Race Report: 2023 Patterson Pass Road Race - Men’s P/1/2
Race: Patterson Pass Road Race - Men’s P/1/2
Date: 8/06/23
AVRT Racers: Cam O’Reilly, Conor Austin, Grant Miller, Nathan Martin
Top Result: 4th - Nathan, 5th - Grant
Course: 4 laps of this. Starts with a 4 mile 1,100 ft climb, has a ripping descent into the second climb which is 2 miles and 500 ft with varied grades. Then there’s a bit of a lumpy descent to the backside of the course which is flat for a bit before opening up to a fast descent all the way to the finishing straight, which is a mile long 200 ft kicker to the finish line.
Nutrition: 4 bottles of mix, 3 bottles of plain water, 2 gels. About 1,600 total calories. And two ice socks.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9596216144
Race Recep (written by Nathan):
In our planning for this race, we identified a few key riders to look out for. Gavin from TMB was hot off his win at Pescadero, so he was on our radar, Tobin was in the race, who is always a factor, and there were a few other strong solo riders like Max who we were looking out for. Ryan from TMB and Travis from Terun also showed up the day of and were some people to look out for.
Right from the gun, the action started, with Chris Reikert from TMB attacking and Deven, Cam, and Tobin all following him. They quickly got a gap, and Matt Keonig from Velo Kings would attempt to bridge to them, but would not be able to catch them on the climb and soon fell back to the group, along with Deven.
This break would quickly extend their lead, reaching 2 minutes gap when we hit the top of the climb the first time. During the climb, a few attacks would go, but nothing stuck, and we rolled as a group the first time up Flynn Road, where, again, some accelerations but mostly staying together.
Hitting the back of the course, things got a bit spicier, with a couple of solo riders attacking off the front and everyone waiting for someone else to cover the move until finally someone would go and the whole group would lurch to follow. Every time someone was reeled back in, another person would go, pretty much the whole back stretch. There was also a nasty headwind, making it so if you were near the back it really hurt.
When we were just before the turn onto Midway from Altamont Pass, the group slowed, nobody attacked, and I decided I should go. I pinned it at tempo pace, and tried to get my heart rate under control, increasing my gap to about 2 minutes by the feed zone. However, my gap to the original breakaway stayed steady at about 2 minutes.
I was in no man’s land, between the group and the break. Should I try and tick it up to threshold and make a push for the break? Or completely pull the parachutes and fall back to the group? I decided to do neither and just locked it in at high z2, figuring I’d be protecting Grant and Conor from doing any work since other riders would have to contend with there being two Alto Velo riders possibly in the break. It was starting to get pretty hot, already hitting the 90s on lap 2, so I knew a threshold effort wasn’t in the cards for me.
As we continued lap 2, my break on the main group grew a little to three minutes, but the break also gained on me, reaching about five minutes after the backside.
Crossing the finish to start lap 3, a rider from the main group, Trevor, bridged to me and I just sat on his wheel since I was pretty tired from being alone. It was also getting really hot, hitting 100 degrees at the finish line to start the lap, and the ice socks and cold water bottles really started to pull their weight.
Even sitting on his wheel I was doing tempo, but in the high heat it felt like threshold, and my heart rate was going crazy. He managed to bring the gap on the break down to 2 minutes by the time we got over the main climb and started on Flynn road, but at this point, I was so cooked and thought there was no way he’d be able to keep up this pace. Even if he did, I knew there wasn’t any way I could follow, so I eased up and planned on letting the group catch me. He would actually catch the break and end up second, beating Tobin, but I would never see the break the rest of the race.
As I neared the 580 overpass, however, I saw some orange behind me. Grant had attacked and was solo! We linked up and started to work together, I was so gassed that I only thought of trying to get him to the next feed, then I was planning to pull myself out.
We worked together on the back of the course, taking turns doing tempo cause that’s about all we could really do, and kept working through the feed zone the final time on lap 4.
This was simply miserable, the whole last lap was above 100 degrees, averaging 102 with a max of 109. Last time into the feed zone we grabbed as much water as we could, drank what we could, got water dumped on us, and just kept trudging up the climb. I found a second wind and figured I’d try to go as far as I could, perhaps the gels were finally starting to hit me.
On the climb, Grant started bonking, so he told me to go alone. Looking back at the time gaps, we had many minutes on the group, and Grant kept telling me as such, but I was so paranoid about us doing all this work, I wanted to make sure the effort went to good use.
Then I was solo from about halfway up the climb to the finish line and it was just plain not fun. Super hot, drank the two bottles I got in the feed zone still with 6 or so miles to go, and kept looking over my shoulder expecting to see the group barreling down the road behind me.
It didn’t happen, though, and I crossed the line for 4th, Grant coming in soon after for 5th, then the main group a couple of minutes after, or what was left of the group, only 12 of 27 starters finished the race.
Overall it was a seriously tough experience. Eternally grateful for those who came out to do water, mix, ice socks, and support. I certainly would not have finished without everyone who was helping. Not much to take away from a race perspective, it basically just turned into who wanted to suffer the most.