Race Report: 2023 Pescadero Coastal Classic - Men’s P/1/2/3

Race: Pescadero Coastal Classic - Men’s P/1/2/3

Date: 7/22/23

AVRT Racers: Austin King, Andrea Cloarec, Cam O’Reilly, Conor Austin, Grant Miller, Greg McCullough, Jack Liu, Nathan Martin, Nico Sandi

Top Result: 8th - Nathan, 10 - Grant

Course: ~3.8 laps of a loop with some rollers on highway 1 and a long drag to the main climb, Haskins. Headwind on highway 1.

Nutrition: 2 bottles of malto with gatorade mix, 1 bottle of straight malto, 3 gels, and some bites of a larabar.

Race Recap (written by Nathan): 

Our plan coming in was to have Nico, Cam, and I be protected riders and everyone else would work to cover moves and sit on anything dangerous that slipped away. Since highway 1 had replaced the usual Stage Road section, a breakaway seemed much more likely to form at some point, and we of course wanted to be in it.

Lap 1 was pretty active, with people trying to get away as soon as highway 1’s rollers started. Grant spent most of this lap covering moves, doing a lot of work to sit on people trying to get away.

When we hit Haskins the first time, mikes was on the front and started tapping out a solid tempo. I had told Cam at the bottom I wanted to keep the tempo somewhat high, obviously nothing all out, but we didn’t want anyone to get a free ride up the climb. So when mikes started easing up, Andrea went to the front and kept the pace steady up and over the top.

After descending Haskins, the attacks continued, and a solid break of Andrea, Max Rye, Nate English, and Tim McBirney formed. This was a very strong breakaway group, and so we were happy to sit in and try to let other teams and solo riders work to try to bring them back.

Andrea (who was in the break): I got in that break after following Tim’s wheel moving up in the peloton, getting ready to attack. So it was very easy to follow his attack, and counter it in order to form this nice break of 4. While Tim wasn’t really willing to work on the first lap, he decided to work when he heard we had a 3+ min gap. From there, Tim and Max were putting very -very- big pulls.
On the 3rd lap, I was still feeling good, confident that everyone in the break wanted to go to the end. So I started to pace myself more carefully.

Back to Nathan: As we hit highway 1 the second time, I noticed my rear tire was super low. So I pulled over with Jack, and since we didn’t see any sealant we figured it must be a leak that wouldn’t hold air, and he ended up giving me his wheel. Huge thanks to Jack for keeping me in the race, I really owe him so much for giving up his race for me.

Feeling energized by the support from Jack and feeling like I had to make it back now, I paced myself right at threshold to catch back on the group. After about 20 minutes, I caught them right near the end of highway 84, just before the 2nd time up Haskins.

As I got back to the group, I chatted about how I was feeling and said I’d wait and see how I felt end of next lap. I didn’t feel too bad, but I should’ve known that after an effort this hard I’d be in no shape to contend with the hitters in this race.

As we hit Haskins the second time, the pace was more mellow than lap 1, with the break now about 2 minutes up the road from us. We still covered any bridge attempts, but mostly the group rolled together at this point.

The third time through highway 1, again, a few attempts to slip away, but we all stayed together until the start of 84, where Greg and a few others got a gap on the group and began to bridge to the break.

The rest of us stayed in a bunch, now with two groups up the road, and was relatively calm until the bottom of the third time up Haskins. Here, Gavin from TMB launched an attack near the bottom of the climb, hoping to bridge to Tim in the break. Cam reacted quickly to follow him, but Gavin was going full gas and Cam soon fell back to a chase group behind led by a Voler rider.

Cam, Grant, Nico and I followed the Voler rider as he paced after Gavin, and when we hit the top we all rolled together at the start of the descent, also catching Greg on the climb.

Soon, however, we were caught by some riders we dropped on the climb but were very strong descenders, like Tobin and Ryan from TMB. Tobin did a good job here of being very patient and not working, forcing Cam, Grant, and Nico to take turns rotating on the front. Here is a place where I should have been working and letting Cam or Grant save their legs, since I was toast from my earlier effort, but instead I sat on and tried to rest as best I could for the finish.

AC: After the 3rd climb, at the top of Haskins, we heard we still had 3 min gap on the pursuers and 5+ min on the peloton. I started to feel very tired, the plan was definitely to stop pulling, and let Tim and Max do the full job while I just hung on on the break, trying to recover before the last climb. However, in the descent we were literally stopped by the traffic several times. The group of 7 caught us down Pescadero. From there, Tim started to pull very hard for Gavin. So this group still looks very strong to go to the end. However traffic stopped us one more time on Highway 1, and the full peloton caught us.

Nathan: Eventually, we caught up with the break on highway 1, as there was a little bit of traffic which cut into their lead a bit. We were now in a pretty sizable group of around 20-25.

As we hit 84, there were a few surges, but we mostly stayed together until about halfway through 84 when Ryan from TMB absolutely lit up the field with a big dig, which lots of people were not able to follow. I was just barely able to hang on, as was Grant, but we lost Nico and Cam in this move.

As Haskins got closer, we had Grant, Greg, and I in the final group. My legs were super toast at this point, doing work on 84 to close gaps due to me being in poor position had really taken its toll and I was feeling every mile at this point.

At the base of the climb, I attacked because I thought I might be able to find 6-7 minutes of power left in my legs, but after about half a minute it became clear I had nothing, and Gavin who had gone with me passed me and kept trucking. I tried to hold as solid a pace as I could, but got caught by a few more riders and got caught by Grant and a rider from Terun, having a little sprint in the last 100m or so for 8th place.

Overall, obviously not the result we were hoping for, definitely had some things we could have done better, but it was still a fun race and lots learned from it. Huge thank you to Bernardo and everyone who volunteered for making it such a smooth and fun experience!