Race Report: Sand City Crit - Men’s P123
Race Report: 2023 Sand City Men’s P123
Date: 7/23
AVRT racers: George Wehner, Greg McCullough, Jon Wells, Jack Liu
Top Result: Jack 11/31, Jon 12/31, Greg 16/31
Written by: Jack Liu
Course: https://www.strava.com/segments/30725550
The course is very interesting with lots of features, including 10 corners, a small hill (~7 sec), technical descent, and a S-turn chicane before the finish. The wind also played a big factor, as it was headwind into the hill, cross-wind most of the time, and tail-cross on the finish. you are either coasting into corners or sprinting out of corners, and the only good place to move up is the long start/finish straight.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfpCZ9qOtaA
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9510150371/overview
Nutrition: one bottle of water with SIS
Race Recap:
Sand city, now in its 2nd year, has an interesting race format for the men’s P12: everyone starts with a 30-min qualifier race, and the top 50% (15 places) of the 2 qualifiers get into the final 60-min race, while the bottom 50% get into the 50-min petite final.
In my qualifier, everyone was pretty conservative, but Team Mike’s Bike (TMB) still hammered at the front and eventually took 1st and 2nd (Tim, Ryan) soloing out the front. Jon, Greg and I made it to the final, and our plan was to cover early breaks and help each other move up in the final laps.
The race was relatively chill most of the time, perhaps due to the fatigue from Pescadero RR the day prior. TMB didn’t seem to want a break to form and covered most of the attacks. I noticed their sprinter, Ryan, was sitting mid-pack most of the time while his teammates controlled the race at the front, so I decided to sit-back and let them do all the work. I tried to follow Ryan closely, and was impressed by how smoothly he maneuvered around the field -- a true demonstration of skill and power.
As it came down to the final laps, 4 teams occupied and fought for positions at the front -- TMB, Terun, Project 74, and Voler Factory. Each team had 2-4 people, and it was really hard to get into their rotation as a single rider (Jon and Greg were slightly further back and couldn’t help) as you just got bullied out of their way. In the end, I finished 11th behind all the big teams, with Jon right behind me.
Overall, I think I did my best to conserve energy and fight for position. Knowing that TMB will chase down every single breakaway attempt but you also stand no chance against their sprint is frustrating, but I guess that’s just life racing in NorCal. Perhaps it’s time to befriend other local teams to bring down the dominance of TMB.
