Race Report: 2024 Berkeley Crit - Men’s Pro/1/2
Race: 2024 Berkeley Crit - Men’s Pro/1/2
Date: April 28, 2024
AVRT racers: Jack Liu, Jon Wells, Nathan Martin, Cam O’Reilly
Top Result: Jack Liu, 7th of 45
Course: 1 km rectangle at Ohlone Park in Berkeley. The course was a long rectangle on city streets with so-so pavement throughout. The long home stretch was uphill with the backside running downhill while both short sides were flat. Corner 1 and 2 were slower being at the top of the hill with 3 and 4 being much faster. Some of the worst pavement was on the inside of corner 4.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11288072455
Nutrition: a pre race Redbull and 60g flow bottle during the race
Race Recap: (Jon’s POV)
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This crit was day 2 of the Berkeley omnium, which had some serious prize money in the pro races for the overall. Nathan was our best placed overall rider with his 5th place finish from the day before. Since Nathan did not feel confident about field sprinting, our plan was for him to try for a breakaway. The tight corners and slight hill on the course had helped lots of breaks stick throughout the day. Plan B was for Jack to lead me out in the field sprint.
Mikes Bikes and Voler had the largest rosters on the startline, both with 8 guys. We were the next largest team, but only with 4 riders which gave us a little bit of freedom. The race started aggressively, with Mikes and some strong individuals throwing lots of attacks and counters. Nothing stuck until about 10 minutes in when Nathan snuck off the front with a Mikes rider. Voler had a chance to bridge to this move, but they let it roll, effectively signaling their intentions to field sprint with Ryan after his win the day before.
Nathan and Chris (Mikes rider) worked together off the front and held a gap of around 15-20 seconds for most of the race. Back in the pack, Voler lined up their whole team on the front to keep a paceline and hold the break in check. After some initial jockeying to slow the break, Mikes settled in behind Voler and all of the smaller teams (us included) settled in behind Mikes.
Nathan and Chris ended up putting up quite a fight, holding off the entire Voler roster until 2 laps to go. They had burned through all of their guys except Ryan and Max in order to make the catch happen. Mikes countered over the break getting caught with a solo rider which kept the pace high as everyone tried to grab positions with the race now reset. Jack and I found eachother around the top 10 wheels at this time as well.
The plan for the last lap was for Jack to lead me out full gas down the backside into corner 3 and then I would sprint. As Jack started moving up down the right side (inside) on the back stretch, there was a huge crash on the left with both remaining Voler riders going down hard (check out the video!). I grabbed some brake to stay upright and lost momentum. To add further insult, the guy in front of me in the last corner dropped his chain and caused me to brake again, turning a great last lap opportunity into a 12th place. Jack ended up carrying more momentum through the crash and held on to 7th.
-Jon