Race Report: 2023 University Road Race - Men’s P/1/2
Race: University Road Race - Men’s P/1/2
Date: 8/20/23
AVRT Racers: Andrew Ernst, Cam O’Reilly, Conor Austin, Grant Miller, Nathan Martin
Top Result: 1st - Nathan
Course: 20 laps around part of UCSC. Up a hill, down a hill, repeat. Link
Nutrition: 2 bottles of mix, 1 gel.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9687575847 (missed first 3 laps)
Race Recep (written by Nathan):
In preparing for the race, we had Quinn Felton as the strongest rider who we’d have to make work as much as we could. We were planning on having me stay fresh for the end or the break and everyone else would try to tire Quinn and other hitters like James Kinney.
The race started steady, then at the bottom of the first lap I took a little flier off the front to get things going. University is always a battle of attrition, and I wanted to try to get people dropping as soon as possible.
I was pretty quickly brought back, however, and then the attacks started to fly.
There was a lot of activity, and Cam was very quick to jump on any moves early in the race. On lap 3, he would get into a break with a couple riders that stuck for a few laps, but a Team California rider was drilling it on the front and brought them back.
Once they were back, another group broke off the front, again with Cam in it, but this time it was him with Quinn, James, and Eric Colindres. These were all exceptional riders and it was obvious that we needed to get me up to the break since Cam did a ton of work already today and the day before.
Grant and I let other riders try to chase for a lap, before Andrew got to the front and turned up the pace at the bottom of the climb to start to bring them back.
When we hit the twisty bit on the first half of the climb, Grant motioned for me to follow and he started to bridge. We took turns pulling, catching the break about a full lap later again just before the feed zone.
Here, I went straight to the front and started pulling in the break. In the process I dropped Grant and Cam, but I knew I’d have to do some work or else the break would be reabsorbed.
We were comfortable with this group because I could do the least amount of work since I had plenty of teammates, and Quinn and James were solo so would be incentivized to work.
We worked for a few laps, until with 6 to go Quinn put in the first of his attacks to try and thin the group. I jumped to catch his wheel, but wasn’t able to and he had a bit of a gap as we came through the feed. Once it flattened out a bit I was able to finally catch him before the steep finish of the climb.I did bring Eric and James with me, but keeping with Quinn was well worth it.
On 5 to go, he tried the same thing in the same spot, again a similar result, but I took a bit longer to catch. It made me a bit nervous, how much power Quinn still had, but for now I was with him.
4 and 3 to go had similar attacks, but this time I let others follow to try and save a little bit of energy. It was a bit risky, as if Eric or James didn’t have the legs it would be game over, but my gamble paid off and each time one of them followed.
2 to go, no attacks. On the last lap, however, he put in a dig at the top of the climb, but we could again catch him.
As we hit the bottom of the climb for the last time, I knew from last year that someone always tries to attack at the bottom of the climb. Sure enough, after the turn, James put in a huge dig, but we stayed with him. As we caught him, he put in another dig, but again stayed with him.
Coming into the chicane the order was James, Quinn, Me, Eric. Perfect placing for me. Last year I went from about 400m to go, and I figured I’d try the same again.
I leapt out from the group and hammered. With about 300m to go I could see Quinn gaining on me on my left side, found a second wind, and with about 100m to go he pulled the plug and I was able to win it.
Overall super happy to defend the win from last year, with some super strong riders in the field. Loads of work from everyone, to either sit in breaks or chase down groups or bridge me to the move that we needed to be in. It was a great team effort, and a good way to get some redemption after San Ardo didn’t go as to plan as we would have liked.