Race Report: 2024 Giro di San Francisco - Men’s Cat 4/5

Race: Giro di San Francisco - Men’s Cat 4/5

Date: September 2nd, 2024

AVRT Racers: Clark Penado

AV Club Guests: Wil Gibb

Top Result: Clark Penado - 26/75

Report Author: Clark Penado

Course: A fast paced somewhat bumpy L shaped criterium with a small hill and a flat wide finish

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/12309143934

Nutrition: 1 caffeine gel before hand, 1 bottle of high carb drink mix

Event Recap: This was a fast course, and the category 4/5 field was the biggest of the day with a sold out registration of 75 people.

At the start we were offered a warm up lap to get a feel for the course, which I opted not to take to get a spot on the line. I wasn’t the only one who had this idea, so there were ~3 rows lined up excluding those who took the warm up lap. Notably, Dolce Vita had a strong presence for this race, so strong teamwork from them was expected. 

Off the start, getting a good clip in and surging was critical, and from what I heard there was a crash off the line and a lot of commotion through the first turn. Into the small hill, things settled a bit, and continued through the back stretch of the course. Coming through the final turn of the first lap, the pace picked up quite a bit, and the speed carried through the line and into the first turn of the second lap. After this, I recognized a pattern that the group was slowing down a lot through each corner.

The rest of the race was fairly uneventful, and followed a strong pattern of surging through the final straight, losing some speed through the corners, and rolling through the back straight. The back straight did not feel as intense in terms of effort compared to the rest of the lap, however at one point I tried to move up here and this was certainly an area where being in the draft was a huge benefit. For the most part, I was able to move up where I could by maintaining as much speed as I could through each turn.

With a few laps to go, the pace picked up as one might expect, and I tried to hold my position/move up as much as I could. On the final lap I saw someone farther up make an attack off the front just before the final two turns, which they were able to carry through to the line. Coming into the finish I gave as much of a sprint as I could, edging off a few others for a bunch finish at 26th. 

This was definitely a fun one to end the season on, and had a great environment with a lot of spectators.