Race Report: 2024 Copper Valley Circuit Race - Men’s Cat 3/4

Race: Copper Valley Circuit Race — Men’s Cat 3/4

Date: February 25, 2024

AVRT Racers: Zack Berger, Henry Mallon, Will Hakim, Drew Mathews

Top Results: Zack (19/36)

Course: 2.75 mile out-and-back along rolling road with excellent pavement. Overall uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back. Finish comes after a downhill stretch. 60 minute race, in which we completed 5 laps.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10837037336 

Nutrition: 1 Gu gel, ½ bottles of water with two scoops of Tailwind Endurance Fuel and a scoop of Maltodextrin (~80g carbs).

Recap [by Zack]

Earlier in the day, Will, Henry and I had a fairly successful Cat 4 outing. Equipped with an extra teammate, we were ready to dive into the 3/4 race. Dolce Vita was the most threatening team with 5 riders. Along with a load of unattached riders, Velo Kings, Pen Velo and Terun, each had a couple of teammates. Our plan was simple — get a guy in any threatening breaks, hope one stick, and if it comes to it, protect Drew for a bunch sprint.

Right out the gate the pace was much harder and much faster than the 4s. Exhausted from working in the break in my previous race, I sat in the middle of the pack while my teammates moved up. Multiple attacks went on the first lap, mostly initiated by Dolce Vita. Henry and Drew covered to make sure our team was represented in the potential breakaways with threatening compositions. After each of the preliminary attacks got brought back, on the second lap, a racer from Velo Kings, Dolce Vita, and two other riders attacked to form a break. Unfortunately, we missed it.

At this point, things were relatively unorganized in the peloton. Within a lap, the break gained a 30s gap on the field. Some motivated riders from Terun and Pen Velo began to trade pulls on the front. I moved up to help out while Henry and Drew dropped back. Dolce Vita very effectively disrupted, and a few laps passed with no dent in the gap.

A lap later, the Dolce Vita breakaway rider had fallen back. At this point all the major teams were cooperating, with the majority of solo riders hanging on the back. For the most part, my other AV teammates weren’t at the front — more on that later. The paceline was semi-effective, often hampered at the back as the non-participating riders inadvertently disrupted the flow of the rotation. The gap only shrank 10 seconds leading into the last half lap.

I was the first in the peloton through the final turnaround. The turns were extremely difficult during the race — I often spiked over 600W just to stick to the group — so I wanted to make it easier on myself. By this point, Drew was near the front with me (he came up during the last lap to help reel in the break). Will and Henry got swarmed during the turnaround and ended up at the back of the pack.

With just over a mile to go, I was in a similar position as my last race — too close to the front. I tried to fall a few bike-lengths back but immediately got swarmed as the pace picked up. Suddenly, I was ~15 bikes back.

I found my heart rate exceeding 200bpm as we entered the last kilometer. It was my first time in a bunch sprint and it honestly terrified me. Riders shooting around me, me swerving around other riders. At some point I passed Drew, then gave one last push to pass a Dolce Vita rider for 19th place.

After the race we got some food in Copperopolis and discussed what could have gone better:

1. We missed the first break. Our team had a sense of complacency and thought it couldn’t possibly stick. It turns out that this decision was the most critical one of the race. From Henry: In the future I definitely need to be more aware of the different teams and not waste energy chasing breaks with the wrong mix of riders.

2. Our team didn’t do a great job of working together. In the first third of the race, Drew and Henry were near the front trying to get in a break and then chasing. They got tired/discouraged and fell back at the same time I went up. Then, I felt isolated at the front burning my wick while my teammates were back in the pack. We should have been more coordinated, and should have all been up there cooperating with the other teams to reel in the break — perhaps the presence of all 4 AV racers could have further motivated the peloton.

3. By the time we went into the last half-lap, our team was splintered apart and could not help each other going into the sprint.

4. I was badly positioned going into the last half-lap. I made a similar mistake in the 4s race, so I need more experience figuring out where to sit in the peloton toward the end of a race.

5. I personally felt very overwhelmed from the whistle as the pace was faster and harder than anything I had done before. This was my first time racing against Cat 3s, so I psyched myself out into believing I couldn’t get a good result during the race. The irony of this is that I did a tremendous amount of work on the front, and certainly could have placed well had I done a better job of hiding. Going forward, I need to believe that I have the fitness to do well in these races.

6. I personally fell on the sword at the front to try and reel in the break and benefit the peloton. This sacrificed my ability to sprint at the end and properly support my teammates. I need to do a better job of conserving my energy. From Drew: I helped in the chase effort in the final third of the race, made my way to the front at the final turn around, and ended up being on the front twice between the final turn and the finish instead of protecting myself for the sprint. A takeaway from this race is thinking about when to call off the chase and save it for the sprint instead of effectively working for other teams. 

Even then, the race was still a ton of fun. A lot to learn and a lot to improve on going forward!

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Race Report: 2024 Valley of the Sun Stage Race - Men's Pro/1

Race: 2024 Valley of the Sun Stage Race - Men's Pro/1

Date: February 16-18, 2024

AVRT racers: David Domonoske, Pierre-Amaury Laforcade, Nathan Martin, Greg McCullough, Cam O’Reilly

Overall GC Top Result: David Domonoske (18th)

Stage 1 (Time Trial)

Top Result: Nathan Martin (25th)

Course: A 10 mile, pancake-flat out-and-back in the middle of the Arizona desert. There was a slight cross-tailwind on the way out and a slight cross-headwind on the way back. There was one corner in the course, meaning there were 4 times when you had to sprint up to speed— the start, the corner each direction, and the turnaround.

Strava: strava.com/activities/10775561386 (David) 

Recap: There isn’t much to report as this event is simple — race as hard as you can until you cross the finish. While it is simple, it is far from easy. Not only do you have push as much power as possible, you have to do it while holding as aerodynamic a position as possible. Nathan and I (David) were on time trial bikes, while Cam, Greg, and Pierre were on their road bikes. Nathan put down a smoking time of 20:11, averaging a ripping 29.5 mph for the 10 mile course.

Stage 2 (Road Race)

Top Result: David Domonoske (19th)

Road Race Course: 6 laps of a 16.5 mile triangle, also in the middle of the Arizona desert, for a total of 95 miles. The roads are long and straight, so you can see riders that are miles away. The first two corners are on the flats and aren’t consequential, but the third corner is right before the base of the finish “climb”. The finish is about half a mile after the false summit of a modest 1.6 mile climb at 3.5%.

Road Race Strava: strava.com/activities/10783124718 (David)

Recap: Our plan for the road race was to sit in and watch the race unfold for at least the first half. It’s a long race, so the probability of an early breakaway making it to the finish is low. We also didn’t have anybody very high up on GC, so we had no responsibility to chase. This was smart, but it meant for a very boring start to the race for us. A few lazy attacks went that formed the breakaway, and then we were sitting in the group doing absolutely no work. At times, my heartrate dropped below 100 bpm. For one section, I averaged 100 watts for 15 minutes. This really demonstrates the power of riding in a peloton, because we were still averaging 27 mph.

More attacks started to go at the top of the climb at the end of the second lap. There was some chaos as riders got brought back while the next ones attacked. As riders flew by at different speeds there was a touch of wheels, and a large part of the peloton went down. Unfortunately, Nathan was caught up in the crash, hitting his head and snapping his fork. Greg stayed back with Nathan while Cam and I sprinted to catch up to the peloton and join Pierre, who hadn’t been affected by the crash.

The gap to the breakaway grew to 5:30 as teams slowed down to wait for teammates that were chasing back on. Once most riders had rejoined the group, the pace picked up as the large gap to the break had to be addressed. Fortunately, the next few laps were fast and uneventful.

The fatiguing reality of riding an entire day in a breakaway started to take its toll on its constituents, and the peloton started collecting dropped breakaway riders during the last lap. With half a lap to the finish, the remnants of the breakaway had been caught and everybody was focused on the field sprint.

The hill makes the finish slower and more difficult than a traditional field sprint, but it still comes down to a bunch sprint. Pierre moved me up through the group on the backside of the course as we approached the final corner. By the time we reached the corner we were positioned around 10th wheel. There was a strong headwind, so the group wasn’t going particularly fast, making it difficult to hold position. The front of the group went slow as they battled the wind, while the riders behind sat comfortably in the draft and used the extra power to try to move up. 30 riders were trying to sit 5th to 10th wheel, and we were crammed in like sardines, often bumping shoulders and hips with riders to either side.

As we crested over the false summit, Eddy Huntsman, an excellent road and track racer, launched his sprint. I jumped onto his wheel, but unfortunately for both of us it was far too early with the headwind and false flat uphill. He began to fade and I wanted to keep the pace up, but I also knew that it was far too early. I came around Eddy and then faded myself. Then Cory Williams came around me and faded too. Only then did Aevolo get the timing right and come around us with a perfectly timed jump. The rest of the sprint bunch soon passed me as I just tried to keep my legs turning over to the finish line.

I ended up 19th on the stage—a disappointing result, but there were still some positives. We worked well as a team during the last lap to get into position when it mattered, and my legs were good enough to stay with the front group up the final climb.

Stage 3 (Criterium)

Top Result: David Domonoske (1st)

Course: A 1 mile, pancake-flat course with 8 corners. After the start finish there are 6 corners in quick succession. The first and third corner can pinch a little, but for the most part these are wide open corners. The first riders into them don’t have to brake at all. Then there’s a long back straight, 2 final corners, and about 300 meters to the finish.

Strava: strava.com/activities/10790606711 (Pierre)

Recap: Crits are interesting because the race isn’t necessarily easier when you’re at the back of the peloton. This is because the corners force the group to slow down, and the back of the group must brake earlier, slow down more, and sprint harder out of the corner. This crit was no different. I lined up at the start early to have a good position, and straight from the start I sprinted to hold that position. For the entire race my goal was to float around in the top 20 wheels.

The group would remain fairly organized through the corners, but in the long finish straight and back straight people would sprint up the side of the group to gain position. This caused the peloton to be very chaotic in these straights, and you didn’t want to get stuck in the middle and get forced to the back of the group. In these straights you had to constantly be aware of what was going behind you and try to match the people that were sprinting by instead of having them go around you and swarm you.

PA and I were sitting near the front for the entire race, spending as little energy as possible (still quite a bit) to float between attacks and use our momentum to stay near the front without getting swarmed. As the race neared the end it became more difficult to stay near the front because everybody wanted to be ready for the sprint. Normally, a large team(s) will start controlling the front with a leadout, and the pace will increase, however nobody took on this role. Instead, everybody was fighting for positions, and the long straights allowed the organized group to turn into a washing machine where riders were sprinting down the wide road, trying to move into a good position before the turn. I think I did about 15 mini sprints in the last few laps to hold my position between 5th and 10th wheel and avoid being swarmed. We were bumping shoulders and hips, and I’d say those last 3 laps was some of the scariest riding I’ve ever done.

With 1 lap to go I was still in a good position, but I had to keep that position down the back straight. After exiting the corners, I made sure to stay on the right side of the group so that I wouldn’t get stuck in the middle of the group. Sure enough, a team with a single leadout rider started to sprint by on the right side. I jumped from the draft I was in to the riders that were moving by on the right and kept sprinting to keep others from coming around me. Going into the last 2 corners I was 5th or 6th wheel, and I was excited—the swarming and fighting for position was over, and it was time to sprint. We came out of the last corner and I opened up my sprint in the full draft of the riders in front of me. I was able to get fully up to speed before having to come around the rider in front of me and hit the wind. By this point I was going 1 or 2 mph faster than the other sprinters, and I was slowly able to come around them as we neared the line. Ecstatic, I crossed the line in first.

Race Report: Valley of the Sun Stage Race - Cat 2 Race Report

Race: Valley of the Sun Stage Race - Cat 2

Date: Feb 16th-18th, 2024

AVRT racers: Andrea Cloarec, Flo Costa, Jack Liu, Grant Miller, Jon Wells,

Top Result: Andrea 11/51 TT, Grant 8/51 RR, Flo 8/45 Crit, Grant 12/51 Overall

Time Trial - Feb 16th

Course: 10 mile out and back TT with 120 feet of climbing. Slight tail/crosswind on the way out.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10775238596

The time-trial day was pretty straightforward. Just got out - ride as hard as you could for about 21 minutes (less than 20 if you are really fast!) and try to be as aero as possible. While warming up for the TT, I got a flat tire and had to flag down someone to get me back to our van. With about 15 minutes to spare I had to swap wheels and do an abbreviated warmup before rolling over to the start.

After getting all that out of the way I managed to arrive at the start on time and ready to go. Despite only having 120 feet of climbing, you definitely felt the slight rise on the way out on the TT. I ended up doing a slight negative split on the TT with my power increasing as the effort went on. That probably wasn’t the best strategy as it felt like the way out was significantly slower than the way back - so you would benefit from putting out slightly more power earlier. I caught my 30s man few minutes into the TT and settled into my pace. After the turnaround I tried to start increasing my pace but just felt like I couldn’t push more. A few minutes later I saw the 5k to go sign and tried again but it just felt like I was locked in. I crossed the line with 21:22 for 13th and Andrea finished a few minutes after with 21:19 for 11th. Both were good times but we were still more than a minute back on the leader.

Road Race - Feb 17th

Course: Triangle course with around 500 feet of climbing. Headwind on the climb into tail/crosswind on the other two sides.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10783089258

In the road race our plan was to have Flo, Jack, and Jon cover and initiate moves while Andrea and I sat in. Our plan went perfectly as Jon got into an early break which slowly gained a minute advantage on the field. Flo also managed to bridge across at a perfect moment when Jon punctured and had to abandon the race. On the second lap the GC leader had to burn a bunch of matches to bring back the break. We started to close in on them on the climb and made the catch right as the pitch increased. A few people attacked but nothing stuck as we started the third lap. As we were descending Andrea also punctured and had to abandon the race.

In the third lap no threatening moves went away and we all entered the climb together. I stayed positioned towards the front to try and follow any attacks. There were a few attacks and the pace was higher but again nothing went away on the climb. When we started descending a few people started rolling off the front one by one. I had plenty of opportunities to go with them but since I didn’t feel like it’d been that hard so far (because I’d been sitting in, doing nothing) I didn’t think the break would stick. On the descent a break of four formed up the road and they quickly gained 30 seconds on the field. I was hoping the field would start working together to chase and we’d get a free ride, but it quickly became apparent that there was no coordination. I asked Jack and Flo to join the rotation and they helped to manage the gap into the climb.

On the last climb I expected the pace to go ballistic but other than one soft attack it was easier than the previous climbs. In hindsight this is exactly when I should’ve attacked - the break was 30s up the road and not coming back. My best chance to close the gap and secure a result would’ve been a long range attack on the modest 4-5% gradients where it was hard to follow. Instead I tried to stay buried in the field and save energy for the sprint. With about 500 to go, Jack found me and realized we were boxed in. A few seconds later he saw a gap and shot through it and I followed him. He gave a solid lead out but we still had more than 200 to go so I didn’t immediately commit. A second later another attack launched on the left side and I tried to follow but couldn’t get into their slipstream. I rolled across for 8th overall, and 5th from the field sprint.

Crit - Feb 18th

Course: 7 Corner Crit with a tailwind finish

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10790753503

Our goals in the crit were to set up Jack for the sprint finish. Given that the GC was completely out of reach, we were looking for a good team result on the day. The race started off pretty well and I managed to jump across to an early break which stayed away for about 10 minutes. After the break got caught I tried to stay towards the front to jump on any dangerous moves but nothing really coalesced. The race averaged 29mph which made it hard to generate separation and keep a breakaway rotating.

With 2 to go, I found Jack and tried to move him up through the start-finish straight. We made it into the top 10 wheels and I started to slow, but this led to us getting swarmed in the first corner. In hindsight I should’ve kept the power down and went all the way to the front to get a clean line. When we got swarmed I grabbed brakes and this killed our momentum. We managed to slot back in and I tried again to move up on the back straight but couldn’t find a gap into the last two turns. Jack shot past me, had someone crash into him, and still managed to find an inside line through the turns, but at this point we were too far back to contest the sprint. Through all of this Flo had positioned really well in the top 10 wheels and had a decent run at the finish, ending up 8th on the day.

Race Report: Tucson Bicycle Classic - Men’s P12

Date: February 23-25, 2024

AVRT Racers: David, Cam, Greg, PA

[Report written by PA]

Stage 1 - Time Trial

We kicked off the weekend with a roughly 10-minute Time Trial on a windy out-and-back course north of Tucson. We headed out for the first 5 minutes against a strong headwind and then returned for the finish with a tailwind. With that in mind, we all planned to go out as hard as possible and then try to manage the return stretch, counting on the tailwind to push us to the finish line.

David finished fastest on the team in 9 minutes and 26 seconds, only 30 seconds from the win and GC lead. The rest of us were right behind, about 45 seconds back on GC.

Stage 2 - Road Race

This was a fast, relatively flat course, so we expected an easy day sitting in the bunch, waiting for a sprint finish, with the pro teams controlling at the front. However, none of this happened. After a very fast first part of the race, a large group of 20 found themselves at the front and quickly gained almost a minute on the field. Unfortunately, we missed this break but were still pretty confident that Project Echelon (one of the major teams present at this race) would chase it back for a sprint finish, as this break threatened their GC lead. But they fell short, and we realized 10 minutes before the finish that the break wouldn't be seen again. The GC leader's jersey changed shoulders, and we sprinted for an anecdotal 20th place. This set the stage for a hectic Sunday circuit race.

Stage 3 - Circuit Race

This race was a lot about positioning and being opportunistic for us. Given the scenario of the previous day, we knew that Project Echelon would want to make the race fast and hard to have a chance at retrieving the leader's jersey. So, we aimed to stay opportunistic and ride near the front of the bunch, which we did very well for the first part of the race. In a very large field and narrow roads, positioning was key, and the battle for position was sometimes fierce. Unfortunately, 3 laps from the finish, David dropped his chain, which cost him almost a minute. The rest of us tried to wait a bit to bring him back, but he was too far behind. Greg and I then tried to position ourselves for a sprint finish, but as we were trying to make it back to the front of the race, a two-man break from Project Echelon went away and eventually won the race and retook the GC. We sprinted for the best position possible, which ended up being 21st for Greg.

Although in terms of results, this weekend wasn't as successful as the previous one, I personally felt more confident navigating the bunch and felt like I could be at the front of the race a lot. We took a lot of experience and positives and learned to work together as a squad, as this was only our first race block of the year.

Tired, but happy after two weeks of racing and training in the desert !

Race Report: 2024 Copper Valley Circuit Race - Men's Cat 4

Race: Copper Valley Circuit Race - Men's Cat 4

Date: February 22, 2024

AVRT racers: Zack Berger, Will Hakim, & Henry Mallon

Top Result: Henry 3/21

Course: An out-and-back course with about 5.5 miles per lap. Very good pavement and a wide shoulder. The way out is slightly rolling with 1-2% gradients and the finish is on the back straight after a slight downhill. Our race was ~60 minutes and we completed 5 laps. 

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10836324732

Nutrition: 1 bottle with 80g of homemade malto/fructose mix and a 100mg caffeine gel on the start line. 

Race Recap: Written by Henry. Since none of us are particularly strong sprinters, we planned to roll attacks with the hope of forming a favorable breakaway. If it came together for a field sprint, we would organize a leadout for Zack. 

After several attempts, Zack made an early breakaway with two unattached riders, wearing red and green jerseys. The red jersey rider didn’t consistently peel off left or right, which disrupted the rotation. And, the green jersey rider didn’t take equally long pulls on the front, which made Zack hesitant to expend too much energy. Despite this incohesion, the gap held steady at around 30-45 seconds. Meanwhile, Will and I disrupted any chase efforts from the main group. Will was very active in jumping on wheels and patrolling the front during this period (accumulating 90 TSS in the 1-hour race). 

With about two laps remaining, the breakaway’s lead narrowed to about 20 seconds and I took the opportunity to jump across without taking any passengers. A Terun rider had a similar idea and also made a solo bridge up to the breakaway. We now had five riders in the break with Zack and me representing the largest team presence. 

Once in the breakaway, I showed my commitment by taking hard pulls and encouraging the others to continue working. However, the green and red jersey riders didn’t understand how to ride an efficient paceline. They were peeling off to different sides, opening gaps, and generally taking soft pulls on the front. Zack also needed a moment to recover, so initially it was only the Terun rider and me pulling through consistently. 

In hindsight, I think Zack and I had the power to stay away from an unorganized peloton, but we were disrupted and demotivated by the other riders. Had we attacked the breakaway and distanced the red and green jersey riders (who appeared to be struggling the most), then we definitely could have maintained a higher speed. Without the confidence or cohesion to make it stick, the gap began to dwindle, and we were soon brought back by the main group with about 1 lap remaining.

Without any other coordinated teams, we were still hopeful that a late move could stay away. We made a few attempts on the final outbound rollers, but nothing ended up sticking.  By the turnaround, we resigned to a sprint finish and discussed our options. Since Zack spent a lot of energy in a 40+ minute breakaway, we decided our best chance was to lead me out for the sprint finish. 

After going through the turnaround, a rider attacked and Will closed it down to the top of a small roller. To avoid getting swarmed, Will started the leadout from this point, which was about 1.5-2k from the finish.

In hindsight, this was too early to take the front, especially given the effort we had all put into supporting breakaway attempts throughout the race. Will kept it fast until the 1k marker and then Zack took over, doing about 530W for a minute. At ~250 meters to go, a few riders opened up their sprints and I came around Zack to jump on a Terun rider's wheel. A few seconds later, I stood up and came around him to snag 3rd in the sprint.

Overall, we made some mistakes managing the breakaway and recognizing when to attack disruptive riders. And, we learned about the balance between conserving energy for a leadout and staying near the front to avoid being swarmed. Despite these mistakes, we learned some valuable lessons and still managed to come away with a podium in the sprint.

Race Report: 2024 Cantua Creek Road Race - Men’s Cat 4

Race: Cantua Creek Road Race — Men’s Cat 4

Date: February 17, 2024

AVRT Racers: Zack Berger, Henry Mallon, Will Hakim

Top Results: Henry (4/27), Zack (9/27), Will (15/27)

Course: Approx. 70mi and 2000ft of elevation. The course consists of three out-and-back laps along a two-lane road with good to excellent pavement. The section of road is mostly straight and flat with some rolling hills near the start/finish. The finish is slightly uphill with a ~2-3% gradient.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10782421952

Nutrition: 5 Gu gels, 2 bottles of water each with two scoops of Tailwind Endurance Fuel and a scoop of Maltodextrin (~80g carbs).

Recap [by Zack]

We had three teammates (Will, Henry, and myself) going into Cantua Creek. With a field of 27, we figured our numbers weren’t large enough to control the race. None of us have a great sprint, so our plan was to work with the field to catch early breaks and set up a late break for me. Worst case scenario, Henry and Will would lead me out to try and win from a bunch sprint.

Lap 1. A rider from Cycle Sport attacked immediately and went off solo. The peloton ignored him, and for the rest of us, the race started off very slowly. During the first half of lap 1, our field got neutralized to let the Masters racers pass through. A quarter of the peloton stopped for a bathroom break. I only averaged 112W during this stretch, which is easier than a coffee ride for me. The official gave us a wake up call on the return leg — the solo rider had a 4.5 minute gap. Will helped organize the peloton into a paceline and we were off.

Lap 2. Just after the half point of lap 2 we caught the solo rider. The pace suddenly dropped back down. The remainder of the lap was uneventful until the rollers, where Henry and I decided to attack and try to force a break going into lap 3.

Lap 3 pt 1. A strong rider from CalPoly joined Henry and I as we set off on the final lap. We gained a 30 second gap, but the peloton was extremely motivated. The rider from CalPoly dropped back, and Henry and I followed, recognizing we definitely couldn’t hold off for the rest of the race. Just before the turnaround there were a couple potentially threatening moves that I joined, but they were all quickly brought back.

Lap 3 pt 2. After a brief team meeting, we decided this race would probably come down to a bunch sprint. Henry and I sat back in the peloton to rest. Will decided to go off the front for one last stab at a break. Someone else joined them, and they just sort of slinked away. It was almost as if no one noticed him go. After a few miles, they were nowhere in sight. 

Two more riders attacked. I tried to sit at the front of the peloton and disrupt the speed. After a couple minutes, the official notified us there was a 1 minute gap. This reinvigorated the peloton to chase. Once the two riders were caught, the peloton let off. I think most of them thought this was the break with the minute-gap and truly didn’t notice Will had left beforehand. As we moved toward the finish, Will was still nowhere in sight.

The final five minutes of the race was a tale of two positions. Going into the final climb, I was positioned on the right at the front of the peloton completely exposed to the wind. Henry was a few bikes back on the left, sheltered from the wind. At the 1km mark, a strong rider named Kyle (who raced with Alto Velo at Santa Barbara a few weeks back) launched an extremely powerful attack. I started to follow, but a few things went very wrong. First, I was completely out of the draft and exposed to the wind. Second, a rider from a separate race was in the middle of the road — instead of going left and trying to join in the draft I pushed further right. This decision was largely due to inexperience and not realizing where the wind was. Third, my hamstrings cramped up in a seriously painful way.

At the 500m mark we all passed Will. The sprint train accelerated away and I was left behind. I burnt too much energy sitting out of the draft and couldn’t connect — let’s chalk it up to a great learning experience about positioning. I pushed for a bit, then once my place was secured slowed up and rolled over the line in 9th. Henry, comfortably in the draft, was able to follow that train right toward the finish line where he sprinted for 4th place. And since no one else showed up for the picture, AV was the highest up on the podium that day!

Race Report: 2024 Tucson Bicycle Classic Stage Race - Men’s Cat 2/3

Date: Feburary 23-25, 2024

AVRT racers: Andrew, Andrea, Flo, Grant

Top Results: Grant 4/96 GC, Flo 3rd Road Race, Flo 5th Circuit Race

(Written by Andrea)
The idea was to aim for GC based on TT times for Grant, Andrew and Andrea. And Flo going for stages results.

Stage 1 - TT : Short TT of 5 miles, totally flat, around 10min.
Objective was for us to be in the top 10 or close to all be dangerous later in the stage races.
Grant got 5th, 12 seconds behind leader,
Andrew 7th, 4 sec behind, Andrea 11th 3sec behind Andrew.
And Flo not far 21st, just 10 seconds behind Andrea.
So we went to the road race with 4 potential threats to gc, with Grant very well placed.

Stage 2 - Road race:
Plan was trying to be aggressive and make the race hard to hope for a later move.
After 2 guys started off fast, Andrew did a big 10' solo effort to bridge to them. Before the final long stretch, Andrea bridged to this group of 3 with another guy. So we were 5 in the break, 3km before the finish of the 1st lap to go for bonus seconds. However the break sowed down, and peloton caught us.
Flo managed to get the 1 second bonus, arriving 3rd at the sprint.
After this, the race kept being quite fast with small attacks, but nothing hold.
So it finished as a sprint finish. And Flo did a very good job getting into position on the right side of the road, hidden from the wind, to start his sprint and finished 3rd on this stage!
Unfortunately Andrew was caught behind a crash with 4km to go, which made him lose 2min on the GC.

Stage 3 - Circuit race:
New day, new plan. Only hope to get gc was for Grant to be in a successful break. Which would be quite hard on this circuit and with the other guys that would hardly let him.
So second option was for Grant to chase the bonus seconds on lap 3 and 6 to move up GC, While Flo would be our sprinter for the finish line.Beginning of lap 3,Grant launched his move, a strong attack only one friendly rider followed. They worked very well together, while Flo, Andrew and Andrea where trying to slow down the peloton. We all went at the front of the peloton of 100 guys to disorganize the chase. Grant managed to grab 3 bonus seconds, moving him up to 4th place GC.Lap 6, Grant again launched his attack. This time the peloton and other leaders are very careful and won't let him go. Andrea quickly came to try to help him at the front with a small leadout. Grant managed to grab another bonus second.
Lap 7, last lap. Flo getting into position, with Andrew's big help keeping a high pace at the front, chasing a solo flyer ahead.
After Andrew's helped catching the solo guy, Flo fought for the position to stay in the top 5 at the kicker, avoiding the chaos and crashes behind. After a fast final corner, Flo sprinted to finish 5th on the day.Overall :
We finished this weekend with 4th for Grant and 9th Andrea on GC.
And Flo with two good results, 3rd and 5th.

Even if we all wanted a better outcome, we worked very well as a team, gave our best, kept communicating during the races, and still managed to have some good results.
Very nice experience, looking forward to experiencing it again at the next stage race.

Grant, Andrea, Andrew, Flo

Race Report: 2024 Pine Flat Road Race - Men’s Cat 3

Race: Pine Flat Road Race - Men’s Cat 3

Date: February 18th, 2024

AVRT racers: Drew Mathews, George Wehner

Top Result: Both DNP (George finished but wasn’t placed)

Course: 62 miles, beginning on 25 miles of out-and-back with rolling hills, followed by a 2-mile descent, a 20-mile flat section, a 5-mile climb which gets steeper towards the end, a 6-mile rolling descent, and a 2-km climb at the finish. Cattle grates were frequent on the rolling parts of the course.

Strava: Before flat: https://www.strava.com/activities/10789277878, after flat: https://www.strava.com/activities/10790296714

Nutrition: Two bottles with 90g maltodextrin/Gatorade powder mix and one bottle with 50g of the same mix. This ended up not quite being enough, as I bonked about a mile before getting back to the parking lot.

Recap: (written by George) I was pretty tired after Cantua Creek, but I was looking forward to this race. I was supposed to be the protected rider as I was reasonably confident in my climbing abilities. Drew also was unsure he would be able to finish the entire race as his tire was still having issues that started at Cantua Creek the day before.

After the neutral start, the race still felt neutral for another 10 minutes or so, as people initially did not want to get going. However, people eventually decided they wanted to race and started making it hard. We would surge up the rollers and sometimes even down the rollers, only to sit up for a minute and then surge again. Drew also got a flat somewhere on this section.

At the end of the rollers, there was a short climb before the descent. I made the mistake of not fully familiarizing myself with the elevation profile of the course – I knew the general details, but I forgot the exact distance markers for each feature – so I did not position myself here and ended up at the back of the group leading into the descent. On the descent, the rider in front of me let a small gap open, which blew up into probably 20 seconds by the end of the descent.

Once I was able to pedal without spinning out, I began working with the other dropped rider to try to chase back on. I was hoping the group would eventually chill out and we would catch them in a few minutes. Unfortunately, the group decided to really push the pace after the descent, so we were losing time quickly despite our hard work. The other rider gave up after 5 or 10 minutes, leaving me on my own.

For the next hour or so, during the flat section, I kept pushing through the flat section at tempo, still clinging onto the idea that the group would sit up. Multiple times, I saw something up the road, thought “that’s the group,” and then realized 20 seconds later it was just a post on the side of the road. I passed a couple people with flats, but I didn’t have any supplies to help them.

At the start of the climb, I noticed my front tire was losing pressure rather quickly. After stopping, I noticed the sidewall was leaking sealant. I’m still not totally sure what happened to cause this, but I assume I must’ve hit a cattle guard which somehow slightly unseated my tire. A couple of the people I had passed earlier stopped to try to help, but they didn’t have any CO2 or a tube with a long-enough valve stem, so I thought I was out of luck and had resigned myself to waiting for 2 or 3 hours for a teammate to pick me up after the race. However, after a few minutes, Abraham from Mike’s Bikes Dev, another cat 3 whom I had also passed earlier, graciously let me borrow his saddle bag. Inside this saddle bag was a tube, which still had a valve stem that was too short, and a CO2 cartridge. I thought I wouldn’t be able to fix my tire without a tube, but out of desperation, I put the CO2 into the tire without a tube, and it somehow was able to hold air again. This was enough to get me over the hill, eventually cross the finish line, and then ride back from the finish to the cars. I ended up getting DNPed because I think the organizers had stopped looking for cat 3 numbers by the time I crossed the line, but I didn’t protest this, since I didn’t really care about DNP vs. DFL.

This definitely wasn’t my day, but I can learn from the mistakes I made. Next time, I need to make sure I know exactly where the key descents begin so I can make sure I am in position for them. I also should probably carry a CO2 cartridge with me for road races in the future. Despite the shortcomings today, I still felt good after this weekend, as I had achieved a top 5 the day before and got to have fun racing.

Race Report: 2024 Cantua Creek Road Race - Men’s Cat 3

Race: Cantua Creek Road Race - Men’s Cat 3

Date: February 17th, 2024

AVRT racers: Drew Mathews, George Wehner, Jeremy Besmer

Top Result: George 5/40

Course: 3 laps of a flat 24-mile out-and-back course, with an uphill turnaround on the south end and a flat turnaround on the north end. Finish is on the uphill on the south end of the course. The finishing hill is about 2 miles at 3% broken up by a couple short downhills, the final one of which ends at 1km to go.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10782327050

Nutrition: Two bottles with 90g maltodextrin/Gatorade powder mix, one bottle with 50g of the same mix, and one energy gel.

Recap: (written by George) Our strategy was initially that Jeremy and I would follow breakaway attempts, with the goal of getting one of us into the breakaway of the day. Drew would sit back for a field sprint in case it was all together at the end. We were looking out for Pen Velo, as they had 4 riders pre-registered, none of whom seemed like sprinters, so we thought they would want to go for a breakaway; other big teams were the Mike’s Bikes development team with 3 riders, who we also thought would go for a breakaway, and Big Orange Cycling, who we didn’t really know much about.

During the first lap, not much happened. A couple people tried to attack, but they were quickly brought back. I sat in for the entire lap and tried to keep my power as low as possible; I even sagged the hill so I wouldn’t have to do as much power. I managed to stay comfortably in zone 1 for most of the first lap.

Early in lap 2, Jeremy got into a break with a few other riders, including a Mike’s Bikes rider and a Pen Velo rider, which gave me even more time to rest; however, this was brought back after around 10 minutes. After Jeremy was brought back, a Pen Velo rider attacked with a Velo Kings rider and established a breakaway. I did not follow this because I thought it was too small and too early, but it ended up gaining significant time pretty quickly. Jeremy tried to bridge me up to the breakaway after the north-end turnaround, but it had already gained too much time for this to be feasible, and I had multiple other riders on my wheel who I didn’t want to drag up to the break.

The rest of lap 2, Jeremy and I tried to organize a chase effort to bring the group back. There were some riders from Big Orange and Dolce Vita, as well as some solo riders, who were willing to contribute. However, a lot of people were unwilling to pull through, and Pen Velo was constantly trying to sit second wheel to disrupt the chase. Drew also ended up getting a flat somewhere in this section. Leading up to the south-end turnaround, we saw the breakaway coming the other way and determined they probably had about 1.5 minutes on us. After this realization, people were suddenly much more motivated to chase, so we caught them early in lap 3.

As we caught the break, I watched closely for counterattacks, as I thought anything that went that late after everyone had just chased would have a serious chance of going the distance. However, no one, not even Pen Velo, wanted to send any attacks, and I was too tired to send my own attacks. Because I was tired, and Drew was no longer available to sprint for us, I told Jeremy to follow any late moves so that I could sit in for the finish.

The finishing hill became very chaotic, as we ended up passing another field with 2km to go. I was doing whatever I could to move up, but it was pretty sketchy so I waited a bit for a better opportunity. Jeremy went hard early on the hill to try to force a split, but he ended up filtering to the back after a couple minutes, so I didn’t have a leadout. After the final short downhill with 1km to go, everyone really started going hard for the finish, but this spread things out enough that I could move around and surf wheels. With 200m to go, the rider in front of me ran out of steam, so I was forced to start my sprint then despite it being uphill and into a headwind. I also didn’t have much left in the tank to properly sprint as the pace of the group had forced me into a max 2-minute effort, so I got passed by a rider with 125m to go and another rider right at the line. There were also two riders further up the road who had gapped everyone else, so I ended up with a 5th place result.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with my result. I hadn’t seen the podium in a while, so it was nice to get back on there. I think that if I had been better positioned towards the end, I could’ve followed the two guys that gapped the field, so I definitely think I should work on my positioning in the future. I definitely think we worked well together as a team and communicated well, and I’m really looking forward to more races this year!

Race Report: 2024 Cantua Creek Road Race - Women’s 3/4/Masters

Date: Saturday February 17, 2024

AVRT racers: Katarina Zgraja, Kristin Hepworth, Claire MacDougall, Hannah Chen

Top Result: Katarina 2/16

Course: 13 miles out and back. For the women’s field, the first lap turnaround was at 6.5 miles, so total course distance was 6.5+6.5+13+13=39 miles. However, because of the neutralized start, we all calculated less than 39 miles total (~35 miles). The final km of the race was uphill, with a couple of small rollers preceding it. Wind picked up in the 2nd half of the race (second half of the second lap).

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10782345924

Nutrition: Before race: coffee, water, bagel with fried egg and salami. During race: 1 bottle of Tailwind Endurance Fuel and 1 pack of shot block gummies.

Event Recap (Written by Katarina): We had planned on having a bigger AV turnout for the 4/masters squad this weekend, but due to various illnesses and injuries, we ended up having four people on our team. The super sprinkles team had 6 people lining up, so one of our strategies was to push them to control the race more. 

With myself being the likely sprinter, we also planned to try and protect me from doing too much work up front.  We also planned to have someone either chase down or join any break if anything threatening were to develop during the race. There ended up being a couple of attempts for a break, but throughout the entire race, nothing really stuck. There was one solo break, which lasted for maybe ten minutes or so.

The Sprinkles riders always appeared to be planning something, but I was honestly a little bit surprised at how little moves they ended up initiating.  They were trying to get others to pull for some of the race, and a couple of times I got stuck in the front, but my teammates came in to help me out. 

In the last quarter of the race, I found myself ensuring I was positioned well up front, and I did chase down a few break attempts to keep the group together as well. There was a small enough climb right before the last kilometer, which blew up my legs more than I had expected.  In addition, the last kilometer marker came up as a surprise to me (as I mentioned earlier, we were all expecting the race to be 40 miles, but it ended up being closer to 35 miles). As soon as that 1km to go appeared, the “sprint” began. I had a bit of a delay because of my slight confusion, and the racer who ended up coming first got a substantial jump on everyone. Everyone else also appeared to be pretty blown up from the previous climb as well, because I managed to pull ahead and hold onto 2nd place until the finish.  

POV from Kristin, Hannah, and Claire was that they were also caught off guard at that 1km to go. In addition, the motorcycle marshall was repeatedly yelling at a few different riders for crossing the centerline during the race, and one of those instances occurred right before the 1km to go, which pulled people’s attention away from the race.

Race Report: 2024 Cherry Pie Crit - Men’s Cat 2/3

Race: 2024 Cherry Pie Crit - Men’s Cat 2/3 

Date: February 19, 2023

AVRT racers: Jon Wells

Top Result: Jon Wells, 4th of 19 (3rd of 6 cat 2)

Course: 1.12 mile loop at Napa Valley College. The course had a ton of corners with 11 per lap.  The course begins with a left-right chicane followed by 3 lefts going around a block (no u-turns from last year) before a right onto the back straight.  After another, shorter technical section filled with more left turns, finally came the finishing straight.  It was the longest straight section of the course ~500m long and very slightly uphill. There was a stiff tailwind on the finish and rain throughout the day left the course damp, until about 15 minutes to go in the race when it started raining heavily.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10796617661 

Nutrition: a pre race Redbull and 60g flow bottle during the race (Planned to do a second race with P12 later so got carbed up)

Race Recap:

Hate reading? You can watch my race recap here (and of course smash that subscribe button): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8JsO-QbEZI .

After finishing up with Valley of the Sun in Phoenix on Sunday, I flew back to the dreary bay area weather determined to get another cat 2 race in without all the super fast pros. I was the only AV racer in the category. The technical nature of this course really suits me so my plan was to stay near the front and help keep the race fast. I mostly just didn’t want to have to close down unnecessary gaps, but rolling a break or forcing a split in the pack would also be great. This course can also be very attritional, so I also wanted to help thin the field.

The rainy weather definitely kept a lot of folks home and our combined field was around 20 riders. The weather was actually quite nice and even sunny when our field started. I made several attacks throughout the race, always into the turniest parts of the course to maximize any advantage I would have over a chasing group. While there were no big teams to chase, a lot of individuals seemed determined to not miss any moves so nothing lasted off the front for more than a lap. 

After about 30 minutes, the skies opened up and rain started pouring. I made one last attack in the heavy rain to try an escape through the corners but was brought back on the straight. At this point, I resolved myself to a field sprint and began sitting in to save energy.

I came into one lap to go sitting around 7th. I used the first set of corners and the back stretch to move up to 5th place, ready to pounce in the field sprint. Coming out of the last corner, the rider in front of me just let the wheel in front of him go and I noticed just in time to see the top 3 pedaling away. I jumped around him as soon as I noticed the gap opening, but it was just too big for me to claw back. Ended up 4th in the combined field, which was good enough for 3rd in the cat 2s and got me a pie!

-Jon

Race Report: 2024 Pine Flat Road Race - Men’s Cat 4

Race: Pine Flat Road Race - Men’s Cat 4

Date: February 18th, 2024

AVRT racers: Henry Mallon, Steven Pelas, & Zack Berger

Top Result: Henry 1/15, Zack 2/15, Steven 3/15

Course: The course is about 62 miles with 3,500 ft of elevation gain. The first 26 miles are on a rolling out-and-back stretch overlooking Pine Flat Lake. Then, there’s a 2-mile descent followed by a 16-mile valley. Next comes an 11-mile climb, starting gradually with rollers and shallow gradients, leading to a 3-mile main segment at 6% with a final mile nearing 10%. Then there’s a fast 6-mile descent with a few cattle guards followed by a 1-mile climb at 6% that steepens towards the finish. 

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10790038942

Nutrition: 2 bottles with 80g each of homemade malto/fructose mix and 4 gels with about 20g carbs each. This worked well given the cold start, but if the race was warmer I’d consider carrying a third bottle in my jersey pocket. 

Race Recap: Written by Henry. Similar to the Cantua Creek RR the previous day, the field started very slowly on the out-and-back section. I averaged only 128 watts, and it took us 45 minutes to cover the 13 miles. We were happy to sit in during this section, and Zack and I took the opportunity to stop for a quick bathroom break. 

On the return leg, a Cal Poly rider took the front for a 1-mile section at 4% and reduced the group to about 10 riders—all AV teammates made the split and it required about 5 w/kg for me sitting in the draft. After that effort, Zack motivated the group to continue working in a paceline to establish the gap, and we rotated fairly evenly for the next 25 minutes leading to the descent.

On the descent, I was less comfortable with the crosswind and started drifting towards the back of the group to take it more carefully. A few minutes later, the Cal Poly rider punctured just in front of me and rode off into the gravel shoulder. After going around him, there was a small gap to the group ahead. Thankfully, Zack was disrupting the rotation and Steven dropped back to help me reconnect. Their awareness of the situation and quick thinking made it much easier for me to rejoin the group.

Once in the valley, the group slowed down, and a couple of riders caught back on. During this ~45 min section, I averaged 165 watts and we all took the opportunity to eat and drink. 

In the rollers leading up to the climb, a solo rider attacked and established a small gap. Zack rallied the group and insisted that everyone contribute to the chase. This was critical, as his persistence motivated multiple strong climbers to take long pulls on the front. With everyone contributing, we kept the lone leader within a comfortable distance. 

Going into the main ~15-minute climb, we had a discussion and decided not to invest energy into pulling the base. We were all feeling strong, and with a slight headwind and shallow slopes at the bottom, the other climbers would be doing significantly less energy in the draft. As a result, the first ~10 minutes of the climb were relatively easy, and we caught the solo rider off the front. 

When the climb steepened to about 10% in the final mile, I went to the front and raised the pace (about 5 mins at 5.7 w/kg). I glanced back as I crested the top and saw Zack about 10-15 seconds behind. I had to decide whether to wait for Zack and work together or commit to a solo 18-minute effort down the descent to the finish. Had I known that Zack was another 20+ seconds ahead of the next group, I would have definitely waited. But, I was worried that the group might be just behind Zack and waiting would give up most of our advantage. 

With limited information, I decided to commit to the solo effort. The descent is very fast and completely non-technical, aside from a few cattle guards. I was focused on maintaining an aero position and managed to stay away on the descent and 1-mile climb to the finish. Zack finished alone about 25 seconds behind me to take second place (while averaging an impressive 300 watts for the full descent). 

When Zack and I broke away on the main climb, Steven decided to sit behind the other strong climbers and not attempt to bridge. He crested the top of the climb with 3 others, and with teammates up the road, he was able to sit in and recover for the final climb to the finish. Perhaps demotivated by Steven’s presence, the group yielded nearly 1.5 minutes to Zack and me on the descent. As Steven approached the final climb with the remaining group, he gradually increased his power and created a gap over the others. In the last 200 meters, he attacked out of the saddle and dropped the remaining riders to secure 3rd place and complete the Alto Velo sweep of the podium!

Overall, the team did a fantastic job of working together and communicating during the race.  Excited for a great season ahead!

Race Report: 2024 Valley of the Sun Stage Race - Women’s Cat 3

Date: Feburary 16-18, 2024

AVRT racers: Louise Thomas, Rachel Hwang, Katheryn Curi. (DS) 

Top Results: Louise 3/27 GC, Rachel 1/23 Crit, Louise 2/27 Time Trial and 2/25 Road Race

Day 1: Time trial

(written by Louise)

Course: a 10-mile flat, L-shaped, out-and-back course

Recap: Even though individual time trials are, well, individual, this was still a team endeavor. Being a time trial newbie (my first time trying aerobars was on my commute to work the week before Valley of the Sun), I relied heavily on the team’s experience. The aero helmet I borrowed from Steph, wheels borrowed from Robin, and I received great advice from both Robin and Katheryn.

I've been trying to set process-oriented goals, and for this race my goal was simple: maintain a higher average power for the second half of the ride. This was partly because there was a slight headwind on the way back, and partly to avoid going out too hard to start with and blowing up. With that in mind, I started out at around 250W, about 20W lower than I thought I could sustain for the distance. After the first couple of minutes, I decided to up it a little to 260W and then settled in for the ride.

It then became like some sort of vaguely painful meditation, where I would inevitably get distracted and have to remind myself to keep position and keep the power up. Arms flat, head in like a turtle, and keep pushing. I passed other riders on the course a few times, which provided a welcome boost of motivation.

Once I reached the turn-around point, it was time to start the actual race. I ramped my power up to 270W and then tried to hold that for the rest of the time. I was mostly successful at keeping it steady, until the last mile where there was someone in front of me so I pushed harder to overtake them. I knew in theory it was just me against the clock, but the carrot factor is real. It almost came back to bite me when I felt like I was right at my limit for the final few hundred meters, but I managed to push myself over the line and finished with an average power of 260W for the first half, 271W for the way back, and placed 2nd in the Cat 3’s.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10775421619

Nutrition: a bottle of malto/fructose mix beforehand, nothing during the time trial

Getting ready for the TT

TT podium

Day 2: Road race

(written by Louise)

Course: 2.8 laps of a mostly flat 16-mile loop. The only feature was a 1.5 mile climb which contained both the feed zone and the finish line at the top (more on that later).

Recap: The format of the stage race places a large weighting on the TT results, so after securing 2nd place in that the day before, we set our sights on getting me a GC win. This meant that, unlike the time trial, I was going into this race with expectations and so felt a lot more unwelcome pressure to do well.

Our general plan was for Rachel to control the race from the front, and then I would try to attack the hill on the second lap to get in a breakaway. From the start, Rachel did a great job of chasing down an attack, but when that was brought back and she counterattacked no one followed so she ended up off the front solo for the entire first lap.

On the second lap, some of the women eventually decided to chase Rachel down and brought her back in. The pace on the flats stayed relaxed - even when riders floated off the front no one seemed in a particular hurry to chase them down, and everyone was just trying to avoid being on the front.

On the lead-up to the hill the second time around, I was trying to decide where to start my attack when someone made the decision for me and went for it. Trying my best to create some separation I went full-gas, but ended up dragging everyone else up with me, emptying the tank way too early, and almost getting myself dropped as I was gasping for air cresting the hill. I did get a new 5-min power record though.

Once we were over the hill the pace settled back down again, with not much happening on the flat part of the course.

The final time up the hill was absolute chaos. As we were coming up to the steep part of the hill and getting ready for a sprint finish, the large 17-18 junior men’s field merged with ours from behind. Some of them were going for feed zone bottles on our right side, weaving through and shoving women to get there, and to make matters worse they were discarding their empty bottles on the road in front of us rather than throwing them to the side. I’m not sure the exact cause of the crash that followed, but it took out almost the entire women’s field. I was one of maybe three women who managed to avoid it, and only because I wasn’t at the front at the time. It kind of reminded me of that time a speed skater won because he was so far behind everyone that crashed (fun fact: that was Australia’s first-ever Winter Olympics gold medal). Rachel ended up with some road rash from sliding along on her face. At least one woman ended up in hospital. It really pissed me off that more care wasn’t taken to keep the fields separated, and made the race unnecessarily dangerous.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10783008858

Nutrition: a gel on the start line, a couple of bottles of malto/fructose & some gummy bears during the race

Day 3: Crit

(written by Rachel)

Course: ~1 mile figure 8 lap, with 7 total corners

Recap: Due to the crash, the time did not change for overall GC. The plan stayed the same, being, get Louise the omnium win. The plan for the crit was to get Louise in a break, whether that by herself, or me helping, and get her a large enough gap and with the time bonus to hopefully win.

However, as soon as the race started, people attacked, and every one was chased down, with voices in the group screaming “up, up up!” or “on your right/left!” Seeing that every break was chased down, I decided not to attack.

My personal goal for this race was to stay out of the wind, but also take the outside lines in corners to reduce braking and accelerating and keep a relatively constant speed. As this was the largest W3 field I have competed in, my goal was to stay in the front half and keep good position, which I managed to do for most of the race, occasionally getting trapped in the middle from people passing me on the left.

This was also my first race with primes. While I know they are there to tire people out, literally having called them “mouse traps” before the race, as the first prime was called in the second lap, Katheryn’s words “listen your body,” resonated with me. Since it was early in the race and my body felt good, I decided to go for it. I drafted behind 917, keeping watch behind me to see if anyone was sprinting - which no one was - and near the end, pulled past 917 for the prime. I was not planning on going for the second prime, called shortly after the first, but no one was going for it, so I once again drafted behind the girl in the front, and casually crossed the line first near the end, still seated. By then I really was done with primes, so did not go for the third one, which was even more lackluster than the second. On the last prime, with about six or seven laps left, they announced for the largest prize yet. While I knew it was a bad idea to go for this one, I got greedy, and with about three of four other riders, sprinted for the prime. This one was so close I had a serious bike throw, butt hitting my seat hard.

Here and there, I would lightly chase down a break. After the last prime, being tired out from it, I decided I wanted to take it easy until the end. However, one girl sprinted with a few laps to go, and people weren’t really chasing it down. One girl screamed, “Don’t let her get away!” at which point I realized if she does, none of us have a chance at first place, so I used up a bit of my energy reservoir to chase her down, nervous about what I had left in my legs for the final sprint.

With two laps to go, Louise went for a break, but other riders in the field were quick to chase her down. Louise pulled the group hard for about 15 seconds before I told her to drop back, keeping in mind that she needed to conserve her energy for the end, as she had to keep her place in the omnium.

On the last lap, it was time to get into position. Throughout this race, there were a few times I would get trapped in the middle when I tried to draft behind people in the front, and people were passing me on the right. With that clearly in mind, on the third to last corner, as people started passing me on the left, I jumped into that train. However, I jumped too early and ended up being second in the draft going into the second to last corner. Ideally, I wanted to be fourth or fifth wheel. Coming out of the last corner, I panicked. In my head, I knew starting the sprint right out of the corner was a bad idea, given it was 0.2 miles, and that people could easily draft behind me and pass me at the last second. I also knew that if I didn’t start the sprint, I could get caught behind a crowd and not even be able to sprint finish. In that moment of panic, I chose the first and started sprinting out of the last corner.

That was the longest 20 second, 0.2 mile sprint. All I could think of was going so fast no one could draft me, or no one could go around me, and crossing that finish line first. As I passed the finish line, I was surprised and shocked that I kept the sprint up through the end. This might have been the most adrenaline I had felt after a crit race. Too bad I’m not comfortable taking my hands off the bike for a post up! 😆

Nutrition: 1 Cliff shot double espresso 15 minutes before race start, 1 bottle of Skratch during the race

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10790944035

Rachel sprinting for 1st in the crit

GC podium

Alto Velo 2024 Winter Newsletter

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Alto Velo newsletter! We will publish the newsletter on a quarterly basis to inform club members of key developments and events affecting the club and racing team. We’d love to hear your feedback!

Thanks,

AV Board of Directors

bod@altovelo.org

New Board of Directors & Officers

A new board of directors was elected in early January. Thanks for voting! You can read our bios at https://www.altovelo.org/board-of-directors

• Edward Stewart (President)

• Katheryn Curi (co-Vice President)

• Cameron O’Reilly (co-Vice President)

• Sue Lin Holt (Treasurer)

• William Hakim (Secretary)

• Jerome Sierra (Volunteer Coordinator)

• Akin Dirik

• Chloe Nguyen

• Bernardo Tapia

• Louise Thomas

• Gina Yuan

New Alto Velo Slack

We now have an Alto Velo Slack for the club! You have to be an active club member to participate in the Slack Workspace. Thanks to new board member Louise Thomas for setting it up!

As a member, you’ll get an invite to join automatically. If for some reason you didn’t get the invite, please reach out to any of the board members.

AV Slack isn’t intended to replace the mailing list on Google Groups, but due to its better user-experience and familiarity to most users, is well suited to fostering a sense of community among Alto Velo members. Other benefits include specific sub-channels for buying/selling (and not worrying about getting scammed), learning about member-specific club deals, organizing rides and events, conducting polls, etc.

The mailing list will continue to exist and be open to the broader community – anyone can join and while non-members’ messages are moderated, anyone can post information as long as it conforms to AV’s mailing list rules.

Membership Growth

To those of you who are active club members, we are grateful for your membership! Your membership dues are a primary source of income for the club, which has experienced strong membership growth over the past several years. We’ve set a goal to have 350 paying members in 2024.

If you’re not a member, please consider joining, especially if you partake in our group rides. It takes a lot of effort and coordination from our ride leaders to run these rides in a safe and fun manner.

To learn more about the benefits of being an AV member, please check out https://www.altovelo.org/join-benefits.

Survey Results

Thank you for taking part in the survey! We had 114 respondents, which is an amazing response rate.

Analysis Methodology

AV member Roger Pai did a thorough analysis based on the top 3 open-ended free text questions (of which there were 336 comments):

• What is the primary reason for your overall satisfaction with Alto Velo?

• What aspects of the club do you enjoy the most?

• What aspects of the club do you think need improvement?

Roger categorized each comment by up to 2 of the topics mentioned and the sentiment (positive/negative) around each topic.

Summary

The majority of respondents find AV to be inclusive, and most speak positively about the various group rides and activities hosted by AV. They appreciate the work that goes into setting up A/B/C/Coffee/Egan rides and the friends they make while on these rides. Respondents mention the people they meet as the main reason for joining. There is a perception that the B/C rides have become much faster, and leaving some riders without a consistent weekly ride to participate (Coffee ride is only once a month). There is a perception that AV is focused on racing, deterring some respondents, although only 17% of respondents self-identify as current AVRT members. In short, respondents want less AVRT focused activities and more around the AV community, and more co-mingling of AVRT members attending B/C rides and sharing their knowledge with the greater group.

Positives

A majority of the responses spoke positively about the group rides, inclusiveness of the members on those group rides, and good leadership communication and the routes that are put together every week.

Some select quotes:

• "Atmosphere, friendliness, social part (after-rides pizzas etc), level of rides/events maturity"

• "Community building + camaraderie, group rides through amazing locations, riding fast"

• "Egan rides, C rides and Coffee rides are challenging and fun and a great way to cycle with like minded people."  

• "Comradery, people with different skills level can ride together"

• "Just love how the club has come together over the past 5 years. Of course, the rides, especially the C rides & the coffee rides."

• "Social club, I moved to the bay area last year December and made a lot of friends through Alto Velo. At the same time, I was able to improve my fitness significantly in 2023 by doing rides like Egan and B rides."

Areas for Improvement

General takeaway is group rides are straying away from being inclusive with B/C rides becoming too fast. Many riders also do not follow group riding etiquette and this should be enforced. Negative comments about club inclusiveness includes perception that AV is a race team first, with members wanting more social activities outside of riding, and more cross-pollination between AVRT and regular members.

Some select quotes:

• "The gap between B and A rides is too great, does not allow for advancement or a feeling of progression."

• "The gap between C and B rides is very wide. C sometimes feels too easy but B feels impossible."

• "Group ride skills / etiquette"

• "Increased events for non-racing club members that focus on social riding"

• "More social activities besides riding. Perhaps having a meetup for beer and/or food"

• "My perception is that AV is a racing club regardless of the ride level.  Since I have no interest in racing, but do want to improve group cycling skills/networking, I can't determine if I would ever "belong" at this club."

• "More connection between the club and racing team. It seems like a lot of people of the racing team don't know those on the Saturday group rides and vice versa"

Next Steps

As a club, we’re always looking to improve based on members’ feedback. In response to the survey results, specific actions that we’re looking to implement:

• New “A Endurance Ride” on Saturdays to bridge the gap between the B Ride and the Sunday A ride, thereby allowing a gradual progression of Saturday rides (A, B, C)

• Opportunities for members to join destination or event rides, either run by AV or local gravel/century rides where some of the registration fees can be reimbursed

• Opportunities for members to improve their riding skills and learn more about nutrition and training, such as periodic clinics, club-hosted events, mentorship programs, etc.

• More efforts to promote cross-pollination between club members and the racing team, e.g. AV Slack

AVRT News

2023 was a huge year for AVRT. At the local level, AV had one of its strongest showings in recent history, dominating the men’s and women’s elite categories en route to becoming the NCNCA’s Best All-Around Team. At the national level, AVRT sent squads to some of the country’s premier stage races, securing wins in the general classification at the Tucson Bicycle Classic and Baker City Cycling Classic.

2024 is shaping up to be even more significant, as AVRT steps up to race at the Domestic Elite level and mix it up with some of the best squads in the country. David Domonoske recently won the Men’s Pro/1 Criterium at Valley of the Sun—one of AV's biggest results in years and a major upset against race favorites Miami Blazers and Aevolo. David’s post-race interview perfectly sums up the AVRT mission to provide a diverse platform for aspiring racers: "[AVRT] is an awesome program where we've got everybody from Cat 5 up to our Domestic Elite Team, men’s and women’s teams, racing local races, gravel, a bit of mountain bike—just getting people into bike racing." Top results in other categories include: 21st GC WPro/1/2 Niky Taylor, 11th GC M2 Grant Miller, 2nd TT W3 Louise Thomas, 1st Crit W3 Rachel Hwang, showcasing AVRT's tremendous depth and rising talent.

David Domonoske (helmet by KAV, kit by Eliel, legs by Henson Shaving) winning the Men's Pro/1 criterium at the 2024 Valley of the Sun Stage Race. [Photo Credit: Alyssa Feuz]

That mission has been in full swing closer to home, as the men’s and women’s squads continue to rack up wins and podiums at a prodigious rate in early season races. Up next for AVRT is the Tucson Bicycle Classic as well as local favorites such as Snelling Road Race and Cat’s Hill Classic. For more details, please be sure to check out the race reports!

Sponsors

Thank you to all our partners for your continuous support!

The Dave Keefe Real Estate Team https://davekeefe.com/

Action Properties https://www.actionproperties.com/

B5 Capital https://www.b5cap.com/

Palo Alto Concrete and Construction https://www.paloaltoconcrete.com/

Morrison & Foerster https://www.mofo.com/

Summit Bicycles https://www.summitbicycles.com/

Eliel Cycling https://www.elielcycling.com/

Henson Shaving https://hensonshaving.com/

Princeton Carbonworks https://princetoncarbon.com/

Terún Pizza https://www.terunpizza.com/

The Feed https://thefeed.com/

Agile Physical Therapy https://agilept.com/

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.

Race Report: 2024 Pine Flat Road Race - Men’s P/1/2

Race: 2024 Pine Flat Road Race - Men’s P/1/2

Date: 2/18/2024

AVRT racers: Andrew Ernst, Austin King, Nico Sandi

Top Result: Andrew (5/14)

Course:  One lap of 62 miles consisting of 11 miles out and 11 miles back on a winding road with plenty of small kickers, cattle grates, and even a few cattle. The views are incredible. After the out-and-back, there is a 2-mile descent into a 19-mile flat section. There’s a slight 2.5 mile incline, a short descent, and then the main climb (1100’ over 5 miles). There’s a gradual 6 mile descent with more cattle grates before the final 1.2 mile (400’) climb to the finish. The road pitches up and becomes quite steep at the end. Roads were in decent shape but wet from rain overnight. The descent after the main climb was very muddy in spots. Temperatures ranged from 48F at the start to 65F at the finish. Wind was blowing at 5-10 from the SSE.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10789713921

Nutrition: Two bottles each with 50g table sugar and an electrolyte tab, three SIS gels (one just before the start).Big bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats four hours before the race, a banana an hour before the race, and 80 oz of half-caf coffee during the drive. 

Recap: Written by Andrew. Austin and Nico were coming off Cantua Creek the day prior and had made this a low-priority race. This was my second race as a Cat 2 and a B priority race. My main goal was to get more comfortable racing at a high level, develop my ability to execute race strategy, and get a race under my belt before Tucson the next weekend. 

The main team threat was VFR who had three riders including Colin Patterson. There were also a few solo riders we had marked including Mark Tucker (breakaway rider), Antonio Torres (climber), and Victor Perez (solid all-rounder who had won from a break at Cantua Creek the day before). Our plan was to have Austin and Nico cover early moves and I would try to jump on threatening moves involving Mark. We wanted to make climbers chase to soften them up. Ultimately we were looking to set things up for me in the main climb.

The first 11 miles were pretty easy, then attacks started after the turnaround. After an attack by Mark had been brought back, I found myself with a lot of of speed and rolled off the front. I was hoping to take a few guys with me, but only managed to bring Gabe from Dolce Vita. I rode at a solid pace but tried not to put in too much effort since I didn’t think it would stick. I was really just hoping strong riders would bridge the gap up to us. Unsurprisingly, Gabe wasn’t taking great pulls. We stayed away for about 25 minutes and were caught on the first descent.

After the descent, attacks were frequent. I made the mistake of riding too close to the front and having to accelerate often to avoid getting gapped. I was a little too worried about a move getting away and should have used this time to stay sheltered and recover after my time in the break. After incessant attacking, mostly by Mark, the group let him ride away solo, knowing he would be caught on the climb. Austin and a VFR rider rode tempo on the front for most of the flat section to keep Mark within 2 minutes. This allowed me to sit in and catch my breath.

As expected, the speed ramped up as we hit the main climb. Having done a lot of work on the front, Austin dropped back. Nico dropped his chain. We were down to about 8 guys at this point. With VFR still having three riders, they kept the pace high. As one of the bigger riders, I just sat in trying to conserve as much as I could. By the top of the main climb, Colin from VFR was on the front with Antonio and myself suffering on his wheel. We had caught and passed Mark a few minutes before the summit and dropped Victor and two of the VFR riders in the final few ramps.

The descent was muddy with lots of cattle grates, so we didn’t take it as fast as we could have. This allowed a four-man chase to catch back on. We rode fast but controlled to the base of the final climb. Colin attacked about 2 minutes before the finish. Victor and Antonio held his wheel briefly. I fell back with a VFR rider. I was pretty wrecked at this point, and couldn’t make up any ground on the three guys out front. Andrew from VFR “outsprinted” me at the very end and I finished 5th.

Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have ridden on the front as much early in the race. I wanted the race to be hard but could have done so in a way that demanded more from other teams. Austin and Nico were there to cover moves and I should have let them do more of that when I was tired. I also should have rode a little easier in the break, knowing that it wouldn’t be successful without help from Gabe. I shouldn’t have chased a threatening 5-man group with Nico in it around mile 40. Rather, I should have let it go and made other teams chase. Overall, I think we did well, but I’m confident we could have finished top 3 rather than top 5 with just a few small changes.

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.

Race Report: 2024 Cantua Creek Road Race - Men’s P12

Race: Cantua Creek Road Race - Men’s P12

Date: 2/17/2023

AVRT racers: Nico Sandi, Austin King

Top Results: Nico 9/29

Course: 24 miles out and back on flat road. Two 180 turnarounds. Our field did this 3 times totalling ~70 miles. The finish is on top of a hill made up of a few rollers, with the final 1k being uphill. 

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10782243918

Nutrition: two bottles with malto/sugar, two clif shot sleeves

Race Recap: Austin and I came into this race as a very low priority race. The rest of our teammates were in Arizona racing so we had a chance to be one of the smallest teams in the peloton which took a lot of the pressure off. It really wasn’t on us to chase or control the group since there was a couple other teams with many more people on them.

The plan going in was to make sure I was on any threatening moves and keep Austin fresh for a final sprint. The first lap was a bit spicy with people trying to get off the front until eventually two riders went away. Counter moves tried to go and I was trying to sneak away into a couple of those but non stuck. 

We also had Tobin Ortenblad and Lance Haidet in the field and everyone was covering them aggressively. Any time Tobin started chasing a move the people on his wheel would refuse to pull after him and the whole peloton moved from left to right of the road while Tobin kept trying to have someone else chase. 

Going into the first climb at the end of the first lap three riders snuck away from the pack at different times and slowly made it to the front two leaders. By then the two had become only one, plus three fresh legs from the peloton. One lap in and this was the 4 person break that would lead the rest of the race. 

With Mikes and Voler in the break it was up to solo riders and Dolce to chase it down. And we got super close a couple of times. My main mistake at this point was not jumping across when I had the chance. I was too busy covering other people from going and wanted to go with them. I could have initiated a move myself at some point. 

On the climb on the second lap Austin came up to me and said he wasn’t feeling too good and that I should sprint at the end. That meant that during the third lap I tried to stay sheltered while Austin started to help chase the break. Unfortunately everyone started working together a bit too late. By the time we were coming back to the last climb the gap was over 2 minutes. We were not going to bring it back. 

I focused on just getting a good sprint out of the pack. The break won the day and I ended up coming in 9th. 

Race Report: 2024 Santa Barbara Road Race - Men’s Category 4

Race: Santa Barbara Road Race - Men’s Category 4

Date: January 27, 2024

AVRT racers: Kyle Fronckowiak, Jack Larkin, Henry Mallon, Steven Pelas

Top Result: Kyle 3/62 (overall), Steven 19/62 (overall)

Course: A downhill neutral rollout leads to three laps of a 21-mile loop with approximately 2,000 feet of climbing over the entire race (43 mi, 2,000 ft.). Rolling country roads throughout, including a short climb of about 500 feet on the southern section of the course. The pavement is in good condition for all but the western road, about a five-mile stretch that is beat up and has sporadic shallow pot holes. The eastern side of the course is a bit more exposed and crosswinds could be felt over the road. After the three laps, the finish for the course is up the same hill that the neutral rollout began on. Despite being in winter, the weather was almost a bit too warm at 72 degrees fahrenheit.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/10643122227

Nutrition: I used two bottles of Nuun electrolyte mix and carried a bar but did not eat the bar. I drank about one and a half bottles of the electrolyte mix. The race began at about 1:00 p.m., so I had an early lunch around 11 a.m. with a sandwich and some nuts.

Race Recap (Jack): Overall, I felt this was a great reintroduction to racing after the offseason. The course location provided nice sunny weather and with multiple laps, we were able to learn the ins and outs of the course and adjust. This was the first time that Kyle, Henry, Steven and I were all racing together, so it was a good learning opportunity. In a completely full field of 62 racers, I immediately felt it was somewhat difficult to make moves up in the pack with how crowded the road was. The pace surged quite a bit at times, lurching forward before coasting and using brakes. Our primary chance to attack came after about half a lap, once we hit the slight uphill on the course. Here, the group stretched, allowing each of us to make moves forward and try to communicate with one another near the front of the peloton.

After about 1.5 laps, all four of us had made our way to the front of the race, had separated from the larger pack behind us, and were in a strong spot to make a push in the final 21 miles to the finish. Unfortunately, the race marshall stopped the category 4 race after two laps to allow the category 1 racers to pass. This removed the advantage we had gained and allowed the entire group to come back together, once again crowding the roads. The group took off again, much more congested than before, and the surges that had been common at the beginning of the race returned again as well. Because of the close quarters, on the final climb, my wheel was clipped by another racer, sending me to the ground along with Henry. Kyle and Steven were able to avoid crashing and stay in a competitive position to the finish. Steven helped maintain a strong spot for Kyle, who raced up the small climb to the finish line to claim third in the race.

While I was disappointed to crash, it was a great opportunity to get back out and race again. I had a great time competing with my teammates and I’m looking forward to the next one!