Race Report: 2024 Valley of the Sun Stage Race - Women P12
Date: February 16-18, 2024
AVRT racers: Robin Betz, Whitney Post, Niky Taylor, Katheryn Curi (DS)
Here’s our Women’s P12 2024 Valley of the Sun race recap. Valley of the Sun (VoS) is a long-running stage race in Phoenix, AZ with three stages: a flat 10 mile TT, a 64 mile road race, and a 40 minute crit. We were DS’d by the fearless Katheryn Curi. Rachel and Louise raced the Cat 3 field but were a big part of our race experience since we all stayed together and supported each other.
This race report written by Niky because lol I love writing race reports.
Top Results: Niky 30/67 TT, Niky 30/67 GC, Niky idk let’s just assume 30/67 for the RR and Crit too i don’t feel like searching for it it was mid-pack
Day 1 Stage 1 - Time Trial
Course: it is straight and flat, then you turn right, then it’s straight and flat, then you turn around, do it backwards. There’s a few washes that cross the road and a bit of rough pavement here and there. The scenery is nice. You do not get to see it.
Recap: Ok hello so Time Trials aka TTs are like just go as hard as you can as aero as you can. They are “simple” but my god they are also so complicated.
I was on the newly acquired women’s team TT bike which is a Shiv S-Works with some super deep Princeton Carbonworks wheels. And I had a TT helmet that Robin wrapped sparkly white. I looked like speed racer. Go speed racer.
The day before the TT I did a pre-ride with David. David is nice and pretty much taught me how to ride the TT. The biggest takeaways were how to optimize my aero position and when to most effectively spend my power. He told me to focus on putting out power when going slow (i.e. on small hills, coming out of corners and turn around) and focus on position when I was at speed.
Day of the race our women’s crew arrived together. I did about 30-40 minutes of warm up and 10 minutes of anxiety standing and then stepped up for my start. The guy asked if I wanted a bike hold. I said yes. They counted me down from 10 and right before they let go I was like wait how do I start from a bike hold again?
Nearly tipped over but it’s fine I got it here we go. Katheryn said not to sprint up to speed but to “whoosh” to speed so in my head I said “whoooooosh.”
I rode in a straight line so fast. All I could see was the road whooshing by and I was like damn I am so fast. Whoosh whoosh. I was confused because for the last few months I’ve been feeling really negative when I start going hard. I thought hm maybe I’m not trying hard enough, so I glanced at my heart rate and it said 192. So nope I’m definitely going very hard. Which must mean that I’m just not feeling negative. Awesome.
I whooshed out of the left turn and saw Whitney and another girl in front of me, so buckled down to pass them. I passed and Whitney cheered. I wanted to cheer back but omg I’m dying now. Keeping the aero position got tough as I got more tired. Luckily this aero helmet makes a sound like someone screaming whenever I get slightly out of position. So it is very easy to know when my head is not in position.
Less than a mile from the finish I felt like I had enough to ramp up the pace. But being in the TT position was just so different I felt like I couldn’t quite access the last bit of power I had left. I did what I could and was definitely gassed at the end. But I think getting more used to the bike and position will help a lot.
I felt pretty alright about the effort. Flat roads have never been my jam, but it was fun to go for it on the TT bike and see what it’s about. I’ll get another go next weekend at Tucson but for the next two days I’m excited to be back on my Emonda.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10775398030 Note I didn’t have a power meter, the numbers on this are estimated by strava and definitely wrong.
Nutrition: Soylent and smoothie for breakfast, a bottle of skratch and a Spring Speednut (lol) gel during warmup, nothing during the race, water after and more soylent.
Me and Whitney about to head out for our TT’s. Photo by Katheryn. Rachel is in the background having just finished.
DAY 2 Road Race
I’m going to get to this report but the first thing I need to get out of my system is that the Women’s 3 field was overtaken by a junior men’s field, right as the 3’s were finishing. The boys pushed past the 3’s and crashed most of them out, including Rachel. It screwed up their race and injured quite a few of them.
I wasn’t there to witness this, but it made me really upset to hear that it happened. I feel that the boys should have been neutralized behind the women, allowing the 3s to finish their race safely and in full. I know it’s difficult for race officials to manage the fields on these courses and I appreciate the organizational effort it takes to put on a race like this. But events like this need to be addressed because they perpetuate the status-quo belief that men’s racing is more important than women’s racing.
Women’s races deserve as much respect than men’s races. A race finish is more important than a race that is continuing. Prioritize the race that is finishing.
I wanted to add this to my race report because it’s taking up a lot of our time and focus now.
My race recap:
Course: The course is a sloppy triangle and you go clockwise. One side is a broad hill. You start at the top of that hill, descend, take a right and go over a cattle guard. End of neutral. Second side of the triangle is all shallow descent and flat. Then there’s the last corner, and then it’s a slow build (2-3%) to about a 5 min hill (4-6%). The hill flattens out almost completely and then there’s the finish. The feed zone is before the finish line on laps 2-3 (not after the finish line, like I thought). The QOM point is also at the finish line on lap 2.
Recap: My goal for this race was to play the game and race bikes and watch the pros. But the course did suit me in that I love 5 minute hills. So we decided Robin and Whitney would do what they could to position me in the last stretch and I’d send it at the end.
At staging I got worried about my number flapping. Robin saw me anxious and without hesitation took a pin off her number and added it to mine. She kept reminding me to just stay on her wheel and she was there to help me when I needed it.
The race started. Since it starts with a descent we hadn’t bothered to do much warm up. The pace was fast. I realized I loved it. I zipped into the top third and discovered I could move around pretty easily. My pack skills seem to be better than I gave myself credit for. I was surrounded by Twenty24 and DNA and felt super safe.
A few wheels back, Robin and Whitney were having a different experience. They had to deal with some sketchy moves and Robin had a lot of contact with one rider. But she stayed up and Whitney got next to her and defended her.
End of lap 1 we got to the last turn and the hill. DNA and Twenty24 set a hard pace up and it was clear the hill was going to be used for attrition. I was in the top few wheels coming over the top. I definitely looked for Katheryn and had a bit of an “omg do you see what I’m doing look at me!” moment. Coming into the second lap Robin found me and told me we’d lost Whitney on the hill. Then the pace picked up again..
I noticed DNA was doing an amazing job of sitting in the top third of wheels, and then all getting to the front for each corner. I watched one of them effortlessly glide through the gridlocked peloton. Coming up to turn 1, one of them casually moved up the side and I hopped on her wheel. I found myself at the front with her and followed her line through the corner. It was great. I kept all my momentum and didn’t have to sprint out of the corner at all.
Things got spicer at the end of lap 2. This was the QOM point. I moved up. I didn’t want to go for the QOM, but we thought there would probably be an attack after it and I wanted to be ready to cover. Alex Obrand (Terun) was next to me and I told her to watch for people counter-attacking the QOM sprint. The pace was similar to lap one. Then we hit the feed zone. The layout of the course was a bit odd. Everything happened on the course in the span of like 2 km. There was the hill which was the main feature, the feed zone, and then the line. So the feed zone kind of interrupted the effort.
So that meant people were sorta maybe feeling like attacking in the feed zone but since that’s not allowed they were just pressuring. People sent it for points right after the feed zone ended, and I was confused because I for some reason thought the feed zone was after the finish line. So I thought this was an attack and I went with it. Then there was an actual counter with the GC girl in it and I was like oh dang, but saw Alex covering it. And I was like wow awesome but oh wait she isn’t actually on my team even if she is my friend. Then that got caught and screw it I attacked because I had momentum and why not. I looked at Alex as I passed to see if she wanted to go too but I think she was a bit gassed at the moment. The descent started again, I was quickly caught and faded back into the group.
Lap 2 went by. Lap 3 the p1 men passed on the hill, which was notable because 1) a very cute guy said hi to me (it was cam) and 2) it basically neutralized the hill for us. One of the women shouted “pass faster!” .
Lap 3 happened. We were fighting for position pretty much the whole last half. Robin helped move me up a few times, at one point towing me straight up to the front. I wanted to be on the leadout that DNA and Twenty24 were setting up but so did everyone else. Coming up to the hill I saw Robin on the other side of the group doing a heroic pull and towing Alex up to the front of the group. I was like omg I want to be there but too bad for me cause I was stuck. Then Robin blew up, dropped back, and suddenly Alex and I were on either side of the final rider in the train. Both of us were trying to edge her out from opposite sides. Finally it was too much and we both fell back a few wheels.
Things shuffled again and Alex got in front of me. I stuck with her until almost all the way up she was fading. I came around and looked to see if she could follow but she was done, having basically done a leadout for me for the 300 steepest meters. I latched onto the front group.
I could see the top and I knew I could get there at this pace and then we got there and I realized I actually had no idea where the finish line was. Because I had forgotten to look for that at any point in the first three laps. Honestly probably because I didn’t think I’d be anywhere near the front for the finish. Ah. Oops. Pro-tip, know where you are finishing.
I figured it out when people started sprinting, way after where I guessed the line was. I held on to finish just off the back of the front group.
Definitely feel like I could have played it better, but at the same time I was pretty pleased to be mixing it up with the pros at the front of the race. So that’s cool. I found Robin and we rolled back to the cars, where we found Louise patching up Rachel and heard about the crash.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10783069227
Nutrition: Half a bottle of skratch and a Spring Speednut gel pre-race, one bottle of water and a bottle of skratch during the race, two Spring Awesomesauce gels and a pack of clif bloks during the race, water and Soylent after (omg I did it I ate enough in a road race).
Day 3 crit:
Course: technical enough that my bike handling helped me out. Not so technical that I didn’t end up using a lot of power. Two big straight stretches including the finishing stretch. Corners are left, right, right, left, right, right, right.
Recap: we got to the race about two hours early. Robin immediately zipped off to warm up. Whitney and I got ready and then I looked at the course with Louise and Rachel, went and found Robin. She was like ok time to head to staging and I was like what we still have over an hour and she was like omg you are right too bad I ate all this caffeine.
Robin gave us some excellent advice: that we could take the outside line on every turn and gain plenty of positions. You could pedal through every corner on the outside and get 1-2 seconds of rest coming out of it while everyone else was punching to get back to speed. We all took note, and I practiced her lines on a practice lap.
An hour later we actually went to staging. I managed to grab a spot in the second row. The race started and I clipped in perfectly and I was like oh yeah. Then I slipped to pretty much the back after a few laps. Robin came and found me and helped move me up. I found both Robin and Whitney’s wheels at different points and followed them until I got comfortable choosing my own lines. I followed Alex’s wheel a lot too. It felt really good to have teammates and friends in the race.
There were like 900 primes. After a big one, the GC leader (team Twenty24) counterattacked. Two DNA riders jumped after her to shut it down, then I bridged up. I felt so cool. There’s a video of me in that break. It for sure did not stick because obviously DNA wasn’t going to let the GC Twenty24 rider get away.
After that things were back together. A few minor incidents but no big crashes. Then with 5 laps to go I took turn 1 wide and had to slam on my brakes to avoid crashing into the curb. Instead I did what I’m sure was an insanely cool skid, tapped the curb with my back wheel, and managed to stay upright. I hurried to catch up to the group.
I started working my way back up to the front. I found Robin and Whitney, and Whitney and I moved up together into the top 30 wheels. I found Alex and decided to stay on her wheel.
That proved pretty tough because Alex is a crit machine and churned through the top group until she was in the top 10 wheels. I crawled up a bit but was a little psyched out from my skidding incident. And even though I’ve done well in crits and even won one I still wasn’t thinking of myself as a competitive crit racer.
I heard the announcer say two laps to go. I could have sworn he said two laps. But the pace blew up and coming into the second to last corner the leadout train left and the sweeper swept. I was far enough up to see Alex rip the final corner and steal a wheel. By the time I came around the corner I saw them sprinting and as I rolled over the line the announcer said that was the finish.
I was quite relieved to be done because it was hard but also I was kind of bummed that I didn’t go harder. I didn’t know it was the last lap. That’s the second time in two days I’ve messed up the finish just because I got confused about something.
But oh well. I was so stoked for Alex. She got 4th. Sorry I know she’s not on AV but you know, tell her good job the next time you see her.
Whitney finished right behind me, and Robin shortly after. We were all pretty happy with it and felt like next time we could do even better. I think we all came away feeling like we could be more relevant in these races than we thought. Good thing we’re planning to do more :)
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10790252442
Nutrition: A bottle of skratch and Spring Speednut gel pre-race, nothing during, water and Soylent after.
Getting ready to head to the crit. Only team photo I remembered to take lol.