Race Report: 2023 San Ardo Road Race - Men’s P/1/2

Race: San Ardo Road Race - Men’s P/1/2

Date: 8/19/23

AVRT Racers: Cam O’Reilly, Conor Austin, Grant Miller, Greg McCullough, Jack Liu, Max Noda, Nathan Martin

Top Result: 6th - Nathan

Course: 4 laps of this. Starts with a very short and not too steep climb, bit of a twisty descent, before hitting a very poorly paved bridge and a flat and fast backside with some rough pavement in parts. Finishes on a ~1 minute turn off from the main road.

Nutrition: 3 bottles of mix, 2 gels.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9681081023

Race Recep (written by Nathan): 

Plan going into this was to set up Greg for a sprint finish, with me, Grant, and Cam on lead out or break away duty, and Jack, Max, and Conor going for any moves in the race.

The race started out with what is becoming an increasingly common occurrence, Cam was in a breakaway from minute 1. Joined with him were Steve Reaney and a rider from the Subaru Santa Monica team.

While off the front, a few people like Max Rye would try to bridge to them, but any bridge attempts were shut down by us and the group stayed together, except for Jack who was able to bridge up to them with a Subaru rider.

This pattern continued through the first and second laps, until at the start of the third lap Quinn Felton went to the front and began to pull really hard turns to bring back the break. Over the course of the third lap, the gap would be whittled down until they were brought back just before the feed zone. 

As we were catching them, Grant wanted me to launch through the feed zone, since it was a bit of a hill, so once we crossed the bridge, which marked the start of the climb, I launched and started to try and create some separation.

We got a bit of a gap with Quinn and worked a bit, but we were soon caught by the group. A few counterattacks went, Greg being among them, but the group was soon back together.

It would stay together through the top part of the course and onto the backside, but soon another small break went, again with Cam in it. This group would hold about a thirty second gap all the way down Cattleman Rd, until they were caught just before San Ardo downtown.

It was also at this point that Greg got a flat, so we were now basically without our person who was freshest. I was the next freshest, having been sitting in and planning to lead out Greg, so I started looking for opportunities to move up.

As we caught Cam and his group, he kept the pace very high, which was good because it meant the group stayed somewhat strung out and I was able to find little gaps on the very right hand edge of the road, almost in some gravel, to move up.

The group hit the bridge and I was squeezed a bit by the narrowing of the road, forcing me to pull the brakes a bit, but I was still sitting about 10th wheel.

After the bridge, at the start of the bottom of the hill, I went out in the wind all the way to the front of the group. Someone followed me and must have thought I was attacking, because they kept momentum after I slowed and tried to attack themselves, so I latched onto their wheel and was sitting second position when we hit the overpass.

However, before the turn onto the sprint stretch, I was right on the very inside of the left-hand turn, which meant I was going to have to hit a big patch of gravel. As a result, I had to slow from 22 mph to 17 mph to not slide out on some gravel, which basically killed all momentum for the sprint for me.

I gave it my best shot despite losing some speed and managed 6th in the sprint, but taking the outside line there definitely would have been the move.

Overall it was a pretty good race from us. If Greg didn’t flat it definitely would have been a perfect ending for him, I was fresh, Cam did a great job of keeping it fast, and he would’ve been set up nicely. We also did a great job of not working too much to chase down everything when Cam was in the break, only marking moves that were really dangerous, like Jack hopping on the back of a Subaru bridge.