Race Report: Copperopolis - Men’s E3
Race: 2023 Copperopolis Road Race - Men’s Elite 3
Date: 4/8/2023
AVRT racers: Andrew Ernst, Matt Koenig, Florian Costa
Top Result: Andrew 2/17, Matt 3/17
Course: 4 counter-clockwise laps of a 21 mile, 1800 ft elevation circuit featuring iconically bad pave and potholes at times spanning the entire width of the road. The elevation is frontloaded into the first 6 miles of the course, with rollers leading up to a 2 mile climb at 5%. After the hill is a 9 mile plateau cutting through now green pastures (courtesy of all the rain this year) and then a bone-jarring, bike-mangling 5 mile descent before a 0.6 mile drag at 3% up to the finish. This year’s temperatures ranged from the low 50s at start to low 60s at the finish. Wind was about 10mph from the northwest.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/8856228583
Nutrition: 5 gels, 1 bottle Gu roctane mix (100g), and 2 bottles water
Gear: I came close to riding my Specialized Diverge after hearing how bad the roads were, but with the significant amount of elevation, I opted for my Tarmac SL7 with tubeless 28c tires at 70psi. I’m not sure this was the right choice.
Race Recap: Leading up to the race, it looked like we had good odds of doing well with AVRT making up a third of the pre-registered racers. Unfortunately, Daniel wasn’t able to make it on race day, Flo was dealing with a knee injury, and Matt had just recovered from the flu. At the start line, our biggest team threat was Dolce Vita with four riders. There were also a few strong guys riding unattached. Knowing there would likely be gaps caused by mechanicals early on, our goal was to stay toward the front so we could pick our lines and avoid launched bottles.
The race started pretty relaxed as we navigated the first section of bad pavement. Matt opened things up on the first climb and strung the field out. The first lap stayed fast through the backside headwind. We stayed toward the front without really driving the pace. James from Dolce went flying into the descent and the field was blown apart. I had told myself that I wasn’t going to risk safety on the descent, so I lost ground and had to work a bit on the slight uphill section to catch back on. Fortunately, the front guys who had bombed the descent had no intention of staying away. Coming into lap two, the field was probably half of what it had been at the start.
Matt and I took turns on the front the second time up the main climb. As we crested, I found myself 10 seconds off the front and figured I might as well see if I could keep it going. I stayed a 5-10 seconds away from four chasers (one being Matt) until I took a wrong left turn in Felix. Two riders followed me and one followed Matt straight (the correct direction). I quickly realized I had taken a wrong turn and flipped it with one of the two riders who followed me. We managed to catch back up with Matt while the rider who had followed Matt trailed 30 seconds behind our group of three. Because Matt and I had done a lot of work to facilitate the break, we eased up to see if our break-mate from “Super Sprinkles” would contribute. The answer was an astounding “no.” We slowed down so much that the chaser caught us on the descent and the break was now at four.
Lap three, Matt and I kept the pace quick up the climb to ensure the other riders weren’t getting rest. I again found myself off the front. Matt attacked to drop “the chaser” from lap two and closed the small gap I had. I think this was a good move since I didn’t want to dangle off the front solo through the headwind just to be caught on the descent. So it was again Matt, myself, and the guy from Super Sprinkles. This time Matt and I kept the pace a little quicker. Super Sprinkles basically got a free ride on the AV train for the rest of lap three.
Lap four, I knew we were going to have to put in some solid attacks to send either Matt or myself off the front and leave Super Sprinkles behind. Ideally, this would happen on the climb where there was the biggest opportunity to create a large time gap. I pushed but didn’t have the kick to gap Super Sprinkles. After all, he had gotten a free ride for most of the previous 60 miles. Matt and I attacked and counter attacked 4-5 times throughout the lap, but Sprinkles was always there with his fresh legs. I knew that if we were all together at the top of the final descent, Matt would win with his solid sprint. I also knew that if I didn’t have a 20 second lead before the descent, I would lose (given my unwillingness to descend at 45mph on such terrible pavement). Just before the descent, Sprinkles decided to burn a match and we lost Matt. As anticipated, Sprinkles proceeded to bomb the descent like he had the previous three laps, and I gradually lost 15-20 seconds that I couldn’t regain before the finish.
Looking back, I really think we could have organized our attacks better in the last lap to get AV the win. One hard attack on the climb would have been a lot more meaningful than our 4-5 halfhearted attempts. If we had protected one rider on laps two and three, that rider would have had the snap to go solo on the last climb. We’ll get ‘em next time!
Andrew