Race Report: 2023 Pine Flat RR W P1234
Race: Pine Flat RR W P1234
Date: Sunday, February 19, 2023
AVRT racers: Kelly Brennan, Skyler Espinoza, Lindsey Raven, Gina Yuan, Niky Taylor
Top Result: Kelly and Niky 1-2, Gina 4th, Lindsey 5th, Skyler 6th
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8590318926
Nutrition: 1.5 bags of Skratch chews during the race and 1.5 bottles of water+superfuel
Course + Recap: Pine Flat is ironically hilly, and is the most beautiful course I’ve ever done. We rode about 20 miles on a curvy, flowy, fun out and back road. Then, we descended into the Fresno Valley for the next 20 miles, and looped back towards the hills with a 3 mile climb, 6 mile descent, and final climb to the finish. ~61 miles total.
We had the same strong team as at Cantua Creek the day before! Because it was the five of us on AV and two other ladies, we decided to keep it as a fun, fast team ride together until the climb. Our goals were to continue getting experience riding with each other to practice for Tucson and have fun! One of the other ladies, Sarah, was really strong at Cantua Creek, and had done better than me at Low Gap, which was hilly, so I thought she was our biggest threat and I was most concerned about her on the climb.
The race started out as we had imagined - a fast group ride. We were carving through the turns and enjoying the beautiful lake view. Lindsay did a great job getting on the front, continuing to push the pace, and we dropped one non-AV rider. As we started the descent into the valley. Gina and Niky got to the front and Gina used her amazing descending skills to gain a pretty significant gap on Sarah. Lindsay, Skyler and I sat on Sarah’s wheel and let her pull us back to Gina and Niky.
Once we were all back together, Skyler got everyone organized so that her, Lindsey, and Gina took turns on pulling on the font. This was invaluable teamwork because it allowed Niky and I (and Sarah) to rest before the climb. They set a swift pace along the river, and then we turned back towards the hills. Before the climb while Sarah was on the front, I chatted with Niky in the back and asked what she wanted to do. She told me to go for it, which surprised me - I didn’t think I could do it - she had pre-ridden the course and I knew she could. Once I thought about it more, I realized that I had nothing to lose by going for it and trying.
From a team strategy perspective, I think Niky’s intuition was spot on. If Niky went ahead, I wasn’t super confident in my ability to do well against Sarah - we have similar riding strengths and styles. But I was very confident in Niky climbing and descending faster than Sarah. That was a match I felt really good about. So if they caught me, then Niky could launch.
At a little kicker initiating the climb, I just kept the pressure on and realized that I had a gap. I pushed hard to extend that gap up the climb. Fortunately, lots of twists and turns in the climb kept me hidden. The climb was hard not only because it was long, but also because it was really steep (8-10%) at the top. I tried to climb as fast as I could without blowing up. The descent was relatively flat, so I time-trialed as much as I could. And then the finish was a little longer and steeper than I imagined based on the Strava profile.
At the finish, I was pleased, and not surprised, to see Niky not very far behind me. 😀She had climbed with Sarah for most of the climb and then attacked up and over the steepest part of the climb! She gained more time on the descent, and had a healthy lead to come in right behind me.
Overall, it was really fun to work as a team to get the best result we could for AV! We were really grateful for our teammates keeping us protected to be able to launch our attacks effectively. And it was great to have some strong competition to keep us on our toes and execute some strategy.