Race Report: 2023 Oakland Grand Prix Men’s P123
Race Report: 2023 Oakland Grand Prix Men’s P123
Date: 9/17
AVRT racers: Andrea Cloarec, Cam O’reilly, Drew Mathews, Flo Costa, Nico Sandi, J Evans, Jon Wells, Jack Liu
Top Result: Jack 16/67
Written by: Jack Liu
Course: 1 km rectangular course with the first corner being a slightly S-shaped chicane
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9870732624/
Nutrition: one bottle of scratch
Race Recap:
Oakland GP was the season finale as well as the district crit championship. Three-time crit national champion Luke Lamperti’s presence made it unsettling for everyone. Team Mike’s Bikes (TMB) brought a full squad of 8 people. A team of top amateur racers vs. one national champion: it was guaranteed to be a good show, and I was honored to have a front row seat.
The most tricky part of the course is a chicane that is almost a hairpin, which is narrow and allows at most 2 people going through together at the same time. The accordion effect would be maximal through this chicane and the race is deemed to stretch out from there. Anyone at the back of the group would have a hard time catching back. Therefore, my goal is to stay near the front and not be at the mercy of accordion effect.
When the race started, TMB fully utilized their strength in numbers and sent attacks one after another. It was relentless and made it one of the hardest races I’ve done this year! Hard racing made some exhausted cyclists and exhausted cyclists made bad decisions. Half way through the race, there were some unnecessary contact between riders on the start/finish straight (the easiest part of the course!) and one rider (Max from project 74) went down hard right in front of me. My front wheel narrowly missed his head, which terrified me for a second. That near-miss caused me to lose lots of ground, but fortunately teammate Flo brought me back to the front the next lap.
With the help from Flo and Nico, I was able to stay within top 20 the whole race, which saved me lots of energy instead of fighting for wheels at the back. Into the last lap, Nico brought me to a fantastic position behind TMB leadout train, Luke, Tyler Williams (Legion) and Quinn. While I was preparing to enjoy the final sprint of these super human in a close distance (and happily snatch a top-10 if I can follow their wheels), Quinn flatted in the penultimate corner, went straight to the wall, and created a gap behind him (which is directly Nico and me). This brought me from heaven to hell -- now that the first 5 riders were riding away with TMB leading out full gas at the front, and I’m at the front of the second group.
At that moment, I was faced with a crucial decision to make with ~400 m to the finish -- either I started my sprint early to try to catch the front, or I waited for someone to come over and use him as the leadout. Without hesitation, I started my sprint early as I naively thought I could catch a full-gas TMB leadout train. It was not the right decision and I became others’ leadout when I ran out of steam with 100 m to go and finished 16th.
While luck and bad split-second decisions played some role in that last lap, I was pretty satisfied with how I raced the whole race as I gave everything I had and fought till the end. The fact that Nico and I can be up there when it matters is really encouraging and it shows that we belong there. Looking forward to more crit racing next year!
It was definitely an exciting race to watch, and you can see it from a different perspective on NorCal cycling and also how it finished. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__S7wpYvbCo
Photo: Greg Beliera