Race Report: Santa Barbara Road Race - Men’s P12
Race: Santa Barbara Road Race - Men’s P12
Date: Jan 27th, 2024
AVRT racers: Pierre-Amaury Laforcade, Jack Liu, Nathan Martin, Grant Miller, George Wehner
Top Result: Grant Miller 13/60
Course: 6 laps of a rolling 14 mile course with a steep uphill finish
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10643418314
Nutrition: Started with two bottles with 100g of carbs, grabbed one bottle of really strong orange scratch mix
This was my first race of the year and while I was hoping to get a good result, I was also racing into fitness and knew I wouldn’t have many matches to burn. Our plan was to try and stay sheltered in the field and cover any threatening moves and then try to keep me in good position for the uphill finish.
Unfortunately, our plans went pretty much out the door on the second lap when Nathan had a mechanical and the field was split into three groups. Pierre, Jack, and I found ourselves in the last group. The splits developed very quickly in the tailwind section as groups of a few breakaway riders slowly coalesced into two main breakaway groups, leaving a group of 15 of us behind in the field. I tried to attack across on the climb but the groups up the road were working well together. After redlining it on the climb I struggled to stay in the last group and thought I wouldn’t last another lap. Our group started working together and we spent the next hour chasing flat-out until we finally had the main peloton in sight. We managed to catch them and I tried to settle in to recover.
Almost immediately attacks started flying and after 10 minutes a threatening group formed off the front. I waited a bit too long and then jumped to bridge across when it was clear no one else would. After another hard effort I made it up to the lead group. A bit later, Pierre also managed to bridge across. At this point I thought we’d made it into the winning move so I tried to save energy, but the group lacked cohesion and people were constantly letting gaps open up which we had to sprint to bridge across. After two laps we got caught by the peloton again.
At this point we had one lap left so I focused on saving energy to make it over the climb one more time. I felt like my legs were completely gone but I managed to make it over and hang onto the group. Pierre and I quickly conversed and he said he’d try to lead me out into the finish. Heading into the finish Pierre brought me up and I navigated onto the Cal Poly leadout. I felt like I had a great position, but in the right hand turn the group swelled and I got stuck in the middle of the bunch. I tried to follow the leaders but got stuck behind a wall of people cramping. Someone in front of me overlapped wheels and I had to stop sprinting to avoid them. After that I found a window but the leaders were already too far ahead so I rolled in for 13th.
It was a pretty brutal race for me and I thought I would get dropped multiple times so I was proud to finish. I learned that in the finish it’s better to hit the wind for a cleaner line instead of trying to stay sheltered when you don’t have a big leadout. It’ll give you a better chance of avoiding crashes at the cost of a bit of energy.
The race was a great tune-up for our upcoming stage races and I think the weekend is a great opportunity to race against the best in SoCal, so I’d encourage more people to make the trip to SLO next year.