Race Report: 2024 Cat's Hill Classic - Men’s Cat 4

Race: Cat’s Hill Classic - Men's Cat 4

Date: March 25th, 2024

AVRT racers: Zachary Berger, Maxime Cauchois, Clark Penado

Top Result: Maxime Cauchois (2/21 Cat 4, 3/52 overall)

Course: 1 mile with a punchy 20% hill that lasts about 10-15s, fast corners, the course was a bit wet during the race.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11023003487

Nutrition: One bottle mix of Skratch and cyclic dextrin (~50g) during the race

Summary of the race (written by Maxime): 

With wet pavement and intermittent rain, positioning was bound to be a key element of the race. Evidently I had missed the memo since I started pretty far back, enough to not see a guy break away on the first climb, and to have to chase for a couple laps to regain positions.

Once established towards the front of the pack, and once Zack had managed to fight an early mechanical to make his comeback, we started working together to train and chase the solo rider back, not getting much from the rest of the group. 

After Zack unfortunately flatted out of the race midway, it was pretty clear that the field had become uninterested in chasing the break, and that I could only race for second. I settled in and decided to wait for the right moment, which came when a rider launched a hard attack getting into the final climb.  

Only one other rider was able to follow, and we had a sizable gap at the top, meaning we wouldn’t be caught before the finish line. Despite a pretty ideal position into the final rider, right behind the guy who had attacked, I made the mistake of getting into the wind too early and had to settle for 3rd overall, 2nd in my category since the rider who outsprinted me won the collegiate field. Not too many regrets out of this race, as the winner was significantly stronger than the rest of the field, if not that it would have been nice to see how things would have unfolded without our early mechanicals.

Thanks for reading!