Race Report: 2024 Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men’s P/1/2
Race: Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men’s P/1/2
Date: 4/27/24
AVRT Racers: Grant Miller, Nathan Martin, Andrew Ernst, Nico Sandi, Greg McCullough, Andrea Cloarec, Cam O’Reilly, Jon Wells
Top Result: 5th - Nathan
Course: 5 laps of this. First quarter is rolling/flat with a steep and fast downhill, turning onto a road with a small kicker before another fast downhill. There’s then ~4 miles of false flat before hitting the main feature of the route, the 3 bears. Mama bear is first, about a 2 minute climb, then Papa is about 3 mins, last is Baby, less than a minute.
Nutrition: 3 bottles of mix, 2 gels
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11278289390
Race Recep (written by Nathan):
Our plan heading into the race was to have Nico for the final climb if it came down to a bunch sprint and me to go in any late breaks on the last lap.
On the first lap, a break of about 7 went, with Andrew and Jon in it for us. It had some strong solo riders like Devin Wilson and Victor Perez. Voler had Ryan Gorman in the break and Mikes had two as well.
One of the Mike’s riders would have his saddle break, so when TMB in the main group saw this, they tried pretty hard to bridge on Lap 2. This is when Grant would be able to bridge up to the break, riding with a TMB attempt. On this lap as well, Nico got a flat and Greg stopped to help him, unfortunately pretty soon after they stopped attacks started flying and the group really picked up some pace, so they couldn’t catch back on.
Lap 3 saw some bridge attempts from Voler, but nothing stuck and the group mostly stayed together.
Lap 4 TMB was not liking the break composition and started rotating on the front to bring the group back together for Mattheus. They burned through 3 guys and at the start of Lap 4, we caught what remained of the break on San Pablo Dam. After we caught the break, a few counter attacks would go, but nothing serious, and the group stayed together until after the fast descent on San Pablo.
After turning onto Castro Ranch, Ryan would send a massive attack on the small kicker and would quickly get a 30 second gap. Mikes was all gassed from chasing, most of the AV members left were in the break all day and also gassed, so there wasn’t a real chase effort and Ryan was able to stick this move solo to win. AV rotated a bit to chase, then Mike’s rotated a bit. Maybe if we had immediately worked together from the second he got a gap, but who knows.
The group stayed together until the bottom of the final climb up Papa Bear. I had a decent position in 5th wheel going into the climb, and from the bottom Voler’s climber just gunned it. I was pretty much right at max effort from the bottom, as was everyone else, and was only able to make up one wheel before the top to finish 5th overall.
Overall I think we were a little disappointed to not improve on last year’s 3rd place. Nico and Greg flatting out definitely didn’t help, but that’s just bike racing. I think it was another good learning experience for us, and a lot of fun to be racing against two other full strength teams on a tough course.