. I sat on their wheels for a few seconds waiting for the right spot and then sprinted around them leading into the finish line. At this point I had no idea how many people I had passed until the person just ahead of me put his hands up to celebrate as he crossed the line and I rolled in behind him for second place. I didn’t give up when I found myself out of position, which made for a great lesson in always going hard through the line because you never know what will happen!

I was relieved to feel safe throughout AND do well in this race. This was largely thanks to my teammates working well together to execute a plan that shredded the field and gave us the best chance to win. Staying at the front of the race surrounded by teammates helped me settle into feeling comfortable racing, and I even started having fun toward the end! I’m now excited to upgrade to Cat 3 and keep racing!

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