Race Report: 2024 Baker City Cycling Classic, Stage Race - Men's Cat 3

Race: Baker City Cycling Classic, Stage Race - Men's Cat 3

Date: June 21-23, 2024

AVRT racers: George Wehner, Henry Mallon

Top Result: George 5th (Stage 2), Henry 2nd (Stage 4), Henry 6th (GC)

Strava: 

Stage 1 (Henry): https://www.strava.com/activities/11707420028 

Stage 2 (George): https://www.strava.com/activities/11714149902 

Stage 3 (George): https://www.strava.com/activities/11716078452 

Stage 4 (Henry): https://www.strava.com/activities/11723535947 

Nutrition: Team feed bottles with roughly 80g of carbs each and additional plain water from neutral feed. 

Race Recap:

Stage 1 - Catherine Creek Road Race

Written by Henry. The first 50 miles were mostly flat, followed by a 3-mile climb with an average gradient of 5%. This was succeeded by 25 miles of descending with a few short rollers. After an easy 40 miles, the pace picked up during a 10-mile section of false flat leading into the main climb. During this period, two strong solo riders broke away. I tried to bridge the gap and encourage other teams to form a paceline, but there wasn’t much cooperation, and we started the climb at least two minutes behind.

George surged at the base of the climb, and then I attacked, hoping to split the field and reduce the gap to the breakaway. At this point, George was dropped and shifted his focus to pursuing stage results in the remaining days.

In hindsight, I expended too much energy in the second half of the race—attempting to bridge to the breakaway on the false flat, pacing the shallow 5% climb, and taking more pulls than anyone else on the rolling terrain to the finish.

By the final five-minute roller, I was really struggling and nearly got dropped from the group. There were a series of attacks on the fast run-in to the finish, and I was caught behind a split, finishing 19 seconds behind the solo winner who managed to stay away from the original breakaway. With bonus seconds at the finish, I ended up 29 seconds down on GC, closely grouped with about 15 others.

Stage 2 - Baker City Time Trial

Written by George. I cracked hard on the first stage, so I was a bit nervous going into the TT as I didn’t know if I had the legs to really be competitive. Unlike Henry, I was already out of GC contention, but I still decided to ride all-out for the TT as practice for future stage races. My strategy was to pace the uphill really hard, so my legs would feel dead at the top. 

I used the first two miles of the course, before the road started pitching up, to see how my legs were feeling. I felt good, so I increased the power by about 10W once I started going uphill. This increase in power meant I slowly started to feel worse, but I was flying and I knew I just had to make it to the top of the hill at that power, so I pushed through. 

I was right at my limit when I crested the hill, so I knew I paced it right. I recovered a bit on the downhill, then gave everything I had left (which wasn’t much) to get to the finish. I felt completely miserable crossing the line, but a better kind of miserable than how I felt on stage 1.

After I finished, I was happy with the effort, but I didn’t think I was that fast compared to everyone else – I guessed I was in the top half but not much faster. I was quite surprised to see that I got 5th place, and less than 10 seconds behind 2nd. The winner, Jordan, was absolutely flying that day, finishing 45 seconds ahead of 2nd and almost a minute ahead of me, and he ended up going into the GC lead after this. Henry finished about a minute behind me and was 1:55 behind the lead on GC after the stage.

Stage 3 - Baker City Downtown Criterium

Written by George. The plan going into the crit was for Henry to sit in because he was close enough to contest GC, and for me to race for the stage. I felt good after my 5th place result in the TT earlier that day, but I still didn’t want to do much work in the crit because I was a bit tired from the TT and had a 50-minute climb waiting for me the next day. AV also didn’t have any obligation to take control of the race, as there were 12 people ahead of Henry on GC. Therefore, I decided to just try to get the best finish possible without really forcing a move. The course was a 1km L-shaped lap, with the start-finish straight being only 300m, but the roads were wide so it still would be a fast race.

It was really hot for this race – temperatures were in the mid-90s – so Henry and I used ice socks, and I had a full bottle with fairly dilute drink mix. I was a bit worried about how the heat would affect me after the day before, but the ice sock was helping, and after the race started I felt better than I expected. I still didn’t do much for the first 30 minutes of the race – I was mainly sitting in and learning where to move up, which was actually quite challenging with the straights being so short. The most notable thing that happened during this first half-hour was that my ice sock completely melted.

With about 10 laps to go in the race, a break of 2 went up the road, and a chase group of 2 followed shortly after. GC leader Jordan was in the first break, so I thought the group would want to chase it back, but they didn’t, and with about 3 laps to go I realized that break was going to win the race. With 2 to go, I attempted to bridge, but my legs were way more cooked than I expected – I think that after the ice sock had finished melting, my body started feeling the heat a bit more, and I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me until this bridge attempt. Therefore, this bridge attempt only lasted around half a lap, and I ended up just finishing in the middle of the main group. Jordan ended up winning the stage and extending his GC lead a few seconds, but he isn’t a climber so Henry and I figured he wouldn’t hold this lead on the final stage.

Stage 4 - Anthony Lakes Road Race

Written by Henry. The route was the reverse of the first stage, followed by a massive 12-mile climb finishing at over 7,000 feet of elevation. Given our GC placement, the main goal for the day was to conserve energy until the final climb and go for the stage win.

The group kept a moderate pace all day, a few minutes behind a breakaway of about five riders. At the base of the final climb, a hard initial surge reduced the group to about six. Niko from PenVelo paced the first 25 minutes of the climb before exploding and eventually losing about 10 minutes. 

Since everyone else in the front group was in contention for GC, I thought they would mark each other for the overall rather than ride aggressively for the stage win. This wasn’t the case, as every time I attacked, they immediately glued to my wheel. So, I quickly shifted strategies and decided to back my sprint for the finish.

We caught all the original breakaway riders and crested the top of the climb in a front group of four. Going into the descent, one rider launched an attack, and I crawled back to his wheel along with everyone else in the lead group.

After that attempt, we soft-pedaled down the descent to the final 200m slight uphill finish. The virtual GC leader, Tyler, was the first to launch his sprint. I quickly got into his draft, coming around in the final 50 meters and throwing my bike at the line. It was a super close finish, but after a few minutes we got confirmation that Tyler won the stage and I was second—so close!

George had a great ride, finishing 7th on the stage, and I moved from 13th to 6th on GC. Despite missing the stage win by a couple of inches, I’m still proud of my effort on the last climb and glad to finish off a long weekend of racing feeling stronger than at the start.

This was a super fun introduction to stage racing, and I really appreciate the support of the whole team. In particular, Roger (Nathan’s dad) was incredibly helpful in managing logistics and supporting us in the feed zones with cold bottles and ice.