Race Report: San Ardo 2023 Women P1234 Long Course
Date: August 19, 2023
AVRT racers: Robin Betz, Niky Taylor
Top Result: Niky 1/7.
Course: Here’s my description from last year. The course is the same. “San Ardo RR is pretty flat. There’s some rolling at the beginning of the course and a couple short hills after the turn to head back to the finish, but not much that will help a climber get away. The road is pretty rough in places, especially over the bridge on the far side of the course. Goat heads (thorns) are a hazard on the sides of the roads. The end of the course is on a short climb off from the rest of the course, about 4%.”
Recap: I had not done a road race in a few months so I was excited to be back. I was also feeling a bit timid because covid really knocked me down in July. But I was wearing my district's kit for the first time. So that was neat. My main goal was to eat consistently.
Robin and I came up with a race plan which was for me to make the first half of the race hard, and launch a breakaway with her in it for the last lap. There were only seven people registered but it was a strong field. So I needed to wear people out if Robin was going to go off the front later on.
The race started which was cool. Eclipse had three riders and we had two, then there was Ilan from Terun and Hannah from Cal Poly. I dropped back on the first hills to see how people were riding and then did an attack up a roller because idk why not you know I wanted to see what people did.
I got brought back is what people did, mainly by Ilan and Hannah. Robin counter-attacked. I was like this is fun, so then I counter-counter-attacked that. And then we drove the pace up and dropped one Eclipse rider. I did an attack after the bridge, which I thought was a smart idea because I can get a gap riding over the rough stuff. But actually I’ve decided the bridge isn’t as amazing an attack point as I thought because after the bridge it’s slightly downhill and that makes it basically impossible to stay away. We had a sneaky attack up the punchy hill on the stretch back, where I drove the pace up and then Robin faded off my wheel to create separation.
Lap 1 was pretty fun. But I was more tired than I wanted to be coming into lap 2. I still had some covid effects and noticed that I wasn’t recovering as quickly as usual. Also our attacks had only dropped one rider. So I thought maybe it was time to re-evaluate the plan.
Robin and I checked in. She said she wasn’t feeling great, and we agreed we didn’t think a break would stick and it was time to switch plans. She would do as much work as she could and I’d sit in for the sprint. So for a lot of lap 2 Robin just drilled it. I got a gap on the bridge again and briefly tried to make a break stick with Ilan, but that fell apart immediately.
Start of lap 3 I got a bottle (thanks Lynne!) and followed Ilan and Hannah up the climbs. They were setting a quick pace and I was hoping we’d drop the two Eclipse riders, but unfortunately we dropped a very tired Robin instead. The Eclipse riders caught back on. I managed to sit in for a while, saying I wasn’t going to contribute to dropping my teammate.
By the time we got to the bridge we’d gotten a pretty good groove just pacelining. Everyone was contributing except for one Eclipse rider still sitting in. I felt pretty sure no one was going to attack, there wasn’t much point, it's so flat and so hard to get away. I started thinking about how I wanted the finish to go. I saw Hannah and Ilan as the main threats. I decided I should try to be on one of their wheels coming into the finishing turn and try to go around them on a sprint.
About a mile from town I attacked to shake things up out of the paceline and get where I wanted to be in the lineup. Hannah shut me down immediately, then I was tired from attacking so I acted like I was tired from attacking because I was tired from attacking and dropped to the back. The working Eclipse rider got on the front and did a long lead out until the hill, then Ilan, Hannah, and I all came around in that order.
Just before the final turn Hannah started fading, so I sprinted to catch onto Ilan. I thought about passing her on the turn but couldn’t remember how long the final stretch was, so played it safe and stayed on her wheel. About 50m to the finish line I came around her to snag the win by about a bike length.
Robin stuck it out and finished the race to get 6th. I cheered for her and we met a guy who we had passed on course and who apparently had offered Robin a hot dog that he had in his pocket. There are some jokes about this that could be made. Then we rolled home and by home I mean back to where everyone was parked.
This was a fun race. It was a small field but had some fun dynamics. It made me think about “attack points” in races. I thought the bridge was a good attack point because I could get separation fairly easily. But the downhill after the bridge meant I had trouble sticking the attack. I thought that was really interesting. Idk maybe that’s just obvious. I’m going to go get sushirito now.