Race Report - 2023 Santa Cruz Classic Crit Women P123
Date: March 26, 2023
AVRT racers: Sue Lin Holt, Niky Taylor, Gina Yuan
Top Result: Niky 11th
Course: Alright so first it’s flat. Then there’s the main feature of this course which is a hairpin turn that sends you into a rapid descent. Then you whip around two 90 degree rights into a narrow, sort of winding section with a tiny kicker. Then you turn onto the hill (4%) and then you get to the top of it but don’t stop now cause you still got a flat 300m to the finish line.
Recap: This was a cool race and we approached it as a learning experience. We didn’t make a race plan beyond hang out and hang on and have a good time learning from the pros. My two goals for this race were to try something new with warm-up, and to have some fun showing off a bit :)
I always struggle to warm up before races, so this time I wanted to try a longer and more aggressive warm up strategy. Jack, Gina, Cam, Grant, and I went and rode around for an hour and a half before the race. That worked pretty well for me and I was definitely warm but I also maybe don’t need to push that hard in warm up in the future. Cam said later he “actually didn’t really feel like keeping up” with me at one point which means I cracked Cam’s z1 and can retire from biking now.
Sue Lin, Gina and I lined up at the start, then they blew the whistle and the race started. It was fast. It was awesome. We had a ripping tailwind out of the hairpin that sent us flying down the descent. After turns 2 and 3 into the narrow winding section I learned I could use the kicker to get an easy gap. The main hill was useful for moving up too. The last flat 300m into a headwind was my nemesis.
I attacked off the kicker at one point and spent 2 laps off the front trying to look good for photos. I think I looked cool. I’m working on my race face. I got brought back in.
A bit later Paige attacked into the headwind and went solo off the front. I tried to follow but WIND omg. But I was like ok, she’ll just hang out there for a bit and then Monarch (the largest team out there) will shut it down. The pace was blazing and it was down to just me and Gina for AV, plus I was tired from my solo photo break. Gina came by me and ripped it through some turns to represent us up front.
After about 10-15 minutes of Paige off the front I went up and asked Dani (TWENTY24) if we should bring her in. Dani was like “yes, obviously, help out” and I was like “oh ok let’s roll some turns.” So Dani, Melanie, Chloe (Monarch), and I started working to bring Paige in. It was a tough course to roll turns on, and we ended up doing weird quarter-lap pulls. I kept getting the hill. Which was fine with me. After a couple laps of dedicated chasing I pulled us up the hill and Paige was right there. I pulled off, hoping someone who doesn’t turn into a jellyfish in the wind would finish it off. I dropped back about 5 wheels. The pace kept up for another half lap and then slowed. I got swarmed. I thought we’d caught Paige. Nope, turns out we didn't. I found out at the end of the race. Oops. Good for her.
Anyways. Gina checked in with me and said she could lead me out. I said I was tired and she told me “everyone is tired.” Things got fast again. Someone slid out on the hairpin but no one else went down. In the final lap Nicole (Twenty24) was leading out Dani (Twenty24) with Melanie (not Twenty24) on her wheel. Chloe (Monarch) was trying to lead out Helena (Monarch) but I kept stealing her wheel which I was pretty happy about. Then Gina blasted by on my right and yelled at me to get on her wheel. I was like oh damn ok here we go, then she took a trademark Gina (crit shark) incredibly well-executed insanely fast inside line on the turn that I completely failed to follow. I caught back on her wheel (sort of), she launched me through the kicker, I screwed up my gearing on the final hill, then blew up at the top of it as soon as the wind hit me.
The field sprint group flew past me and I died my way to the finish. I hope people enjoyed watching our somewhat-clumsy-but-full-of-love lead out move. If the finish line were 300m closer maybe that would have worked.
There’s definitely several things we could have done differently to win this race but who cares, sometimes it’s just fun to play the game and race in the race. It was so awesome racing this field. So many fast women, so many cool moves.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8783583552
Nutrition: 1 bottle of water during the race and maybe I ate a clif blok but who knows