Race Report: 2024 Cantua Creek Road Race - Men’s Cat 3

Race: Cantua Creek Road Race - Men’s Cat 3

Date: February 17th, 2024

AVRT racers: Drew Mathews, George Wehner, Jeremy Besmer

Top Result: George 5/40

Course: 3 laps of a flat 24-mile out-and-back course, with an uphill turnaround on the south end and a flat turnaround on the north end. Finish is on the uphill on the south end of the course. The finishing hill is about 2 miles at 3% broken up by a couple short downhills, the final one of which ends at 1km to go.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10782327050

Nutrition: Two bottles with 90g maltodextrin/Gatorade powder mix, one bottle with 50g of the same mix, and one energy gel.

Recap: (written by George) Our strategy was initially that Jeremy and I would follow breakaway attempts, with the goal of getting one of us into the breakaway of the day. Drew would sit back for a field sprint in case it was all together at the end. We were looking out for Pen Velo, as they had 4 riders pre-registered, none of whom seemed like sprinters, so we thought they would want to go for a breakaway; other big teams were the Mike’s Bikes development team with 3 riders, who we also thought would go for a breakaway, and Big Orange Cycling, who we didn’t really know much about.

During the first lap, not much happened. A couple people tried to attack, but they were quickly brought back. I sat in for the entire lap and tried to keep my power as low as possible; I even sagged the hill so I wouldn’t have to do as much power. I managed to stay comfortably in zone 1 for most of the first lap.

Early in lap 2, Jeremy got into a break with a few other riders, including a Mike’s Bikes rider and a Pen Velo rider, which gave me even more time to rest; however, this was brought back after around 10 minutes. After Jeremy was brought back, a Pen Velo rider attacked with a Velo Kings rider and established a breakaway. I did not follow this because I thought it was too small and too early, but it ended up gaining significant time pretty quickly. Jeremy tried to bridge me up to the breakaway after the north-end turnaround, but it had already gained too much time for this to be feasible, and I had multiple other riders on my wheel who I didn’t want to drag up to the break.

The rest of lap 2, Jeremy and I tried to organize a chase effort to bring the group back. There were some riders from Big Orange and Dolce Vita, as well as some solo riders, who were willing to contribute. However, a lot of people were unwilling to pull through, and Pen Velo was constantly trying to sit second wheel to disrupt the chase. Drew also ended up getting a flat somewhere in this section. Leading up to the south-end turnaround, we saw the breakaway coming the other way and determined they probably had about 1.5 minutes on us. After this realization, people were suddenly much more motivated to chase, so we caught them early in lap 3.

As we caught the break, I watched closely for counterattacks, as I thought anything that went that late after everyone had just chased would have a serious chance of going the distance. However, no one, not even Pen Velo, wanted to send any attacks, and I was too tired to send my own attacks. Because I was tired, and Drew was no longer available to sprint for us, I told Jeremy to follow any late moves so that I could sit in for the finish.

The finishing hill became very chaotic, as we ended up passing another field with 2km to go. I was doing whatever I could to move up, but it was pretty sketchy so I waited a bit for a better opportunity. Jeremy went hard early on the hill to try to force a split, but he ended up filtering to the back after a couple minutes, so I didn’t have a leadout. After the final short downhill with 1km to go, everyone really started going hard for the finish, but this spread things out enough that I could move around and surf wheels. With 200m to go, the rider in front of me ran out of steam, so I was forced to start my sprint then despite it being uphill and into a headwind. I also didn’t have much left in the tank to properly sprint as the pace of the group had forced me into a max 2-minute effort, so I got passed by a rider with 125m to go and another rider right at the line. There were also two riders further up the road who had gapped everyone else, so I ended up with a 5th place result.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with my result. I hadn’t seen the podium in a while, so it was nice to get back on there. I think that if I had been better positioned towards the end, I could’ve followed the two guys that gapped the field, so I definitely think I should work on my positioning in the future. I definitely think we worked well together as a team and communicated well, and I’m really looking forward to more races this year!