Race Report: 2024 Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men's Cat 3

Race: Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men's Cat 3

Date: April 27, 2024

AVRT racers: Maxime Cauchois, Henry Mallon, Jeremy Besmer

Top Result: Henry 3rd, Maxime 5th

Course (from Fraser’s 2023 report): Roughly four laps of an 18.7 mi loop with 1,650 ft of elevation gain each lap for a total of ~74 miles and ~6200 feet including the neutral rollout. The main feature of the course is the “Three Bears,” which is a sequence of short climbs in the second half of the loop. “Mama Bear” is the first and takes about 2-3 minutes to climb; “Papa Bear” is the second and takes about 3-4 minutes to climb; and “Baby Bear” is the third and takes less than a minute to climb. There’s a short descent between Mama and Papa and a longer descent between Papa and Baby. The rest of the course is mostly flat with some rolling hills. 

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11278238684 

Nutrition: 3 bottles with 80g drink mix each and 1 gel. 

Race Recap: Written by Henry. Our plan going into this race was to support Jeremy. His training has been targeting this race, with excellent power at threshold and 2-4 minutes that’s key for the hills on this course. Despite having food poisoning the previous week, we all felt confident that Jeremy could win the race. 

For the first two laps, we maintained a comfortable position near the front going into the climbs. The pace was hard at about 5-5.5 w/kg, but the climbs were all short and fairly draftable, especially Mama Bear where it felt like a slight headwind. 

Each time after Papa Bear, everyone who made the front group of ~20 completely sat up. For nearly 40 minutes from the top of Papa Bear after lap 1 to the base of Mama Bear on lap 2, we slowed to a recovery ride pace (I averaged only 128W). I think everyone wanted to conserve energy for the climbs and didn’t expect a breakaway to make it to the finish. This dynamic meant that everyone dropped on the climbs made it back easily. 

On lap 3, Max and I went to the front on Mama Bear and Jeremy asked us to push the pace. Max later told me that he was pulling at about 380W (6-6.5 w/kg), and I was only doing about 330W on his wheel, despite weighing a similar amount. After Max pulled off, I paced the flat middle section and the second part of the climb. Despite our efforts, the group was still large going into Papa Bear. 

Once down the descent for the final time, a few riders attacked and quickly formed a strong breakaway. Unfortunately, we weren’t in this group. For the next ~30 minutes, there were many surges and attempts to bridge, including big efforts by Jeremy and Max up Garbage Hill. Finally, Charlie from PenVelo went to the front and singlehandedly brought the breakaway back for his teammates. On this lap before Mama Bear, we were ~7 minutes faster than the first lap.

I think everyone was either tired from the chase or thinking about the finish, so Mama Bear was relatively easy. We took the opportunity to position ourselves near the front and gameplan for the finish. Jeremy told me to focus on positioning myself and follow Jack, an Alto Velo teammate riding for Stanford in the combined field for this race. Jack is an experienced rider and a great finisher, so I quickly jumped on his wheel. 

Going into Papa Bear, I put myself in about 5th wheel hoping that Max and Jeremy would be behind. Surprisingly, no one wanted to pull and we rode the first 90 seconds of the climb at an easy tempo. Then, an El Cerrito High School rider attacked and got a huge gap. Three other riders responded and I ended up chasing just behind them. I looked back and saw some orange/blue behind me and figured Max or Jeremy must be there. We were gaining on the next group of three until they started sprinting at the 100m sign. I crossed the line in 5th place overall and 3rd in Cat 3. Unfortunately, Jeremy wasn’t feeling the best after being sick last week. So, Max was on my wheel at the finish and hung on for 5th in his first Cat 3 race!

I think we had an excellent overall strategy going into this race. But, we could have adapted better as the race progressed based on how we were all feeling. For example, it probably would have helped our chances in the punchy finish if Mama Bear and Papa Bear were paced harder on the last lap. Also, missing the breakaway that formed at the beginning of the last lap meant we had to spend a lot of energy that could have been saved for the final hills. Still, it was a super fun race, and awesome to come away with two top-5 finishes!

Henry