Race Reports

Teammates:

• Will Brickler (6th)
• Jake Ramirez (20th)
• Ringo Tang (21st)
• Michael King (22nd)

Course: The tired and true L shaped course which features a nice little "bump" on the backside with a gradual fast decent into the finish straight.

The bottom of the descent was noticeably worse this year than last year.

Conditions: Blue bird conditions leaning towards being actually hot for us SF natives

Competition: There was 20 pre reg and 11 day of sign ups. Its seemed like the "whos who" of the masters scene was out to battle in the bay.

Notable entires: Nigel Kinney, Adam White, Dana Williams, and our own Will Brickler

Plan: We had a solid team of 5 in this race. Will was going for a break, Ringo and Jake were on field patrol while Mike and I were the designated sprinters.

Race summary:

Before our race they did a really nice send off for Robert of Velo Promo, it was really great. It also meant that we spent 10 mins cooking in the sun and started late.

After a lot of clapping and thankyou's we were off. Given the strong and very experienced field I was a little worried about tail gunning this race. So I tried to stay at least upper half of the field for a bit. My race was nearly ended on lap 1 when @Will Brickler's bidon popped out of his bike and I ran straight into it mid corner. (Will get some Arudel Dave O's or something) 😅After that scary moment we settled into solid pace. Around lap 6 or so there was a big move by a guy in red to get off the front, I saw Will Brickler go with him and was then on the front of the main group. I soft pedaled down the back stretch and let the gap open. Perfect - Time to chill. I then dropped back to hang with Mike.

Will and Dave ended up with a nice 15-20 second gap that was holding great for about 20ish mins. I was focusing on making the race as easy as possible for myself and preparing my mind for a bunch sprint for 3rd.

Well, the old dogs are smart. They had the gap at 15 seconds for most of the race, at the 3 laps to go, they opened up the throttle and started to reel Dave and Will in. With 2 laps to go I was connected with Ringo / Mike and we all knew it was time to move forward. The pace was super high and Mike was cutting through the field with conviction, I was in tow. I didn't know it at the time, but the field was starting to shatter under the pressure, even at the front. Mike took a wicked good line down the back stretch to pass all the others who had blown up and keep us some what in touch with the strung out lead group.

We both crossed into bell lap and could see the group of 6 which were now right on the heels of Will and David. Mike gave everything to the top of the hill on the back side at which point he was simply out of gas. I looked up and still had a 5-8 second gap to close on the back side. "It time for the double kick" 😈I thought to myself. So I went head down and treated the gap like the finish of the race. Just catching onto the back of Dana Williams wheel heading into the final two corners. I was sitting 9th wheel.

We rounded the corners onto the finish straight and I gave it everything my body could muster, just managing to squeak in for 5th place.

Closing thoughts: Im so thankful for the teammates I have, between Will in the break, Ringo / Jake patrolling the front the whole race and Mike literally turning himself inside out to give me a shot at the finish it's just so awesome to be a part of it all. Im very happy that I could deliver a solid result and honor the efforts of everyone else here.

I would rate this as perhaps my best finish yet when I look at the the very strong and experienced set of riders that we were up against.

Time to do more coffee rides with the boys, and days in the gym. I'm ready for offseason.🏖️

Teammates:

• Pierantonio Di Prima (8th)
• Peter Mellinger (11th)
• Wei Yan (12th)
• Bob Ippolito (28th)
• Ben Yee (DNP)
• Howard Santos (DNP)
• Michael King (DNP)

Result: 4/40, Pier 8th, Peter 11th. Wei 12th. Awesome awesome awesome team results

Plan: Have Peter and others keep the field together for Pier or Me to field sprint.

Race: Lots of folks were on their second race of the day which probably contributed to the relatively easy first few laps. Then attacks started to fly. Team coverage was absolutely phenomenal with Peter, Ben, Michael, Pier and others all following moves and ensuring we were represented well throughout the entire race. Last 10 laps comes up and one guy sneaks off the front solo who we don't worry about until the gap is really too large and we're too late in the race. I took one ill fated free ride on Londre's wheel with one other person to bridge but the bridge fell apart within half a lap and we went back to the Peloton. With about 5 or 6 to go I called for Peter and asked if he could pull that solo guy back. Next thing I know this absolute animal went to the front and took biiiigggg pulls bringing him back with a little work from Alto Velo and I believe Pier. Peter pulls the guy back within 7 seconds with about a lap to go and things start getting hairy. It's been pretty hard for a handful of laps now so guys are worn down and people are falling back through as I move up easily on corners. Coming into the last uphill I pass the last guy Mason Butler before the solo breakaway and think "shit, this is too soon to be on the front but it's too late now" and I get to the solo break guy on the back stretch and just hope he keeps the hammer down which he does and we don't get swallowed up until the second to last corner where I lose a handful of positions including Peter and Pier who come around me. Easy does it through the last corner and then we're off on the sprint I started from maybe 8th wheel or something but had a solid sprint with peak over 1200 watts and thought I had 3rd place locked up but Thomas from Enjoy had a very impressive sprint and passed me and Mateo in the last 10 meters to take 2nd place pushing me to the 4th place on the day, very respectable finish thanks to the work of the whole team. Peter with the number 1 teammate award on this one!

Hindsight is 20/20: I didn't have a plan when I caught the front breakaway rider. I soft pedaled and should not have. I should have immediately sent it around the solo break guy and started my sprint from there. I've had a lot of success with long bomb sprints in the past but my brain said my legs were too shot. I will have a plan next time I get in this situation. All in all very happy that the swarm wasn't worse and that 2 of my teammates were in the swarm and I managed a good result anyway!

Teammates: None

Teammates: @Steven Zulim

Result: 3/10, 3rd overall as well

Course: 4 laps of a 12.5 mile course in Fort Ord with 5,300ft of climbing total. Fast-rolling and not very technical, but with lots of turns to keep things interesting at speed, especially late in the summer when things get loose and sandy.

Bike setup: “Old faithful” high-post hardtail with a 2x10 drivetrain. Specialized FastTrak 2.35 front/2.2 rear.

Conditions: Good; cool and foggy to start with sun breaking through later in the race. Trails were dry and sandy.

Competition: It was a small field with a wide range of abilities. Lance Haidet and Jack Spang are both Life Time Grand Prix athletes, so keeping up with them was never much more than a pipe dream (both of them registered at the last second which led to some silent swearing on my end). More realistically, I anticipated another battle with Antonio Torres (Los Gatos Bike Racing Team) who I’ve been evenly matched with in the past.

Plan: It’s a MTB race, get a good position into the first singletrack “hole shot,” then pace well and keep the rubber side down!

**Race summary: **Even though the plan was simple, I actually kind of botched the start, which was combined with other fields, and ended up maybe 10th wheel into the first pinchpoint (which comes very quickly on this course, only 10ish seconds in). I think I expected a chiller start for a 3-4 hour race, and was also maybe being too much of a nice guy to the high school girl that lined up next to me (I guess I’ll be that guy next time and cut her off? Lol). Anyway, the riders in front of me all started to blow up pretty quickly and I worked my way up through the traffic in the first couple minutes but by then Jack and Lance were already gone. I guess I’ll have to wait for next time to find out how long I can hold onto them if I have a better start!

As the first lap ended I found myself riding, as expected, with Antonio Torres in a battle for 3rd. He’s always super nice and we chatted a bit while also starting to scope out each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I was a faster descender on the day (these are the trails I grew up on, which helps a lot), and I consistently got to the bases of the main climbs with a 5-10 second lead, but Antonio was a strong climber and was always able to come back to me.

This yo-yoing continued through the second and third laps as we otherwise rode smoothly and cooperatively, but at the start of the fourth and final lap the gloves came off as each of us started trying to make a decisive move. Nothing stuck until the final major descent, where I sent it and got ~15 seconds before giving everything I had left on the final major climb (about 3 minutes). By the top, Antonio hadn’t closed the gap at all, and although there were still about 15 minutes left to race, I was able to hold him off to the finish.

Closing thoughts: Speaking of being too much of a nice guy, I actually think Antonio hurt his chances by allowing me to go first into almost all of the singletrack descents. Sure, I was the faster descender, and if you’re riding with your buddies you usually let the fast folks go first, but I’m pretty sure he had the climbing legs to beat me to some of the singletrack entrances, which would have negated my descending advantage. Maybe it was my positive karma coming around for playing it too nice at the start!

All in all, a super fun day of fast flowy trail racing with more tactics than I’m used to in a mountain bike race. I highly recommend this event for next year if you’re curious about endurance XC racing—with such a fast-rolling course, it’s about as “easy” as a 50 mile MTB race could possibly be, and not too far from the bay area.

Teammates: None

**Races: **Match Sprint, Keirin

Results: 3rd/9, 3rd/6

Plan: Trying to replicate last year’s podium result

**Race Summary: **Disclaimer: I’m not a track sprinter [yet? :)], I haven’t practiced this discipline since the pre-season, and the field was stacked with 5 pure sprinters (some of them with national titles too). But I knew I still had some cards to play and wanted to fight with all I had. My flying 200m qualifier time was showing my weakness: 12.17” is technically my PR (avg speed ~59 kph), but good enough only for 7th position in the bracket, while all the sprinters went sub 12”. In the quarter-final I was facing Matt Lynn once again, same as last year! He wanted revenge. The difference is that this time it was best of 3 instead of best of 1. I lost the first round, not being able to go around him at the end. But somehow I was able to keep him behind my wheel with a long attack on both round 2 and 3. Not sure how I managed to do that, but I can tell you that it did hurt as hell!! He was hurt more though :D

Semi-final was against Tomas Mundarain (the overall winner), a pure sprinter with a peak power of 2500W, just insane. I made the mistake of playing cat and mouse for the first round, instead of wearing him down with high speed right away. When he opened his seated acceleration, it was game over. So at round two I tried to play the endurance card with high speed right from the start, but he’s a very experienced racer and followed my draft perfectly. He got the win, fair. Surprisingly, our top resident sprinter Eddie Zhang got eliminated in the semi-final by Kevin Ash from Alto Velo, who’s proving to be a really good sprinter. That meant facing Eddie for bronze, ugh.

At this point the luck changed in my favor, due to the race organizers making some unpleasant decisions. Usually sprint races should have at least 20 minutes in between if not more, to allow for the anaerobic system to fully recover. Instead of spacing the sprints by running pursuit events in between, they decided to cram all the sprint events in the morning. That meant less than 10 minutes in between sprints and towards the end it was only a few minutes, just brutal. When I faced Eddie he was having a hard time even walking, so I knew that as an endurance rider I had to go right from the start. I managed to win the first round like that (although he conceded to save energy for round 2), but then he won round 2 with a perfectly executed sprint-fake fade-sprint. By round 3, again with almost no recovery, he was completely cooked. I was too, but had just enough slow twitch fibers still alive to accelerate at the start and make sure he couldn’t get into my draft. Bronze secured

Just a few minutes after that I was on the start line again for a 1km TT. Me vs. Matt Lynn again for the Masters Kilo title. I should have skipped this one given the conditions, but I already paid for it, so whatever. I was on the verge of puking at that point and basically did a standing start plus 2 laps rolling with my legs full of lactate. My slowest kilo time of all time, so I don’t even count this one as a race.

Finally the last race: the Keirin, a 1.5km sprint race, paced by an e-bike until 2.5 laps to go. Never raced this one and wanted to do well, but my legs were still deep in acidosis after almost zero recovery from the Kilo. Started in P2 and thought about doing a long attack but had nothing left. With 1.5 laps to go the rider in front of me (Tomas) still hadn’t started the sprint, so without looking back I decided to go around him and give it all I had for 400m or so. Two riders came out of my draft and smoked me, but I was still able to hold my sprint and secure the bronze. Surprisingly a pure endurance rider won the race (Jeromy Cottell), but he was also completely fresh as he didn’t race before this one. Luke Romero from the Philippines national team got 2nd place, so I’m quite happy with this performance all things considered!

At the end of this race I started feeling sick, dizzy, hyperventilating, and could barely unclip from my pedals. As I was lying down I realized how all the other sprinters were in the same condition: insane lactic acid buildup, people lying on the floor with their legs up, moaning and all sorts of cursing. I think I discovered the "type III fun" on that day, lol.

Teammates:

• Dustin Wolf (4th)
• Howard Santos (6th)
• Chris Barr (8th)
• Jake Ramirez (11th)
• Ringo Tang (12th)
• Michael King (13th)

Category: Masters 35-39 (Combined with 40-44 but scored separately)

**Course description: **Flat L shaped crit loop with six 90 degrees turns

Result: 2th/14 (5th/26 overall)

Conditions: Hot and dry (maybe 85-90), but not as hot as last year thankfully (100+). Some headwind on the finishing straight, but it’s very short anyway.

Plan: Not exactly straightforward due to the combined fields, but getting someone placed given our huge presence in the 35-39 field. In case of a break of the 40-44 field there was little incentive to chase, but it could have been a winning move to stick in a break without working much. I’m terrible at breaks, so I was planning to wait patiently at the back and move in a good position towards the end. On this course the positioning on the last 3 turns is crucial, since the finish line is so short and the last turn is dangerous when taken at speed (last year I avoided a crash right in front of me).

**Race Summary: **I started in front just to get a sense of the lines and Chris immediately went full gas for a break. So obviously I kept the pack at a moderate speed for a lap, letting a few chasers catch him. After a lap or so the first break got established and Chris was in there, so felt good to peel back - the rest of that group seemed to be mostly 40-44 (white jerseys from CycleSports and Nigel Kinney in black kit, easy to spot). At this point I dropped all the way to the back with Matt and enjoyed the position: it allowed me to control who was where for the most part of the race, and to save energy by keeping momentum on turns, avoiding the constant rubber band waste at the exits. The race seemed in control from there, the initial break with Chris lasted a good while, but eventually got brought back. Then other breaks were attempted, but never able to stick. My reference point was Nigel, as I race with him all the time at the track and I know how good of a time trialist he is. So if I could see him from the back, I didn’t worry about going anywhere. Around 8 laps to go I think, people gave up with attacks and the whole pack sat up at the finish line. I took that opportunity to easily move up like 20 wheels doing zero watts: now my real race started. The objective was to secure a good position towards the front but still save some energy, while keeping an eye for possible 5xx numbers (our age group) going for an attack. Unfortunately, at 6 or so laps to go, one of those riders went for a solo break and I was convinced he was a 40-44 given the white jersey. Turns out he was Scott Trummer from Lamorinda Racing, the winner of my age group. At some point he had over 20 seconds of a gap, so in a hindsight I’m still happy with my tactic because I would have completely burnt out trying to chase him down. At 3 laps to go the decisive moment came around: a 40-44 rider went in front and I glued to his wheel. We were pushing serious watts and the pack got strung out. I had to trust the grip of my tires to fly on those turns, plus trying to modulate the efforts to avoid my legs giving up too soon. In the last 2 laps I was pushing between 600 and 900W seated out of every turn, I definitely had some type II kinda fun! Last lap I was locked in, still following another rider’s wheel. I was able to maintain a perfect position and gave it all I had after turn 5 (on the longest straight before the finish line). My legs started giving up as I squeezed out the last punch I had left, 842W out of the saddle so I was definitely cooked, lol. That was basically the lead out for Nigel (who ended up winning the 40-44) and another rider. But to my surprise everyone that passed me was a 40-44, so I quickly looked back before the last turn and saw a gap. I just had to maintain enough speed on the last turn to keep that gap, then push for the last few meters to avoid getting caught by the Super Sprinkles rider who got 3rd. Mission accomplished.

Closing thoughts: I’m very happy with what I believe is my best performance of the season. I was patient and I played it smart, knowing my strengths and my limitations. I would not have done anything different in a hindsight. Learning from the track and other crits that I can’t sustain long threshold efforts, I have to rely on patience, positioning and late punchy attacks. A very fun course and an amazing team to race with, once again we showed the NorCal scene how well we race together - thank you and good job everyone👏💪:dolcelogo:

Teammates: None

**Races: **3km IP, 1km TT, Scratch (10km), Points (30km)

Results: 4th/4, 5th/6, 3rd/5, 4th/4

Plan: Bring home some results and get a good benchmark time on the Kilo

Race Summary:

First time doing a national level type of event. I didn’t know what to expect, but overall the atmosphere was fun: a mix of serious and relaxed at the same time, I guess given that doing Masters is not the same as Elite. But there were still some freaking strong guys that broke national records and could be placing at top elite levels with those times! The event was taking place in Colorado Springs, home of Team USA olympic training center, pretty cool. The facility is not really new or fancy, it’s an older concrete velodrome that was covered with an inflatable dome. But it’s at 6000ft of elevation and it’s hot and dry, so this means hella fast!! My Kilo time was 4” faster than sea level (which, for a little over 1min, is a huge margin), and I was regularly hitting 60+ kph during the mass start races.

Race 1 was the 3k pursuit: I’m really bad at this game, I paced it very poorly (went out too hard for a strong opening kilo at 1:11) and faded afterwards, closing in 3:47.3. Missed the 3rd place by 0.3 sec, bummer.

Race 2 was the 1km TT, aka the dreaded Kilo: I put a lot of hope (and training) into this, it is a brutal event but somehow I love it. You go full gas for over a minute from a standing start, first trying to reach peak cadence (for me that was 118rpm with a 52x13), then keep pushing max power in the aerobars for another 2 laps while trying to hold the black line (easier said than done!). I spent 1 minute on the track and subsequently 10 minutes on the floor to regain consciousness. My previous PR was a mediocre 1:14.8 at sea level. With a mix of elevation, new aero upgrades and specific training, I happily smashed my PR and took it down to 1:10.1. But in retrospect looking at videos of the effort, my terrible lines cost me a lot of time. Kinda bummed that I couldn’t break 1:10 and the next fastest time was set by a sprinter at 1:09.8, so it would have been great to beat that guy… at the same time it was incredible to see Matt Lynn produce a monster 1:05.6 time for silver. My new life goal is to go sub-1:10 at sea level.

Race 3 was a 10km Scratch: Imagine a crit less than 15’ long with 48kph average speed. It was fast. Also, it was combined with the 40-44 age group so it was a bit messy to know who was where, so no tactics, just go as hard as you can! The only good tactic was to use Matt for draft on the last lap (it worked well) and smoke the other two guys in my age group to secure 3rd place. The first two guys unfortunately were already gone with a strong attack a couple of laps prior, but that was all I had and I definitely gave it all (especially after racing the kilo in the morning) so no complaints. Also, it was my only “real” medal overall, so happy with it!

Race 4 was a 30km Points race: This is my least favorite track race and it was also twice as long as the longest race I’ve ever done at Hellyer. 90 laps of pure suffering at elevation in the dry heat. Imagine doing a 40 min crit with 46kph average speed, sprinting all out every 5 laps (about every 2’), holding threshold in between, doing mental math for points, and without being able to drink. I was so cooked by the end. Points are awarded to the top 4 riders and the last lap has double points, so I did a massive long sprint at the end with whatever I had left to beat my age group rivals. I happily and proudly did so, except I didn’t realize that there were 4 guys ahead of me instead of 3, zero points, d’oh! Even worse, I needed exactly those 2 points to get 3rd, and so I got 4th once again, wah wah waaaah. I hate this race anyway, and happy that I finished without leaving anything on the table.

Closing thoughts:

The bummer part is that you do all this (prepping, logistics, costs) just to race with few other guys because our age group participation is so thin. I basically had guaranteed podium every time, except for the Kilo where I had to beat at least one guy to be on the podium. It would be more fun with more competition, but it is what it is. At least the level was still very high.

It was also pretty interesting to see the different Para categories and see how fast the tandems were flying, pretty scary! You can see some good photos here.

Overall a fantastic experience with a big group from Hellyer hanging out every day at the track. But most importantly, I was very proud to represent DVC at such an event!!

I will definitely go back next year, maybe even attempting some Sprint events outside of the Kilo :)

Teammates: None

Result: 3/10 in 40-44 but in ~40 man field with 35-49 ages

Teammates: @jake in 35-39 field

Course: 2.5 laps of iconic Pescadero loop

Plan: Mostly just be opportunistic and back myself on the final climb against my field.  It appeared ahead of time that my group might be the weakest as Adam White has graduated to 45.  My challenge from a climbing perspective was Art Rand, and someone who has a fake sounding name, Jurd Hurd.

Race Summary: We started with a stiff pace on stage#2 which strung out the group a bit led by 40y/o group.  At the bottom turning onto 84 two 35ers (Lamorinda + Coureur) jumped and there was little response from that field: my field was at the front of the peloton as were some Lamorinda guys blocking.  Those two quickly got out of sight and Avrt who had three started a spirited chase for about a lap.  There were probes by various people but for the most part the haskins climbs were spicy enough to be attritional without causing major carnage (~7:20-7:30 Haskins segment where 6:08 is KOM) and kind of similar matter on the Stage climbs.

On the last lap the 35 breakaway was declared won with a 3 minute gap and a broken field.  On the last lap the 40-44 started a lot of rolling attacks but with no serious coordination.  I would typically close off Art Rand or Evan Stade or the one Cyclesport guy who was strong.  On the last lap or so I started battling double calf cramps which was severely limiting my options.  I had some thoughts about trying to get a lead into the climb since I think the group was pretty soft at this point.  But because I was afraid of not even being able to do the last climb with cramps I decided to be relatively docile till the final climb.  I had noticed that the Hurd guy had done absolutely nothing during the race pretty much refusing to take and kind of turn at the front, and had been tipped off that he was a very strong climber.  When we went into the final climb Adam White just took it from the bottom and I couldn't hold that pace.  I was kind of numb; eventually Jurd took a good bit of separation from me and I realized he was going to smash me.  I managed to come in just behind Art Rand and Andrew Conley (45+) ~@7:10 which was frustrating since I beat both at Berkeley.  Jurd was a good 30 seconds ahead of me and Adam 40.  So 3rd in the district two years running now 😂.

In retrospect, had I had the legs I had at BHRR or in the previous pescadero I think I could have gotten off the front late; since Jurd was unwilling to pull I think there's not a small chance I could have made a 30+s gap w/ two of the aggressive rouleurs before the climb and had a chance for the win; but fog of war.

Teammates:

• Peter Mellinger (11th)
• Douglas Rowland (12th)
• Tyler Truksa (14th)
• Matthew Dabbs (16th)

Course: Figure 8 Crit with crappy pavement on the back stretch

Plan: Peter and Matt stick in the breakaways and see if they can get one to stick, absent that Tyler shoots a 1k flyer shot, if he can't I go for it. Doug scheduled to sit on whoever's left for leadout.

Race Summary: Peter. That's what we're going to start with. Rode his ass off in most of the breaks with Matt trading into a couple as well. I attempted to bridge to a good looking break early in the race and couldn't quite get to it, made the mistake of looking down at my computer and my HR scared me into backing off. Went to the back of the field to recover and tailgun for a bit so I will have missed anything significant in there (feel free to add in the comments fellas!). Thanks to Peter and Matt (and I think Tyler even took a shot at least once) the field was completely burned up and nobody wanted to throw any more attempts with about 8 to go. Peter went once more and everybody begrudgingly latched before we all settled into a much slower pace. Good news for me. Recover a bit. As we start ticking down close to 2 to go I am moving towards the front but not all the way. Coming into 1k I wasn't sure if Tyler would go but knew that wasn't a good move for my fatigue level. As it turns out neither of us wanted to do that 😂. So I surfed wheels moving up through the first 3 straights, couple more in the next two turns and then sent it up the outside gutter which was wide open heading into the 3rd to last turn. Historically, positions lock in here. I hit that turn 2nd wheel behind Easwar and he has a little gap. I can't get latched onto him and know I'm in good shape for 2nd. Unfortunately in the last corner Mateo urgently yelled "inside" while I'm coming through the last corner and I gave space. He shot through, pushed me wide and took 2nd place and I ended up 3rd. Good result for me regardless. Very happy with how we rode as a team too. Huge shout-out to all you guys for wearing the field down.

Closing thoughts: My fitness had faded pretty heavily since January and I spent June trying to bring it back. Feeling like I'm starting to see a lot better numbers and confidence is going up. Hoping for a good end of the season!

Teammates: None

Teammates: @Stephen Doll, @Wei Yan - but there’s no team tactics on track, so adding @Nolan Blankenau for the B field

**Course/Race description: **3 race omnium: Win N Out / Points / Scratch

Plan: Go fast, turn left! (and beat Nigel Kinney if possible…)

Race Summary:

The wind was in the opposite direction than usual, tailwind on the back straight and headwind on the final straight, which made for some interesting tactics changes.

The first race is similar to a crit, but with some extra tactical/gambling decisions which makes it very interesting and probably my favorite format of all track races (won’t explain it all here, but google it!). I won this race the week prior with a surprise attack that created a huge gap, so I was ready to be heavily marked. I still positioned myself in second wheel at 2 laps to go, ready to jump on someone else’s attack. At first it went according to the plan, Nigel attacked from the outside exactly at 2 to go and the guy in front me followed (Sean Davies, super strong junior from SBJC who got 2nd overall). Half a lap into the chase and I was sitting “comfortably” on third wheel, letting Nigel burn all the matches up front while I was getting ready for a final lap sprint. What didn’t go according to the plan was that Sean started fading too early and lost Nigel’s wheel. I had to go around him and at that point Nigel was 3 bike lengths ahead of me, he secured the win. That’s when the Win N Out tactic started to play, because now I had to endure another 333 meters of agony to maintain that 2nd place, or else I would have probably been last, swallowed by the approaching pack. I felt like the lactic acid was overflowing straight into my brain, but I still secured 2nd place.

Next race was Points, which means sprint for points every 5 laps (awarded to the top 4 riders) with the last lap counting double points. I got some points on the first lap with a second place, then dropped to the back to save some energy for the final sprint. Sure enough the tactic worked because I went on Nigel’s wheel on the last lap, and this time I had enough left to pass him on turn 4 and get the final sprint. He still won the race by taking more intermediate sprints, but I think I was still second in the race and overall standing at that point.

Final race was a 35 laps Scratch, basically a 15 minutes crit. Same strategy here, try to stay with the main pack and get ready for attacks in the last 3 laps. Surprisingly nobody attacked early and it came down to a bell lap, with Nigel again going for a long sprint. I once again followed as third wheel but made a bad tactical mistake: on the back straight, when I was supposed to use the tailwind and come out of the draft, two riders came around me and I got boxed in between them and the rider in front of me who started to slow down. With nowhere to go I had to settle for 5th place. I knew I had the legs for top 3 (or maybe beating Nigel again?), but that split second too late decision did cost me the race and the second place in the omnium (taken by Sean, well deserved).

Closing thoughts:

This is my first podium since I started racing in the A field. It feels twice as fast as the B’s, and at the beginning of the season I was celebrating the times when I was not getting lapped (!!). Now I’m starting to feel more confident both with my track skills and with my fitness level, which make things very fun and interesting. Every week I review the data to see if/how I’m improving in terms of power/speed/cadence/etc, but I don’t think I’m putting out more power than last year. I do have a few gear and aero upgrades for this season, but I think it mostly comes down to strategy and racing acumen - hoping to translate that to the crit scene!

Teammates:

• Howard Santos (7th)
• Dustin Wolf (13th)
• Bob Ippolito (18th)
• Matthew Dabbs (27th)

Strava

**Course description: **Simple square crit loop with 4 very wide 90 degrees turns

Conditions: 8am race, so it was still nice and cool, although pretty windy. The main straight had cross wind, the second straight after turn 1 tailwind, the back straight crosswind again and between turn 3 and 4 was solid headwind

Plan: Have my teammates rotate in front to control the race and chase/create breaks, while I was sheltering until the end for long attack or sprint finish. I got 3rd in the same field two years ago and I've been feeling strong lately, so I was hoping to do better this time.

Race Summary:

The plan was executed to perfection with only a couple of mishaps. Dustin attacked right at the start, creating a break of 3 or 4 riders that stuck for a good while, then Bob did the same and worked with a few riders to have a nice break and get some premes. Given that the combined field was fairly large (40 riders I think) I didn't want to drop too far back, so I was often using the tailwind section to make up a few wheels and stay in a comfortable place up towards the front. First "mishap" happened when I went for a preme, lol. I happened to be in front with the pack slowing down before turn 4, I took the inside and to my surprise nobody wanted to take this lap, so I opened a sprint (not full gas though) but nobody chased and I almost soft pedaled to take the lap. It was in the middle of the race so I figured I had enough time to recover. After that I went back to maintain a good position, stay efficient through the end and channel my mental energy for the last 3 laps. At 3 to go I started getting ready, at 2 to go I moved up and got ready to jump on wheels. At the bell lap I ended up in front after turn 1 (not an issue due to the tailwind), but after turn 2 I was still in front eating wind. I was controlling the pace and kept looking back for someone to attack early. Sure enough I saw Wagner Sousa few wheels behind me on my left starting to sprint (he's a trackie with good raw power). so I stepped on the gas and followed his wheel. I was hoping he could lead me out into turn 4, but unfortunately he faded too soon into the headwind after turn 3. At that point I had to make a split second decision: either wait and react for someone else to go and follow their wheel, or give it a go myself. Considering I had the full peloton behind me and I didn't wanna get caught in "traffic" but take the line I wanted in turn 4, I decided to pass Wagner on the inside and take first wheel on turn 4. The other mishap happened to Dustin who got his front wheel chopped, so he couldn't come up to do the leadout (I haven't seen it, but from what I heard he did a hero save to stay upright!). As soon as I got out of the turn I opened up my sprint, which was kinda disappointing to say the least (<900W). Vasyl (the Alto Velo guy who won) was on my wheel and did a massive sprint smoking everyone, so well deserved victory for him. I was squeezing out every drop of power to save a podium spot, but before the finish line my legs started seizing up and another guy passed me right before the line, 4th place, wah wah.

Closing thoughts:

• From past editions I learned that it's really important to be top 3 wheels on that last turn, so I did all I could to focus on that rather than the final sprint.

• I have zero regrets on that tactic and I would do the same in a hindsight: better try and fail than not even trying and contest for 5/6/7th place, then regretting not being first wheel on the last turn.

• In the last few months I almost eliminated sprint work and heavy lifting from my training, prioritizing aerobic fitness and freshness for weekly track races. I think yesterday I paid the price for that.

• I had zero podiums on the road since 2024, so I'm still very happy with this result and it's giving me renewed confidence in hopefully more results to come this season.

• Most important of all, we have an amazing team and we got compliments from other teams and solo riders about how well we controlled this race. I think that goes beyond the results. So happy to see that the same strategy we used recently at GSR to work for Ben, worked here as well for me. Extremely thankful to the massive work my teammates did for me! I tried to do the same at the later E2/3 race, but I was kinda cooked and managed to chase only one break (also, that was the fastest race I've ever been into, 28.5 mph average!!)

Teammates:

• Howard Santos (🥉 3rd)
• Matt Callahan (11th)

Strava

**Course description: 0.83mi wide four corner crit **

Conditions: 4pm, a little bit warmer in the day but still really good weather. Headwind after corner 3 and crosswind into the finish.

Summary:

I've only done crits this year and had felt like I was still leaving gas in the tank at the end of each race. I've also been trying to figure out how much training stress I can handle leading up to a race. Sometimes I feel like i need a lot of rest, and other times I feel like I could train through the weekend. I had a cold the week before so my expectations for this race were very low. It was my last race for novice so I went into it hoping to just finish. Kept training stress low this week to give myself a chance for weekend. Honestly think the later start helped.

Legs felt super heavy in the warmup, and I was worried about the lungs from a small lingering cough. Quickly chatted with Matt during our warmup on some strategy. Neither of us were interested in the primes so made racing/watching breaks a bit easier. Matt noted the wide corners but the 4/5s like to swing out wide on the last corner at the end of the race and that’s where a lot of crashes happen. Howard gave me similar advice as GSR; sit back, don’t chase the breaks, look for openings near the end.

I sat in the way back the first half of the race trying to temper the heart rate. The legs came back and felt okay. I saw Matt and Howard up front in the front half for basically the entire race. Looked like they were covering threatening breaks but they let the surges for primes go by. One guy went solo for a few laps but the group brought him back in. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out if the outside or inside corners were better. The course is so wide you can pedal all the way through with way smoother power, but the group kept leaving the inside open with plenty of room exiting the corners. I decided that I’ll position myself for inside corners on the last lap.

Race bounced between being strung out and bunching in the back straight. Second to last lap the three of us were pretty close together and I think Matt had a pull for Howard on the outside of the first corner/straight. I took the inside and didn’t try to chase them and let a paceline of bikes break off to catch Howard and Matt. I hopped back in and stayed p10ish going into the last lap. I wanted to stay on one guys wheel for as long as I could but he kept hitting the outside on the corners so I took the back straight tailwind by myself and let up before the third corner to catch my breath. Whole field was together and Matt was still pulling Howard but also some other riders. It was going to be a bunch sprint out of the last corner. I checked my right and broke to the right/inside of the last corner. The group went wide again but Howard was peeling off to the inside so I got his wheel and did a seated sprint @1100W in the last 150m to catch him by half a wheel. First place was ahead by a few bike lengths.

Closing Thoughts: First podium feels great! Matt’s massive pull at the end worked everyone up and gave Howard and I a chance to sprint for podium places. Howard’s a goated mentor and he’s so cerebral on his positioning so following him in the end gave me a great chance. Matt was right on the wide corners so the inside position felt particularly strong for the 4/5. Glad there was some fitness even after having a cold

Teammates:

• Zac Ooi (6th)
• Conor Austin (16th)

(Strava)

Course:

5 laps of a fast, rolling 4.5 mile loop (~11-12min) with smooth pavement and a punchy uphill finish. Highlights are a ripping 50+ mph descent and a steep 3-4 minute finishing climb with a short descent in the middle of it.

Race Conditions:

Low/mid 70s for the 2/3. (P123 later in the day was more like low 80s, so 70s was appreciated)

Other Teams:

Some guys from: AV, Cyclesport, Terun, Sycip, Team CA, but no real “team” presence.

Plan:

I hadn’t raced this course before, so appreciated Zac’s guidance, which basically summarized as - the field will string out on the climbs and then come back together on the fast descents, so we should follow threatening moves, but otherwise try to keep the powder dry for the finishing 2-3 min uphill kick at 6.x wkg.

What Happened:

Generally as laid out. Guys would attack on climbs / the couple steep kickers, but nothing too threatening got too much time. I spent a decent amount of energy in laps 1 and 2 trying to stay toward the front of the group, but I realized two things that changed my approach for the back half of the race. 1) I had enough juice on the main climb to not worry about getting dropped, and 2) I could save a ton of energy by cresting the climbs with a gap in front of me, and then using my weight on the downhills to carry speed into the next uphill without braking (which generally carried me back up to the front of the group without pedaling much). The most threatening move went off at the end of lap 4 (I think), with two strong guys. Ultimately this is where Conor was a hero, pulling the group hard to bring them back going into the main descent, where we were all together. (Start GoPro here).

At the 1k to go (3:27), I figured I’d try to stay with the lead group but in ~5th wheel to be able to time a late sprint. Bit of awkwardness as we passed another field here, but no incident. At 500m to go, Zac pulls alongside me and says “go sprint” (I think… HR was a bit high). My biggest positioning mistake was at 300m - I slotted in behind Aubery for 5sec, but didn’t realize he was opening a gap. Once I realized, I jumped around and closed it, but just left too much real estate to close down with 150m to go. Should have followed Zac’s wheel at 4:45, which would have given me a shot at top 3. Sprinted for 4th as guys were fading.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

Fun day! Super interesting course with fascinating dynamics given the up and down nature of it. Definitely an uphill v02-fest, but happy with the form to be in the mix with a bunch of smaller guys, and stoked to be grabbing some Cat2 points already. Shout out to @Zac and @Conor Austin for racing strong as teammates, and also shout out to @Zac and @Jason Tang for sticking a 10 man break in the (much hotter!) P123 later in the day (with surprise guest Lachlan Morton to make things interesting)

Teammates:

• Justin St. Peter (10th)
• Tim Snyder (13th)
• Steven Zulim (17th)

Course description: 5 laps of a fast, rolling 4.5 mile loop (~11-12min) with smooth pavement and a punchy uphill finish. Highlights are a ripping 50+ mph descent and a steep 3-4 minute finishing climb with a short descent in the middle of it.

Expectations (The Plan)

Try not to do too much work until the very end. I didn’t want to get caught in the bad half of a field split, but didn’t anticipate any breaks sticking.

Reality

I only knew Zion in the group, but knew there were a few other riders to look out for–I just didn’t know which. We were also mixed in with Masters, so it was hard to know who exactly to watch. Either way, I spent most of the race just taking Zion’s wheel. He had a teammate out there who appeared to be doing work for Zion, so I jumped on his wheel when it made sense to as well. I was in the wind a couple of times and my man @Justin St. Peter would teleport and appear in front of me, which was absolutely amazing. I didn’t waste much energy in the wind despite spending most of my time in the front 20% of the group.

There were two riders in the field who caught my interest and would ultimately matter. The first was an individual rider in a white jersey who was repeatedly teasing breaks over the hills. The second was another individual rider on a steel frame bike. I wasn’t sure whether they were beasts or non-factors.

Zion and his teammate put in a field-splitting effort past the finish line in lap 3. I stayed on them closely, and it was just a few of us until they let off the gas a little and a larger front group formed. I think I should have reacted less explosively to this but I didn’t want to be left behind by them. In the last lap, I fell for some bait by the white jersey rider and all-out hammered with him and Zion’s teammate, only to completely let off the gas with 2km left and have the whole field catch on leading into the finish.

I kept good position leading up to the final 100 meters regardless, and had my eye on the riders who I thought would launch the final sprint. Nevertheless, steel frame guy came out on the opposite side of the pack with some speed, and I couldn’t match. I held second position until just before the line and was overtaken by Zion’s teammate by maybe a foot at the line. (watermarked photos for storytelling purposes)

Takeaways

I’m happy to have been in race winning position despite not pulling out the W. I’m still not super familiar with all of the riders in E3, so there’s a bit of a learning curve around who to mark. Jared (who beat me at the line) has more fitness. But I think I could have taken 2nd from him if I hadn’t fallen for the bait and done an all-out effort 2km from the finish line. Elliot (who got first) was super low key all race and surprised me. Perhaps just keeping my head on more of a swivel during that last 100 meters would have given me more lead time to ramp up the sprint. This race is always a blast, regardless of the outcome.

Teammates:

• Steven Zulim (10th)
• Howard Santos (11th)

Course: 4 laps of a rolling 4.5 mile loop with a steep uphill finish. The final climb is broken into a steep first pinch, followed by a brief downhill, then kicks back up for a longer drag that includes the finish line ~ halfway up.

Conditions: Perfect day for it. Sunny conditions with temps in the mid-60s at the start rising towards 70s by the end of the race.

Competition: Relatively small field (29 racing combined with the 35+ group). We were the largest team with 4, with LaMorinda, Alto Velo, and Data Driven Athlete all fielding 2-3 riders as well. A couple of strong unaffiliated riders were also represented.

**Plan: **Follow the sage advice of @defeo @Myles McGinley and @Conor Austin and conserve as much energy as possible on the back side rollers by sitting in the draft. Position myself towards the front going into the final climb to avoid getting boxed in, and do my best to stick with the climby boys each lap. Be ready to sprint at the final if I’m still in the lead group.

Race summary: First lap was pretty uneventful until the climb. The race started off fast with some of the LaMorinda and unaffiliated riders stringing the field out going into the back rollers, but I kept my cool and surfed wheels. Over one of the kickers I decided to put in a short 5-10 second dig to see how that would feel for those behind— after dropping back into the pack I asked Steven and he said he didn’t really feel the burn back in ~10th wheel. That was all the confirmation I needed to stick to my plan and minimize time on the front. On subsequent laps I did my best to sit in 5-10th wheel and let a small gap open during the downhill, then roll back into the gap and minimize my effort over the rollers.

As expected the first time over the finishing climb involved some fireworks. The same guys who pushed the pace at the beginning of the race kicked it pretty hard over the steep bits, which required ~30sec efforts of 500-550 watts. Thankfully they let off the gas over the lower gradient sections and my heart rate was able to recover a bit before the next pinch. The field mostly stayed together over this first rep, but folks were breathing heavy at the top as we regrouped.

The second rep was different. Again the same group nuked it at the bottom of the climb, but this time even harder. By the time we reached the top of the climb it was a group of just ~10 of us remaining. I felt surprisingly good at this point despite my heart rate being pinned near its max, and began to think about strategy for the final sprint as it seemed this selection would stick. The composition was surprisingly good despite having lost all other Dolces on the climb, with only LaMorinda having more than 1 represented rider. Moving forward I planned to glue myself to the wheel of the 3 strongest guys and follow any moves they made.

Coming into the final rep I was feeling good and positioned myself ~5th wheel coming into the first kicker. One of the unaffiliated riders who had been animating all day kicked super hard and split the field immediately, with only a DDA and LaMorinda rider able to follow. He blew up 2/3 of the way through the effort though, leaving the other two to sit up and allowing me and an AV rider to catch them over the crest. I let a small gap open coming through the downhill, allowing me to slingshot through from 4th wheel and come even with the LaMorinda rider in 2nd. He and I sprinted neck and neck over the riser and I was able to take it from him with a bike throw at the line.

Closing thoughts: I wish I had raced this course in past years! The profile fits me well and the smooth pavement is a welcome contrast to many of our other NorCal classics. Strategy-wise I don’t think I could have done much better on the day, and it was super satisfying to have everything come together for my first podium. Hoping to have this feeling again sometime soon!

Teammates:

• Chris Barr (11th)
• Justin St. Peter (25th)

(Strava)

Course:

50min on a 2.1 mile per lap “circuit race”. About ~5 min per lap.

Race Conditions:

Moderate headwind along the top section / along the highway.

Other Teams:

Few (~5) Velosport juniors. Smattering of other teams represented but not a major factor.

Plan:

Well... the idea was that Justin was going to cover moves, and then I would tailgun in the back with Chris and then do whatever I could to drop him off for a sprint in the last lap. My plan was not really a result for myself, given that I already had the points for upgrade, so I was racing more for fun / for the boys.

What Happened:

Successfully tailgunned the first two laps. Coming into the first sprint prime at ~10min in, the field bunched up coming up to the chicane so I sent a meme-attack into the chicane + start/finish to snag the sprint points (because why not?), and then looked back and realized I had a decent gap, so figured I’d just roll out front for a bit and let Chris / Justin save some legs. I didn’t really want to do 40 min solo, but kept the pace at threshold for the next lap to see what would happen. Two guys bridged up at the end of lap 3, including a Velosport guy, so I figured I’d roll the 3-man for a while, assuming we’d eventually get caught (given that we were still in eyesight). Somewhere in lap 3 or 4, John Zaine (big guy / big watts / I knew he stuck a break in Merced) bridged up, so we were 4. At this point, I figured we actually had a decent shot given that Chris and Justin were back there, along with the other major represented team (also because the break was cooperating very well, taking organized 60-90 sec hard pulls). We rolled hard, getting up to about a 60sec gap on the field, until the last straight, where we had enough time in hand to play games. At this point I was thinking ahead to how to win. (GoPro starting at 17:10) I knew my main competition was John, so I savvily maneuvered myself into the last wheel slot behind him in the last straight. When we hit a speed lull with about 500m to go, I slingshotted past and punched it early (the patented @Michael King attack zone), getting separation before the chicane, and then carrying enough speed to outsprint John at the line with a bike throw!

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

Fun day! Last race in the 3s, and pretty special to get a win (first one in the 3s!), as I finally stop sandbagging and make the jump to P12. Meanwhile, I raced the P12 crit and circuit as well this weekend, and had a great time getting in the mix, so overall excited about making the jump!

Teammates: Jacob Coblentz (7th)

Teammates:** **@Peter Mellinger, @Jacob Coblentz

Course: One big 33 mile loop in the Mendocino redwoods with 4,100 feet of climbing. 35% singletrack, the rest mostly dirt roads with maybe a mile of pavement. Mostly smooth except for the final singletrack descent. (Copied from peter, thank you)

Bike setup: Canyon Lux full-sus xc bike with 2.4" Maxxis Rekon Race Rear and Rekon Front at 20/19psi

Conditions: Cold and foggy. A couple of muddy patches but mostly hero dirt. Course advertised as MTB OR Gravel bike, with a strong implication that MTB was the better choice.

Competition: recognized David Reynolds of Huck racing from previous 30-39 AG podiums

Plan: Attack the first fire road climb and go into the singletrack in good position, but with enough left in the tank to still be able to aggressively pass on the singletrack. Was feeling recovered and strong from Sea Otter the previous weekend. I knew this distance and discipline were good for me so resolved to bet on myself and pass more aggressively even when gassed.

**Race summary: **Numbers were great on the first climb and went into the single track in ok position, although still enough gravel bikes in front of me that I knew anyone who'd made it on before them would be hard to catch. Then began the long arduous task of passing folks one by one, usually on technical rises when there was just enough "shoulder" or other technical spots where they made a mistake. I went pretty deep doing this, knowing that if any of them were in front of me on the upcoming downhills it could be a major slowdown… I guess it worked since I ended up being able to full send some big downhills and put enough distance between us to hold most of them off on the fire road climbs where they had the advantage.

Next phase of the race was rolling logging roads where I was with 3 riders - Laurel Quinones (the eventual pro women's winner), Ryan Wei (eventual 2nd in my AG), and a kid on a gravel bike who kept coming back on the climbs. I was the fastest on the descents but couldn't always capitalize on that, so I decided to go all in on the long climb before Observatory Flow Trail and managed to hit the single track well ahead of them and never see them again….. Or so I thought….

Started to get the feeling that I was in pretty good position. I didn't know I was in 2nd (AG) at the time but knew I should give it everything just in case. Felt cramps coming on but kept pushing hard down Sweet Pea, which was super bumpy with tons of stream crossings that required precision shifting and many accelerations. My derailleur started to miss-shift a little but I ignored it since there were only ~3 miles left and it seemed manageable. Then I stood up to power out of a stream crossing and POP… chain snapped. Tried to work quickly to unjam it from behind my cassette and untangle it. Over a minute went by before Ryan Wei and Reese Levine went by to claim 2nd and 3rd in my category. Was frantically fumbling with an ultra-light chain breaker I've never used and admittedly almost gave up as more riders started to come by. Limped in with a fixed chain for 8th.

Closing thoughts: Despite being pissed at my luck and myself for not being more careful, I am happy with my performance as I was able to dig deep, continually pass when it counted, and consistently sprint over the top of punchy climbs in good position. I felt twice as sore from this as Sea Otter which was twice as long. I guess I'll have to practice using that chain tool and just know when to take a breath and baby the bike. First time breaking a chain in like 10 years, just an inopportune time to re-learn my lesson. Would also be nice to hit the first single track in better position next time, but that's easier said than done when racing against gravel bikes up a smooth fire road.

Teammates: Steven Zulim (8th)

Teammates: @Steven Zulim @Peter Mellinger

Course: One big 32 mile loop in the Mendocino redwoods with 4,100 feet of climbing. 35% singletrack, the rest mostly dirt roads with maybe a mile of pavement. Mostly smooth except for the final singletrack descent. (Copied from peter, thank you)

Bike setup: Pivot LES SL, Vittoria Barzo F, Mezcal R, 22/24 PSI

Conditions: Cold and foggy. A couple of muddy patches but mostly hero dirt.

Competition: Wasn't sure, first year racing 30+ AG. A few huck guys.

Plan: Race it aggressively and hopefully I had the fitness to hang on and not lose too much on the last descent.

**Race summary: **Like most grasshoppers it starts up a climb, but it was only about 5 minutes before it funneled into single track - I probably should have burned more matches to get into a position here. Surprisingly on the single track I was actually in really good position and passed quite a few people. The course is pretty front loaded with the climbing but I was a little worried when I looked down after 45 mins and saw 310w avg on my power meter- might pay for that later. The race feel apart a bit not on the single track but on the long fire roads section - I was not riding the flat gravel turns that well and would get gapped and then burn matches to catch up. Still I rolled tempo and yo-yod with a group. I caught some guy and he told me “you're like herpes you won't go away”. Cool bro. Got through the hardest part of the next singletrack section without giving up spots but about 2 hours in I realized the no rides over 4 hours tax man was collecting his bills. I could feel the cramps start, and just prayed I had another 20 minutes left in my legs. Luckily it was mostly downhill from here and the long descent gave me the chance to stretch my legs and stave off cramps, and fumble through the last rocky section. I hit the last climb, put in a good dig and rolled to the end cooked but happy. For a first effort of the year I'm pretty ok with this. 7th AG not sure overall. NP 302 for 2:39

Closing thoughts:  I'm ok with this effort for a first race and it made me really excited about more racing this year both MTB, some road, and CX. Some bullet points in no order

• my bike handling was ok but losing time on the "easy sections" was really annoying. should practice those more

• weight has been an issue this year - I'm ~187 and I think just normalizing the same power at 175 (easier said than done lol) would have gotten a solid result

• i haven't done a ride over 4.5hrs this year and really paid for it in the last 40 minutes

• i'm not sure i ate enough, 3 gels and half a bottle of carb mix over 2:40 but it sounds like people are doing 90g of carbs / hr? which would have been ~5 gels

• overall though i think i put together the best day i could have? should train more lol

Teammates: None

Teammates: @Steven Zulim @Jacob Coblentz

Result: 4/11, 4th overall as well

Course: One big 32 mile loop in the Mendocino redwoods with 4,100 feet of climbing. 35% singletrack, the rest mostly dirt roads with maybe a mile of pavement. Mostly smooth except for the final singletrack descent.

Bike setup: “Old faithful” high-post hardtail with a 2x10 drivetrain. Specialized FastTrak 2.35 front/2.2 rear.

Conditions: Cold and foggy. A couple of muddy patches but mostly hero dirt.

Competition: Cassius Anderson (aspiring pro gravel racer), Ben Frederick (former European circuit cyclocross racer), Caden Kroettinger (a team Bear Devo Junior, usually these guys are super fast), Antonio Torres (Los Gatos Race Team, I battled with him in MTB last year and know he’s strong).

Plan: It’s a MTB race, get a good position into the first singletrack “hole shot,” then pace well and keep the rubber side down!

**Race summary: **I lined up a few rows back with Antonio while Cassius, Caden, and Ben backed into the front row. The start was fast and I was appreciative of my roadie background as we jostled for position on the narrow fire road. I hit the hole shot in 6th and made two more passes on the first singletrack, but Cassius, Caden, and Ben had already opened up a gap. I rode hard as we continued up the first climb and bridged across to make a front group of 4.

My legs were feeling really good at this point, so I took a few pulls as we crested the first climb and entered a section of rolling fire road descent. I realized I was getting a bit distanced on the fast wide-open descents, but I just wasn’t feeling comfortable with my cornering traction at those speeds, and besides, with my legs feeling good I was having no problems getting back onto the group each time. Unfortunately, I think my competitors smelled blood in the water and after I took a particularly bad line down a scotch broom-choked road someone (Ben I think) attacked to force the gap wider, and I got dropped solo into 4th.

From then on the race basically became an individual time trial. There were some moments where I felt pretty dejected about being in 4th (I was pretty sure that podiums were only 3 deep, and there were too many times already this season where I was either barely off the podium or barely outside the USAC points allocation), and there were other moments where I just embraced the joy of riding a mountain bike full gas (shoutout to Observatory Flow Trail about halfway through which put a huge smile on my face!)

The final singletrack descent was rockier than anything else on the course, and was the only section where I wished I’d brought my full suspension bike. Halfway down, I found Ben finishing an emergency tire repair. Ben got on my wheel and asked to pass, to which I said no. A couple minutes later, he passed me anyways 🤷‍♂️and opened up a gap which I was unable to close on the final fire road drag to the line.

Closing thoughts: The podium ended up going 5 deep in the Pro division (podium pic in #photos), so I got my stainless water bottle, cash, and bag of fancy coffee beans. Whether or not 4th of 11 really deserves a podium is debatable but I’ll take it! I think I should have been happy with my finish regardless of external validation, but I guess I get to save that internal dialogue for another day.

My legs felt awesome and it was a great way to cash in on some hard spring training before I take a little midseason break. I could definitely feel the freshness in my legs from having taken the previous two weeks essentially off while I recovered from a minor lower back injury.

On the other hand, my Achilles heel on the day was clearly the downhills. I got smoked downhill by the top guys not just once (initially getting dropped from the front group) but twice (failing to hold off Ben after he repaired a puncture). I’m not exactly sure what to do about this, but probably some combination of equipment tweaks, more practice/dirt miles, and also just accepting that I have a lot to lose if I take too many risks and that there’s no shame in listening to my cautious side, especially when the competition is as tough as it was. In terms of equipment tweaks, more aggressive tires, full suspension (like Cassius and Caden), 32 inch wheels (like Ben), and a dropper post (like all 3) probably could have all made me a bit faster. Things to keep in mind as I reset and turn my attention to the second half of the season, including Downieville!

Teammates: Tyler Truksa (25th)

(Strava)

Course:

45min on a 0.6 mile per lap four corner crit. Slight uphill on one of the straights, slight downhill on the other one.

Race Conditions:

Mild wind, not a major factor. Tailwind finish.

Other Teams:

Smattering of teams represented (AV, Team CA, Sycip) but not a lot of team tactics.

Plan:

Generally Tyler would try to sit in / tailgun / save himself for the end, while I would be more aggressive / toward the front.

What Happened:

Fun race! Couple of solo moves snuck away that never really got much separation. I did a bit of chasing to ensure that, but mostly I ended up on the front a decent amount because I much preferred getting a clean line into the fast downhill corner 3, rather than fighting for position in a 3-wide group. A crash neutralized the race with 2 to go, we sat around for 5 min while they checked him out (he seemed to walking around fine / be ok afterwards, which is good!). They restarted us and tacked on 2 more laps so basically it was a 4 lap drag race. On the restart, I got shuffled back a bit, but was in fine enough position coming into last lap (start gopro footage here), roughly midpack, but a bit boxed in. I knew I wanted to make a run at corner 3, so I had to slide around a bit to get to the right hand side, but once I did that I just opened the throttle on the run of god inside line to make up 15 wheels and lead in to the last 2 corners. Gave it the best sprint I had, but got passed by 3 guys, and finished 4th.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

Great weekend racing! Lots of fun mixing it up with the 3s the last couple years, and stoked to get a couple of good results in the home race (7th in the Road Race on Saturday with Peter, and so then 3rd in the Omnium for the weekend). As of this weekend's results, I now have the points required for the Cat 2 upgrade, which I’m planning to do after Golden State (where I’ll do teammate work / leadouts in the 3s and then race P123 as well). Excited (and nervous!) to make the jump, but definitely feel like I’m ready.

Teammates:

• Scot McIntosh (11th)
• Howard Santos (13th)
• Jordan Schneider (16th)

Course:

40 min on a 0.6 mile per lap four corner crit. Slight uphill on the finishing straight, slight downhill on the other side.

Race Conditions:

Mild wind, not a major factor. Tailwind finish.

Other Teams:

Sprinkles riding for Declan, Thursdays riding for Gary, and a lot of privateers. Aaron, although he was racing the collegiate race, played a roll in how the race played out.

Plan:

Minimal strategy. Gary told me he was going for a break today, so we decided that Howard would sit in, I go for a break with Gary.

What Happened:

I was pretty busted from the day before. The RR ended up being super hard d/t Aaron nuking it all day (he only did 7.1 w/kg for 3 min on the Papa bear). All that is to say I didn't know exactly what to expect out of myself. Based on my previous results this year, I seem to perform better than the majority of the field day two of a race weekend. I knew Gary would try to make a break happen so the goal was to wait for him. Instead of completely waiting for him, I saw him get in position to go and saw an opportunity so I attacked. I put in a dig for a lap and was able to make separation from that. My attack got 4 other guys to bridge including Gary, Aaron, Charlie (from SS), and another. We worked well for a few laps and then Aaron apparently got bored. He accelerated the pace significantly. Immediately, Charlie and the other guy were dropped. I did my best to hold on, but couldn't hold his pace after a few laps. In hindsight, I should have pulled through less and sat in more on Gary and Aaron. To be fair to myself, Aaron was going so hard up the hill I was doing 450 just to stay on his wheel. At that point we had a 30-40 second lead on the peloton, so I made the decision to send it and attempt to pace myself to a third place finish. I had nothing to lose, because it meant the other guys could sit in and stay cool. I held the group for a while at ~25-30 seconds thanks to all the teammates and spectators cheering me on. At 2-3 laps to go Declan and one other bridged and attacked over me. After 30+ minutes full gas, I was pretty fired and didn't have the snap to hop on their wheels, so I got pulled into the peloton which was right behind them. I was pretty demoralized at this point cause I thought I could have made it to the line. With one lap to go Gary and Aaron had lapped the peloton and went for their sprint confusing the peloton making a ton of people sprint to the line with 1 to go. Most realized what they did shortly after they passed the line and things came back together for the downhill. I was around 10th wheel because I did not sprint. I knew I needed to be 2nd or 3rd wheel going into the final corner to be positioned where I wanted for the sprint, so I snaked through some people on the downhill and tried to get Howard on my wheel. I took the outside 2nd wheel going into the final 2 turns. Perfect. After rounding the final turn the lead wheel sprinted way early. I exercised patience and waited a few seconds while spinning up my sprint. Once I thought I was close enough to sprint through the line I went head down and sprinted in a fit of pure rage winning the bunch sprint for 4th and secured the last points I needed for my Cat 3 upgrade!

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

The smart thing to do would have been to sit up after I got dropped by Aaron and Gary, but It was fun to send it an try to go all in. I need to be better at deciding who to work with and who to make work for me in a break. My positioning and sprinting/sprint timing has improved so much this year, so I'm pretty happy with how I was able to turn things around after my solo break failed.

Teammates:

• Gabe P (🥈 2nd)
• Donnie McCorkle (16th)

Course:

71m course: 4laps of the three bears loop around Briones reservoir.

Race Conditions:

Perfect

Other Teams:

Lamorinda had 4, Supersprinkles 2, 10 singles otherwise.  The SS guys were non-entities so there were really two teams with any weight.

Plan:

We expected to lose if we let our formidable opponent Adam White (Lamorinda) sit in to the finishing climb. So our main goal was to try to make the race dynamic and force action by the Lamorinda team and eventually impact Adam's legs. Donnie early in the race; Gabe and I late.

What Happened:

The first two laps of this race were soul-crushingly boring.  Donnie did his best to try to get some moves going but there was little appetite from most of the unattached guys to make moves happen. Surprisingly Lamorinda didn't try at their usual plan of sending their weaker guys up the road to tire out the field before late moves by their stronger ones. So there was no break-formation of any kind and scattered moves here and there didn't stick.

After two laps we finally put in a good climb up Papa bear @~3:30 which whittled the group to 8-10.  But there was no interest in working the pace and after that and there was a recollection of the field somewhere along San Pablo Dam Rd. I was getting worried that we would sleep walk to the final climb with no action so I put in an attack when we got towards garbage hill. When I jumped off the front of the group I almost got hit by a car that cut across the road in front of our group as the marshall stationed there completely failed to do his one job... I took a ~4 minute dig off the front but got no chasers so gave up on this. Eventually we came to Mama Bear #3 and I kept the pace up doing ~3m just to make it hard for folks. We did a threshold Papa #3 and then at the end of SPD descent Andrew Conley got off the front solo in a move that started to look dangerous. I ended up putting in some good work to bring it back with Paul Levy and Evan Stade helping. The rest of the solo guys were completely allergic to the front which was maddening. At this point Gabe and I had ended up settling into a de facto plan of having Gabe stay fresh for the finale. Unfortunately we had not managed to make Adam do anything either. After a threshold climb up Mama #4 we hit the final climb. Gabe and I surfed wheels for a bit starting to bubble forward and eventually Adam and Gabe and I came through the finish 1,2,3 at somewhere between 3:15 - 3:20.   DVC 2&3 but we hadn't actually achieved our plan.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

We had a lot to bitch about after the race. I thought the field was riding incredibly boringly and if we had a little more dynamics I think we could have blown it open. However it's not clear if we could have shaken the finishing order without another strong rider.

Teammates: None

(Strava)

Course: 0.9mi nearly oval closed course at the fairgrounds, short headwind+hill finish, slightly technical (no brakes required)

**Conditions: **65ºF-ish and a bit windy

Other teams: Red Peloton had at least 5 and Sycip had 2 or 3?

**Plan: **Endurance has been iffy but I wanted to see what I could do. No idea what the field was going to be like because this was the season opener. First priority was keeping it safe, no points are on the line (although the prizes for top step were trek electric pumps!)

Summary:

The race was fairly uneventful, most of the attacks happened around the three prime laps. Other people were motivated to chase so I only ended up doing one effort on one of them to latch on to a potential break about 5 minutes in. No real team tactics from Red Peloton this time other than random attacks and the Sycip kids in the B races don't really have the gas to make a break by themselves.

Lap cards came up way earlier than expected and the race slowed way down with 2 to go so I decided to launch to keep the race fast and make sure I was in position. Did a ~15sec sprint up the start/finish bump to attack, did some threshold when not coasting through downhill turns and then a ~20sec sprint to the line for a ~500W NP @ 2min lap. I was leading out the whole lap. Shook off most of the field but I had two people come around me at the end for the top two steps.

In hindsight I would've been better off attacking with another lap or two to go so I had more time to recover and play games with a reduced field before the final sprint. I was banking on someone else making it fast (usually Red Peloton does). I also wasn't really expecting the race to be cut down to 20min instead of 30+min. Hopefully the next one is full length!

Teammates:

• Jeffrey Yates (7th)
• Mike DeFeo (10th)

Teammates: @defeo and @Jeffrey Yates in the race, also shoutouts to @seanbra for the feedzone support (ice-cold Hummingbird was a glorious way to start lap 3!) and @Jordan Schneider for good company on the trip to and from the race.

Result: 5/20 (We all thought it was 21 but only 20 got recorded)

Course: 4 laps of a 22 mile loop with 1,500ft climbing/lap. Notoriously bad pavement, the “Paris-Roubaix” of NorCal.

Conditions: Basically perfect, comfy temps and only light wind

Other teams: Couple of Moonshine, couple of Team CA high schoolers, couple of SJBC (also high schoolers)

Plan: This is an attritional race, so the plan for everyone on our team was to simply not get dropped for as long as possible! If we were still riding together after the main climb on the last lap, we planned to work together to either expand a gap or drop other riders from the group, depending on the situation on the road.

Race summary: First lap was at a decent tempo but largely civil. On the second and third laps, @defeo set a savage tempo up the main climb and ultimately whittled us down to a group of 8 by the end of lap 3. I could barely hang while Mike was doing his work and he deserves a big shoutout for forcing the selections; he was clearly one of the best climbers out there on the day.

On the last lap, the eventual winner Max pushed the pace on the main climb and it became clear that nobody could follow; I think he soloed the rest of the way to victory. Meanwhile, the group splintered behind: 3 skinny dudes pulled away from a second trailing group which contained myself, Jeff, and Cameron. Cresting the main climb, I was able to recover a bit while bracing myself to chase hard to get back to the 3 skinny dudes up the road. Unfortunately, around this time Jeff had to wave the white flag but we all know how strong Jeff is and he will be back stronger than ever next time! Despite losing Jeff, Cameron and I chased with determination and worked well together but didn’t seem to be making much headway in the 2 vs. 3 contest, until right before the final short climb when we mopped up one of the 3, a Team CA kid who had completely cracked. That meant Cameron and I were now riding for 4th and 5th, and even though I didn’t know at this point that Cameron is a formidable sprinter (winner of this year’s E3 Land Park crit), I did know that I basically never beat anyone in a sprint! So, I spent the last 10 minutes trying various moves to get some separation before the line (including going full send on the final descent, but unfortunately Cameron is a mountain biker so even that didn’t work), and ultimately Cameron unleashed a vastly superior sprint to beat me to the line.

Closing thoughts: This was exactly what I signed up for, a super hard but super fun day of racing with teammates! Stoked to get my first Cat 3 points, and also a wide-angle podium. I was wowed by the strength of my teammates and the supportive team vibes, it’s a privilege to race with you all! I think we rode well tactically, but as predicted this is an attritional race where tactics will only get you so far and strength is ultimately decisive. At the moment the final split was happening, I am confident that I had nothing left to give, and was simply glad that I wasn’t being dropped alone, so I have no regrets about not making it into the first chase group, I just gotta get stronger for next time!

Teammates: None

Tour de Murrieta Omnium

Result:

Crit:

E4/5 - 4th

35+ 3/4 - 19th

Circuit:

E4/5 - 10th

Overall:

5th

Teammates:

Solo

Courses:

35 minute crit - 4/5

40 minute crit - 35+ 3/4

8 lap circuit - 28 miles - pretty straightforward course with a headwind section, small pitch into a punch 5% turn, rollers, tailwind section into a 200m right turn sprint finish

Race Conditions:

Morning race: cool and little gusty

Afternoon races: hot(90’s) and gusty

Plan:

Two options: Look for opportunities to get into the break and/or let other teams do the work and just stay top 10 wheels till the last couple corners.

What Happened:

Crit:

4/5 race: First lap, Velosport(had a squad of 5) sent two up the road and I grabbed the wheel of two others to bridge up which got brought back 2 laps later. Another two sent it after we got caught and I didn’t react to it, which unfortunately, stayed away for 1st and 2nd.(hats off to the rest of the team controlling and neutralizing bridge attempts) Found myself drilling the pace the next 3-5 minutes and had to remind myself that I had no obligation to pull, so I pulled the plug and kept on the Velosport boys as they were 4th and 5th wheels. Managed the surge and sheltered myself as best I could going into the last lap. Last corner to finish was about 450-500m, the two Velosport boys and another kicked and I just followed until the last 200 to open up passing up 2 and almost grabbing the 3rd place spot.

35+ 3/4: Smooth race overall until the last lap corner with a few attacks I was able to be a part of. The goal was simply to stay top 10 wheels and follow attacks. Going into the last corner was imo a long ass drag race with the top 4 guys pulling away and everyone following. Got swarmed and didn’t have an out so pack finish.

Circuit:

This was a hot and windy one. Goal again was to watch for any threatening breaks, a couple of break attempt laps 5 and 6, eventually being brought back. Everyone and their mothers and father knew to attack at the small pitch up going into the 5% right turn which eventually would get brought back on the rollers. I managed to stay top 10-15 wheels. Couple of unfortunate crashes  but didn’t affect the race. Last lap the same attack went, got brought back on the rollers and as we get into the tailwind I lose a few positions which costed me at the sprint, managed to pass 3 folks for 10th.

Takeaways:

Great experience seeing different teams and new courses altogether. Felt really good about sticking to the plan as best I could. Really focusing on being a breakaway rider so missing that opportunity the first race was a big learning opportunity when there’s a team present.

Surfing wheels is where it’s at for me at the current moment so if I can get better positioning toward the tail end of the races, will have a better chance with the sprint(got to work on that as well, help me out with some suggestions sprinty boys)

Looking forward to working with the rest of the dawgs for some great results this season🫡

Teammates: Howard Santos (9th)

HWY 17 Omnium E4 🥉/13

Cat's Hill Classic Crit E4/5 Collegiate 4/5 5th/50

Santa Cruz Classic  E4/5 Collegiate 4/5 7th/63

I decided to do both recaps together as the races played out identically and I did best in the onium compared to the races themselves.

Teammates: @Howard Santos (Cat's Hill) and @Noah MacCallum (Santa Cruz)

Course: Both short, technical, and narrow at times with a prominent steep hill in the middle of the course. Both races were shortened to 30 minutes long. Perfect weather, no wind, slightly cold Sunday.

Other Teams/Riders: Alto Velo, Red Peloton, and VeloSport. I was most worried about the Red Peloton guys, Oliver and Finnian, and Adam Beliveau of AV.

Plan: The same for both days: Survive. I wanted to never over extend on the hills and stay near the front. Stay close together as tteammates. Stay on the wheels of Red Peloton (RP) and AV. Position ~5th wheel on the last few laps and sprint for my life.

What happened:

Basically as planned!

Cat's Hill: The race started out moderate d/t a crash that happened essentially at the start line. After a couple laps the pace began to creep up. One or two weak break attempts went and were happily brought back by Adam B on AV. One break started to form with an AV rider, a RP rider, a VeloSport rider, and another strong rider. That put me on the front and I made the decision that I would rather pull that back before it got worse and/or I had to spend more time pulling the peloton. Without much effort I bridged and neutralized the attack. 3-5 laps to go AV and RP were battling to control the front and set pace, which I was more than happy to sit right on them while they played games. At 2 laps to go RP started a very strong lead out that strung the group out substantially, but I stayed near the front and battled for top 3-5 wheels. To his credit the RP guy leading the group continued to accelerate through last lap, down the hill, and through the finish line. I had myself positioned 5th wheel going into the final turn. I thought about dive bombing the inside, but decided against it as the 4 riders ahead of me had their inside decently protected and I thought the extra draft would help in the sprint. The sprint was shorter than I had expected it to be and the order of the top 5 was decided by the order of the top 5 going into the final turn.

**Santa Cruz: **Slightly more complex race, but barely. A very similar field composition to the day before except for several more VeloSport children and privateers. The race started hot as 60 people attempted to get the best line through the hairpin, but the pace never really slowed down. VeloSport got right to work at sending attacks and counter attacks. Some were successful for a lap or so, but most failed shortly after they were tried. AV, RP, Noah and I all took turns covering these moves. Towards the end of the race Noah and a VeloSport child managed to stick a break that held ~10-15 seconds for a few laps. They got pulled back at ~3 laps to go. At this point Finnian got on the front and began to nuke it for Oliver. The pace increase substantially and the fight for positioning got ever more challenging. I lost a few wheels, but gained back my coveted 3-5th wheel spot with a very sketchy maneuver into the hairpin on the second to last lap. Going up the hill, I noticed Finnian was dragging a bit so I pushed him to accelerate by riding up next to him and to secure my position going into the hairpin again. In the narrow section before the climb I got boxed in for a second and lost a couple wheels. We turned onto the climb and I pushed hard surfing wheels, when the hill began to crest and flatten I flicked up a couple gears and continued to drive through the finish. I gained several wheels during from the final corner; however, it was not ever going to be enough to make up for the non-ideal positioning going into the final climb.

Takeaways: Both these races suit my style of not-quite a climber, not-quite a crit dog. I also love the back to back racing style of an omnium. Makes me look forward to Berkely and GSR (and maybe a out of state stage race next year 👀). I'm getting much better timing my sprint, but I need to be a bit more assertive with my endgame positioning. I'm proud of the patience I exercised these races.

Teammates:

• Adam Suczewski (14th)
• Mike DeFeo (16th)
• Jacobey Johnson (DNP)
• Jake Ramirez (DNP)
• Michael King (DNP)
• Ringo Tang (DNP)

(Strava)

_Before I start… I raced this last year and got the exact same result in nearly the same conditions, so the race report is gonna look real similar_🤷

Course: 4 laps of a 20 mile flat to rolling course. One notable ~90s (half of roasters golf course hill) climb after a false flat uphill drag. Pavement quality gets a bad rap but it’s not horrible.

Race Conditions: MOST importantly - STRONG (15+ mph) winds from the North. Meaning the “top” section of the course in particular was intense crosswinds and the climb / sprint was with a tailwind.

Other Teams: Few AV. Few Sycip. Few Team CA (but they’re dev juniors so they don’t work together). And a bunch of strong solo riders, most notably, Yoann “I’m a Pro MTB racer but only do/win Berkeley Hills so I haven’t upgraded for road” Perrodin.

Plan: (see here)

• 1. We should aim to make it hard in the crosswinds to force splits / attrition
• 2. We should aim to be represented in moves up the road earlier in the race so either we can win that way if it’s a good move that goes the distance and the bunch sits up OR be able to chill and make others chase OR get more of our guys in a move by following guys that are bridging

• In general, we should all be pretty aggressive about staying toward the front / sheltered side to avoid getting caught behind a split

  • (no, I did not label this 3. Why? No idea)

What Happened:

Kinda that? The first thing that happened is that @Adam Suczewski, the absolute beast, sent it from the gun (a bold move for a 3.5hr race, but he’s an Ironman?). That was huge as it allowed the rest of us in the field to have zero responsibility to pull hard on the front. He was out solo for roughly a lap(?) until another solo guy bridged up to him and they rode together for 2 laps until finally getting caught at the end of lap 3 of 4. This forced other guys, mostly AV, to do the hard pulls on the front.

Anyway, back in the field and it was windy as all hell, and I was extremely aggressive about staying at the front (though arguably too much time “on” the front according to @defeo) seeking out cross-wind shelter - applying my learnings from last year. My goal was for the race to be attritional enough so that we’d shoot the little boys out the back in the crosswinds and so that I’d be the best climber remaining at the last KOM climb.

We finally caught @Adam Suczewski and his breakmate on the climb end of lap 3, and then it became clear that a break wasn’t going to get away because the field was too antsy to chase each other down. I sadly finally lost @defeo (last teammate left with me) at the start of lap 4 in the tailwind attack zone. At this point, the field had gotten whittled down to about 10-12 guys, nearly all big guys that were sturdy enough for the crosswinds, so I was feeling decent about my chances. Most of Lap 4 was pretty neutral because it seemed like people were pretty shelled. At this point, I was feeling twinges of cramping start to come on, especially when I surged to follow attacks, so I was happy enough to roll in 3rd wheel though most of the lap while jamming down as many carbs as I had left (shoutout to @Michael King for a top notch bottle transfer in the feed zone!). Finally, we made the turn on the moderate uphill drag, and one guy snuck off the front for a long attack. I was on the front at this point and had to literally grab brakes to cycle to the back and force others to chase.

(Start GoPro footage). With the tailwind, we were moving pretty quick in this section, up through the actual climb. I started ramping power, but Yoann attacked over me and I had to let him go (since I was afraid of cramping and blowing up if I surged too much). Guys came around me to close it, and so I was able to ramp the power more gradually and close that down, and we ended up rolling over the top with 4 guys. We dropped one of them in the last straight. I went early, aiming to get separation into the last corner, hoping for daylight and the tailwind to carry me, but not enough snap, so guys were on me. Ended up in the 3 up sprint for 3/4/5, and got smoked there. Ended up in 5th, in basically the same outcome as last year.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

Really hard but fun day out there - pleased with the fitness to be able to still put out a strong 90s KOM climb after 3200kj, but wished I would have (and thought I would have with my fitness progression since last year) had another gear at the end. I fueled well and even better than last year (~400g carbs: 175 in bottles, 225 in blocks/gels) but the spikiness of the attacking style of the race still put me over the limit. The team plan kinda fell apart in the crosswinds as expected but shoutout to Adam for a huge day in the break to make it easier on us in the field! As always, great racing with the Dolce 3s squad - thanks to everyone for coming out and bringing the team vibes!! (e

Teammates: None

Course:

50 minute crit

Race Conditions:

Sunny, dry, perfect

Plan:

Look for opportunities to get into the break and reduce the field 

What Happened:

Early in the race teams were looking to push pace a little and I was able to just surf wheels and stay upfront to wait for “the move”. Fairly large field 33 racers and wasn't familiar with everyone but knew my competitors fairly well. After the first lap it felt like every lap was a prime and Nigel took the first two or three. I tend to like attacking off of a prime lap but didn't really need to as there was a lot of guys trying for them which I didn't care much. I did a couple digs but mainly stayed in position no more than 2-5th wheel. I believe it was the 3rd or 4th lap and a DDA guy put in a good dig and I followed his wheel. He blew up pretty quickly and I looked back and had Evan, Chaz, a CycleSport dude, Nigel, and two other older masters riders bridged up before the chicane. It really just formed pretty naturally and with all of the strongest dudes and DDA holding the field although being less than 10 minutes into the race felt like we had a shot of making the break stick. After a couple more laps it was pretty apparent that the peleton had no answer and we furthered the gap to over a minute by the end. I ended up winning a couple of primes and honestly one of the easiest breaks I've ever been all guys were participating. On the bell lap I was wanting to test myself and see if I could go long and knew I would get rid of two or three of the guys (which I did) and ended up 4th. I regretted not trying going long last year and this year I regretted going long lol.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

All in all felt really good about my form and probably should've waited to sprint at the end but can't know unless you try. Looking forward to the next crit against these guys and destroy them on road races lol. Good start to the crit season for me tho but I'm looking forward to some hilly road racing. 4th of July crit I'm out for blood ha

Teammates:

• Chris Barr (5th)
• Dustin Wolf (9th)
• Pierantonio Di Prima (15th)
• Jeffrey Yates (17th)
• Tyler Truksa (26th)
• Bob Ippolito (28th)
• Ringo Tang (32nd)

(Strava)

Weather: headwind on the west side towards the chicane, tailwind finish.

Enemies: bunch of young rising stars, a few strong sprinters, and a couple of AV guys.

Plan

Spoiler alert 🚨— for once, we actually executed the plan exactly as drawn up.

Jeff was saving bullets for Bariani the next day, which meant the team aligned early: full commit to Chris and me as designated sprinters. No debate, no overthinking. Chris and I agreed to reassess late for Sprinter A/B, but the mission was clear.

Frankly, this course didn’t require a whiteboard session. Most of us have enough Cat 3 laps here that the playbook is basically muscle memory.

One key note: tailwind finish = delay the sprint. Patience would win the day.

What Happened

Classic Cat 3 energy: surgy, twitchy, and fast on hot tarmac.

Pier, Dustin, and Tyler did the unglamorous but critical work—neutralizing moves and keeping things honest. The rest of us stayed disciplined near the front while the field reminded us that braking is apparently optional… or randomly mandatory… especially through the chicane.

I made the executive decision to tail-gun ~90% of the chicane entries. Less heroics, more efficiency—saved a ton of matches and avoided the accordion of doom.

The peloton stayed mostly intact, which meant one thing: this was coming down to execution in the final laps.

3 Laps to Go

Tyler launched a tactical nuke into the headwind section—pure deterrence. Pace stayed high, attacks stayed quiet. Exactly what we needed.

2 Laps to Go

Jeff, Ringo, Chris, and I surfed to the front alongside a CA rider and immediately clocked the opportunity. No words needed.

Ringo understood the assignment and drove the group to keep us top 5 through the headwind before flicking Jeff through.

And then…

🚨ALL ABOARD — THE EL JEFE TRAIN🚂🚨

Jeff took command and put the peloton on his back for half a lap. Meanwhile, Chris, the CA rider, and I sat comfortably in prime position, watching the chaos unfold behind us.

Bell lap incoming.

Final Lap

After what should’ve been a max effort, Ringo somehow had more. He came around and drilled it through the headwind at ~30 mph, heart rate somewhere near the stratosphere ❤️🌶️.

El Jefe picked it right back up, guiding the train cleanly through the chicane at 25 mph, single file, no drama. At this point, the train was intact and dominant—Chris glued to Jeff’s wheel. I slotted into fifth wheel.

Up front, Chris and Jeff were in full sync, scanning for moves. No one even attempted to disrupt the Dolce train.

Jeff emptied the tank through the final corner and delivered us perfectly. Textbook.

The Sprint

Game on.

Chris kicked early with three others. I stayed seated, locked into his draft for another ~50m, waiting… waiting…

At ~200m, the real sprint opened. I held the protected left side, still patient, still seated, letting the chaos burn itself out.

Finally—20m to go—a lane opened. Cadence up. Bike throw. Straight to daylight.

Result: half a bike length off 1st/2nd, and a photo finish for 3rd.

Post-Race Plot Twist

Chris casually drops that his rear tire was at 20 PSI.

He rode the final lap and launched a sprint… on a borderline flat. Honestly explains a lot—pretty confident he holds that sprint longer (and maybe wins it) without that handicap.

Takeaways

• Plan execution: A+ (rare, cherish it)

• Leadout: elite, coordinated

• Energy management: paid off big

• Sprint patience: a bit too patient. I had more in the tank to throw down.

And most importantly—when Dolce runs a train like that, people notice… and apparently, they don’t try to mess with it.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

The yellow jerseys put on a damn good show🎤🫡.

MVP: El Jefe🚂

Best team leader (communication): Chris🗣️🎤

Domestique at its finest: Ringo/Tyler🫡

https://youtu.be/4xGUdlMrx1M?si=YDcqizdMqP99oI0g

Teammates:

• Justin St. Peter (23rd)
• Michael Sianturi (30th)
• Howard Santos (36th)

(Strava)

Course:

40 minute crit, maybe 0.5mi and somewhat jalapeno shaped, sweeping corners and a couple sharper ones

Race Conditions:

Sunny, dry, perfect

Plan:

I had been sick and had a stressful last week with work so riding had been at a minimum since snelling. See how I felt, hopefully at least rested, maintain good position, err conservative.

What Happened:

• It was a large pack with a fair number of break attempts, the group was motivated to chase and nothing really stuck

• Justin putting in some good digs!

• Some sketchiness, someone pedal striked at one point, no crashes luckily

• I sat in and tried to save watts throughout, did some good “let people pass you while others bridge to minimize effort”

• Three laps to go time to get serious and move up

• Someone off the front with one lap to go, probably ~8s gap

• I did a minimal pull but didn’t want to commit, others pass

• I grab Nolan’s wheel (I knew he was strong from snelling), he gets to the front and does a big effort to pull the lead rider back, and keeps cranking through the second last corner

• Now I’m first wheel through the last chicane, not ideal, a group of four come around on the other side of the road and get a gap, I “sprint” enough to not get passed but don’t catch them

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

• As first wheel through the last corner I should have stuck way to one side and watched like a hawk for others winding up to hop on their wheel

• I was super flat and had essentially no top end, peak 5s power was 750W 😅, glad to have the fatigue and illness out of the system and ramp back up

• Position and strategy can go super far in spite of that! And luck, I got the best leadout I could have hoped for from someone on another team

Teammates:

• Dustin Wolf (8th)
• Michael King (11th)

Course:

They elected to run the shortened course this year, we did not go around the court house.

.6 mile 4 corner crit with a little chicane in it on the backside which had some chewed up pavement.

Race Conditions:

Temps were perfect, there was a bit of a cross wind that resulted in a cross head wind on the backside and cross tailwind on the finished stretch. Between the rough pavement and the cross winds there was no rest to be had on the course today.

Other Teams:

Being new to this field I am not familiar with cast of characters or the teams, the only thing I noted on the line was one rider from the Meteor (Mr Tucker's team) and 3 or so guys from the LA based E-Voke team (A few of which wore California state champs bands)

Plan:

This is my first race of the year, my training has seemingly been going quite well over the offseason, but would it convert into results? It was time to find out. We had Mike and Dustin and myself. The plan was pretty open with Mike mentioning that he was down to work for Dustin or I.  Seeing as this is my first race of the season, I was open to anything. Only key that we discussed was not missing the breaks / moves as our team would likely be looked at to bring it back.

What Happened:

I love racing with the masters as the start of the race is always so civil, the first lap was chill. By lap 3 the race was on though, attacks were thrown and little pokes to try and get away were constant. On lap 5 or 6 a group of 4 some how snuck away from us. I must have been snoozing or something. Either way I now saw it and started to put in my first effort to drag the field back. We are 10 mins into the supposedly 40 min race. (But more on that later) I guess my pull was a bit strong and Dustin smartly let my wheel go because I had a 3 bike length gap off the front, I had no idea, but Dustin then yellled “You got a gap, GO GO GO!” I took one look back, saw daylight and without another thought stepped into the darkness that is a solo bridge attempt. Dropped a 1000W to ensure I was clear and then held 400W+ for a full lap to get on the back of them. I made it, but was in rough shape. Thankfully the group was either nice, or did not notice me sneak on the back for a bit. A lap later I was recovered and ready to pull turns.

We were rolling turns as 4, then lost one, and then gained 2 more at some point. (It all became a blur) The peloton also got reasonablely close to us at one point, shout out to Mike for going to the front and shutting down the chase. Our gap went back out and then just kept growing after that. About 28 mins into the race one of the guys decided 5 is too many and puts in a dig from the front while I am sitting second wheel. I let it go and think “Let him cook, there is no way that he can solo away from the 4 of us.” Welp, I was wrong, Nigel Kinney is a strong MF who can do that, and did do that. In two laps time he was gone, and we were riding from 2nd.

Remember how I mentioned that the race was supposedly 40 mins, welp it was not, and because it is the first race of the season I was not looking for lap cards while breathing though my butthole in the break away. So when I went by the finish and heard a bell / caught a glimpse of one to go I tought I was dreaming. My computer said 31 mins on it, “wtf, ohhhh now I understand why the Lamorinda rider attacked the hell out of us two laps ago.” No time for that, time to lock the fuck in. Im stronger than these guys and I WILL be winning this sprint. I was sitting 2nd wheel heading into the back straight, thankfully the guy ahead of me kept the power down and did not play any games. I had decided that I would kick off the sprint as soon as we hit the final corner onto the finish line straight away. Being that there was a cross tailwind along it getting around me would be near impossible once I was up at speed. I hit the corner second wheel still, cut an inside line to force the followers to weave across the road while I dropped 1200W to get the gap. I went head down and all in to win from the group and bring home 2nd for the team. Job done.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

This was a damn hard race, Dustin's heads up call for me to go was critical for us to have someone up the road. Without that we may have chased all race long, Mike's shutting down the pack kept the breaks dreams alive, and well Im stoked to do more racing with the cat 3 squad this year.

Allez Dolce!!

Teammates:

• Wei Yan (8th)
• Chris Barr (DNP)
• Dustin Wolf (DNP)
• Jake Ramirez (DNP)
• Justin St. Peter (DNP)
• Michael King (DNP)

(Strava)

Teammates:

Another big group of 3s/4s for the second race of the weekend!

Course:

45-50min on a 0.6 mile per lap fast wide four corner crit with bumpy road surface. As Chris noted, they elected to run the “shortened” course again this year, so we did not go around the court house (e.g., like this, which has a super bumpy section)

Race Conditions:

Mild to medium headwind/cross headwind after turn 1 and 2. Generally kept it strung out the whole time.

Other Teams:

Couple teams with 1s and 2s, but we were far and away the biggest team with 7.

Plan:

With 7 guys of the 22, the goal was to “be in every move up the road / constantly counterattacking, and we can / should use our numbers to disrupt chasing, which increases the odds that a break ends up going / lapping.”

What Happened:

This will be a shorter writeup than Snelling 😂. Basically, guys took turns jumping into moves in the first 20 min. When there was a move off the front, the guys in the field would rest a bit / try to hop onto other’s bridge attempts. In general, all the moves ended up coming back. At about 20 min, Justin got into his second move of the day with 4 other of the stronger guys, which quickly got some good separation. Dolces chilled out since we were represented up front, and the gap grew. After about 5-10 min, we saw Justin coming back with one other guy which meant that we had to kick it into gear to bridge up. My overconfident response was to try to bridge solo, which ended up being ~400w for 3 laps, and was ultimately unsuccessful (only brought it back to ~10s gap before flaming out - see time chart in thread). I came back to what was left of the field and we worked together / I recovered for a couple laps, at which point the gap grew to ~40s. With about 15 min to go, I rolled off the front with one Terun guy and we traded pulls well for 10 min (video of the end of the race). Eventually I rode him off my wheel in the headwind / bumps and held it solo for a couple of laps to roll in 4th.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

The crew from the race had a great debrief thread afterwards (would recommend this!), but my main takeaways were: 1) We could have simplified our strategy/roles, especially since guys were racing their second race of the day / weekend so freshness was more varied. 2) i was prob too horny to be in the break / overconfident so spent too much time attempting to bridge solo vs. working together with a group and 3) Quoting Chris who put it well: “Seems as though we came out with a bit too much confidence in our sheer number of riders allowing us to control the field. I've now seen a few times that this is not always the case, only takes 3 or so strong guys to render your whole team ineffective / at the mercy of the group.” -> so we prob should have been unsatisfied with a break that only had one of our guys with the numbers we had. Overall though, another good race day and good learnings for the team in how to work together!

Teammates: None

Course: 0.6 mile per lap fast wide four corner crit with bumpy road surface. Mild to medium headwind/cross headwind after turn 1 and 2.

**Who: **Big Thursdays squad (at least 4?) with Nik Ignacio and Gary Hicks to watch for. Jared Lucero to watch as well. A couple other teams, but no one I was worried about.

Plan: Wait for Thursdays to send a rider into a break, with preference of Nik because I know he is a great break buddy, and ride it to a hopeful W. Option 2 was save enough energy to sprint if needed.

**What Happened: **First lap was quick, but mostly chill. At the start of the second or third lap, Gary attacks off the front. He got about 5 seconds of separation and Nik began to cover. I let him build a bit of space and was going to let him burn a bit of energy before I decided if he could stay in a breakaway. I had heard Gary was strong, but I knew he had very little idea of how to race based off my experience riding with him in Davis Flatlands, so I wasn't going to trust this lap 2 attack. After just a couple minutes the two riders from SHIFT attempted to bridge with complete commitment and at what looked like potential success. At that point, I decided I couldn't let that 3 man break be a thing if I wanted to win, so I jumped to the two shift riders. I had the draft and cornering timed perfectly where I was able to sail over the SHIFT riders and up to Gary with very little effort relatively (about 400 watts for 30-45 seconds). I came over Gary and said “let's do this, commit.” I knew we didn’t have the separation to prevent any more bridging so I put in a dig for a lap doing ~400w for 2 minutes at about 32 mi/h. When I felt like there was enough of a gap, I settled into about 300-320w/~29 mi/hr avg. When I looked back fo someone to pull through it was just Gary, the SHIFT guys had disappeared. Gary happily rode through, ecstatic to be in a recently stabilized break, and he asked me “what do I do, I don't know what to do?” I did have an “oh shit” moment realizing I may have burned a match for a poor break buddy selection, but decided to hope that Gary was as strong as people told me he was and coach him through the break. To his credit he listened to everything I said. We rotated on time perfectly. When I needed him to give me a longer pull so I could recovery from the earlier effort he did. He took my advice on cornering at speed and riding through the bumpy section. We went from 15 seconds to 20 seconds, to 30 seconds, to 40 seconds. Never losing time to the peloton. With 9 laps to go, I knew we had it, but we were both determined to keep the pressure on and not fuck this up as we were starting to feel some fatigue. I had us switch the rotations so that he was pulling through the wind, so I could have him burn some extra energy. We got to 2 laps to go and played a little bit of games telling him to keep the rotations going and that we could fight for the sprint, which I should have maybe attacked him earlier on the last lap. On the last lap, I was on the front around the last corner, not working very hard trying to bait him to come around me early. He did exactly that, he had a great pop that got a bike length on me immediately. I didn’t set myself in the best gear for the sprint and my legs were real fatigued at this point, so my snap was not nearly good enough to get back onto his wheel. Great plan, very poor execution. He kept sprinting with his giant calves all the way through the line. And I rolled in a few bike lengths behind him for second.

**Take Aways: All in all, a lot to be happy about. **I’m very happy with my performance and my race sense from the break. It feels nice to actually get a great result from a break as I have thought that was what my physiology/skill was leading me to be my specialty. We were able to hold a very high average speed and my numbers were not all time best, but close and I felt really strong being able to pull as hard as I was repeatedly in full aero position. That was the reward for many sore backs in the last 8 months of practice. 36 minutes in a break of a 40 minute race is a very long time lol. It was hard to hear how much time we had on the peloton. I didn't realize we had 40 seconds until after the race, but I knew we had plenty to win with 3 to go. I should have played some games with him and taken advantage of his green-ness. Yet again my weakness is my fatigued sprint. Despite my fresh/semi fatigued sprint getting a lot better this year, I can't do shit at the finish line. My form falls apart, my legs feel like brinks and I only have about 5-10 seconds of decent power.

Teammates:

• Peter Mellinger (8th)
• Mike DeFeo (10th)
• Adam Suczewski (13th)
• Tim Snyder (15th)
• Jake Ramirez (18th)
• Ringo Tang (DNP)

(Strava)

Teammates:

Big group of 3s!

Course:

5 laps of a 12 mile flat to punchy course with bad pavement (but tbh i think this is overblown if you’re on 30mm+ tires). No real climbs to get separation.

Race Conditions:

Bit of wind, but not a huge factor. Finish sprint was moderate headwind. Really nice day otherwise, in the 60s and sunny.

Other Teams:

4 from AV, 3 from Moonshine, and then our 7 Dolce.

Plan:

After a successful result at the VOS RR and generally holding the strong fitness from the offseason, these longer classics-y road races (Snelling / Bariani) were my big targets in the early season, and where I felt my fitness + rider<>race profile would suit me best for getting upgrade results. Luckily I had a big ‘ol motivated squad with me in the 3s to help make that happen! So to summarize a long thread with back and forth: “In general, we are 7/22 of the field, so we should be in every move up the road / constantly counterattacking, and we can / should use our numbers to disrupt chasing, which increases the odds that a break ends up going.”

What Happened:

Pretty close to this actually! The team did an amazing job of taking turns getting off the front (Adam / Peter / Tim all spent longer efforts out in front) in threatening moves of mostly 2-3 guys, predominantly with Moonshine guys / solo guys, such that the AV guys generally ended up having to do the work of pulling the peloton, and I did a lot of time sitting in ~3rd/4th wheel monitoring proceedings / doing some light stich-ups as guys tried to get away / bridge. Defeo in particular was steadfast in ensuring that I was never / rarely 1st wheel, coming around me several times to shelter me / keep the tempo pace rolling / make AV actually chase if they wanted to close breaks. I was able to conserve energy well through here. (250w avg for the first 4.5 laps, solidly z2).

As we got to lap 3+4, I was thinking about two possible pathways to win, both ideally from a reduced group (didn’t want to take the risk of a field sprint):

1. Get a free ride from one of the strong solo riders up to a break that already had one of our guys in it -> as this would lead to a stacked break that I’d be motivated to stick the distance, even if it was for a couple of laps

2. Wait until the last lap and choose a decisive time to snap and join / initiate a break that I worked very hard to stick

The 1 pathway never quite materialized as the field was pretty motivated to keep it together, but 2 fell into place perfectly when there was a solo Moonshine guy that snuck off just as we were catching Tim’s last break with about ~8mi / appx 20 min left, and so I snapped away from the group up to him as we were passing another field while it was a bit hectic. An AV guy and a solo guy also bridged up after me as well, so we ended up with a 4-man move with all 3 teams represented + strong guys motivated to stick it. We rotated well and pulled hard (i did 367avg/385np for the last 18min). I definitely played the break cheerleader role hard (“lot of guys back there who aren't chasing”, “great pull, keep it consistent and steady”, “don’t drop each other on the climb, we’ll want each other’s help in the last straightaway”)

Once the last corner was in sight, I started to plot the endgame. I knew the sprint from the last corner was longer than expected (~45s) after ending up doing the leadout last year, so my goal was to time my rotation so I’d come off the front in time to be 3rd or 4th into the last corner. As you can see from the footage from 1k to go, this kind of worked, but then AV guy sprinted early for the last corner, got separation, and the other guys didn’t hold the wheel / were dropping / I was kinda boxed in. My position then into last corner was a little sketchy with us 2-wide, and the bumps ended up skipping my chain onto the small ring, which was all the hesitation needed to let #2 get away. I rolled it in for 3rd.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

Despite the frustration of botching the last 500m, I’m super stoked with the result to still get on the box. I feel very fortunate to have had a team of guys that were happy to be there supporting my chances and while I’m disappointed that I didn’t take the W, I think we can be happy (that euro phrasing!) with the result and the team tactics playing out as we laid out. A heartful thank you to all of you (@defeo @Adam Suczewski @Peter Mellinger @Tim Snyder @jake ramirez @Ringo Tang ) for being great teammates all day! As I discussed with Defeo on the roll back to the start, I’m confident that my fitness can put me in the mix, but this was a good learning and rep for me in how to find the killer instinct of actually closing races, which I hope to put into practice at Bariani!

Teammates:

• Noah MacCallum (🥉 3rd)
• Greg Dungca (12th)

Course: 5 laps of a 11.7 mile loop of narrow country roads. Several small hills, several sharp turns, excellent to fair pavement. Course is closed to oncoming traffic, both lanes available. Some pot holes were patched, but the tar was flying. Temperature was perfect, no wind.

**Who: **There were no other teams represented. I was just watching for Nolan Wong and Carson Clotz, who I did not want to take to the finish with me.

Plan: I was seated first on the road results race predictor, so I asked Greg and Noah to support me. We had two plans: 1. roll attacks second half and see if we could get one of us in a break or I would try to solo 1-2 laps. 2. make the race as hard as possible because I'm a shit sprinter and always place better in a sprint the more attritional the race is.

**What Happened: **First lap had some very weak attacks with one actually getting some separation which I coached the bunch into letting him dangle for a bit. After he was pulled back Carson and Jared and then myself started hitting the hills a bit harder to size each other up I suppose and to thin the group. At this point Noah was able to get into a solo break in which he was able to get to about 30 seconds and then Carson, Jared, Nolan, and one other rider started working together to pull him back. I did my best to slow them down, but they were organized and determined.  At about half way through lap 3 we had caught Noah. I decided to counter attack which was neutralized immediately by Nolan as he had me marked all day. Unfortunately I launched my full second bottle, so I was out of fluids. By the end of lap 3, the group had been beginning to thin and I could feel the weakness in the group. Carson was still very strong, but Nolan was feeling it. In an unspoken way, Noah and I decided to pummel the group to make the rest of the race as hard as possible. Every hill I was pushing the pace. I believe Carson noticed this and matched our approach. I got a bottle at feed, took one swig of it and completely dropped it through my hands like an idiot. The pace decidedly got faster as those that were left with energy wanted to smash. By the start of lap 5 it was just 5 of us left, including myself and Noah. I went to get another bottle on the last feed opportunity and missed a bottle from Sean and from neutral. So, I didn't have any fluids for basically the second half of the race besides the few swings shared with me by Noah and Nolan (THANK YOU). I was definitely feeling this lack of calories and water the last lap, but it felt nice knowing it was a guaranteed double podium for DVC. The group knew these were the 5 going to the line, so some games started to be played. For the most part things were chill, but surge-y at times and everyone tried to get a little dig in. The final stretch was really slow as no one wanted to lead out the last corner. Nolan decided to be the one to do it, Carson slotting in second, Noah, myself, and Jared. Carson began sprinting. Noah immediately got on his wheel and I followed. Carson's sprint was very strong and he held it almost the whole way. At the last moment Jared came around all three of us to take the win.

**Take Aways: **We have to be very happy, because we got two Dolces on the podium! We did a good job planning and then adjusting our plan to the way the race was playing out. All the hard work I have been putting in since last July/August is really paying dividends, because my fitness has been great so far this season and getting better every race. I need to touch up on my bottle management and have a better fueling/drinking contingency. Yet again I need to work on my fatigued sprint, sprint timing, and confidence in a final sprint because I can't seem to gain any positions with my sprint.

Teammates: None

Course description: 62mi, first 26mi rollers, smooth sailing for another 20 miles,10 miles or so of climbing, then rolling downhill with a kicker at the end to the finish line. Gorgeous route, perfect weather after a chilly morning, all time great race conditions.

Result: 2nd of 9

The Plan

After speaking with some guys on the team (h/t Gabe, Zac, Paul), it was pretty well decided that nothing important was going to happen in this race until the big climb. People might get feisty and breaks would form, but nothing is likely to stick. We had 9 guys in our field, so I decided that if any fewer than 4 people made a break I was going to let it go unless the tail end of the field was really weak and I’d be late to the climbing party. My ideal case was breaking up the field on the big climb and getting over the top with one other person to work together with. Then fight for first place on the final kicker. My plan was to just chill and be as efficient as possible before the climb.

From start to the climb

The initial part of the race is an out-and-back that definitely has some ups and downs, but no decisive climbs. Nothing that's big enough to cause any real break to form. I was hanging back, just trying to be efficient, and I think most of the field had the same thing in mind. There were 2 guys driving the pace a little bit, one of them was riding a bit overeager and sketchy (like, why are we bumping bars 12 miles into this race as you pass me on the double yellow?). And the other was calmly just pulling us along–Michael Aibel w/ Subaru Santa Monica. I figured he was either the guy to beat this race or going to blow himself up on the climb. Either way, I did what I could to stay out of the wind. Just chilled, chatted with some of the other racers.

Descending down to Sanger from the lake, 5 of us found a bit of a gap. On the way down, I dropped my chain on the inside. Luckily got it back on without stopping. My rear derailleur also jammed and wouldn’t shift out of the 11 tooth. This has happened to me before, and I have to shift to the other side of the cassette and physically push it out of the 11 tooth position. I didn’t want to stop, so I tried a few times with my foot. The thought that I might stick my foot into my rear spokes definitely crossed my mind, but yolo. I eventually got it and jumped back on to the group of 5. I should go to Pink Puffin about that rear derailleur…

We were pacelining–working together reasonably effectively to maintain or increase our gap. Personally, I was not concerned about increasing or maintaining the gap at all. I knew who was back there and didn’t expect them to be a problem on the climb, so I did some work in the paceline but not much. Eventually we all kind of decided to chill out and the chase group caught on. They were a little cooked from chasing so I guess that was a decent outcome. Dmitrii from SJBC pushed a lot of wind out of the way for us, probably working for Salvatore (also on SJBC), but I definitely benefitted so shout out to him.

From climb to finish line

The road was starting to go up and I had to piss. I wasn’t sure where the climb was, but I decided I wanted to address the situation. I dropped back behind the follow car and did the business while rolling. The road suit definitely makes this more challenging than bib and jersey, fyi. Chasing back on was more effort than I would have liked. I should have done this earlier when there was a slight descent so that I didn’t have to put out a few minute threshold effort at the bottom of the climb.

Either way I was still feeling good and it was time to go to work. I grabbed a neutral bottle from the feed zone for a little hydration (which turned out to be mostly extra weight) and attacked. I probably went too early because the bottom of the hill is super fast with rollers, and I was donating a solid draft to everyone. Either way, I kept the hammer down and eventually looked back to see that it was just me and Michael, with a slight gap to Salvatore.

Michael got over the climb with about 25 seconds on me, and Salvatore about the same behind me. I kept the pedals turning and tried to gain on Michael. I think I probably decreased the gap by about 5 seconds, but he ultimately bested me all the way to the finish line.

Takeaways

All-in-all, Michael was just stronger than me. I’m happy with my Pine Flat RR Climb segment time, but it just wasn’t enough to get the job done. I rode a more efficient race than he did, but it’s possible that I could have been more efficient to make up some time, though I doubt it would have changed the result. In order of importance, I could have (1) let someone else drive the pace on the bottom third of the climb when drafting really factors in, (2) picked my time to take a leak more wisely so that I didn’t have to chase back on right before the big climb, (3) worked even less when we were pacelining, and (4) not carried a mostly full bottle up the climb.

Teammates: None

**Course: **47 miles. 1500 feet of climbing. Two out-and-back laps on good pavement. Mostly flat with some rollers near the start. Finish kicks up 2-3%.

**Nutrition: **90g carbs per hour. Liquid and gels.

**The Plan: **Do almost nothing. Read the field. Hit every turn in the top 3 wheels. Sprint out of turns to break things up. Save everything for the last 1000 meters.

What Happened:

I had raced this course twice before with the 35+ field. But 35+ only had 3 guys registered at the time. 50+ had 7. Easy choice. Be the young gun for once instead of chasing guys 10-15 years younger.  Day of, it was 12 total, 3 riders from Pedal Project. Everyone else solo.

The first lap was chill. Hit turn 1 first. Sprinted out hard. Got a small break going with a few guys. Nobody wanted to work, so it quickly died.

On the rollers I pushed to see who had legs. One guy stayed glued to me from team Davis Phinney,  a climber profile with big legs for his size. Noted.

Hit turn 2 first and decided to nuke it. Got 10 seconds on the field all the way to the overpass. I looked back and the pack was down to 6. Good enough. Sat up and started rotating 5-second pulls to keep the gap.  Two Pedal Project guys plus the climber stayed in the move. Pedal Project stopped pulling halfway through so things slowed down.

First into the next turn. Kept it controlled this time. Pedal Project tried some flyer games. Not worried.  The front 5 from P/1/2 caught us on the rollers but they were playing games too. We kept passing each other all the way to the finish which made for some crowded lane dynamics.

1000 meters to go. Was in the back of our group of 5. Waiting. The climber kicked. I followed his wheel.

200 meters to go. Just me and the Davis Phinney guy. Put my head down. Sent it. Opened 3-5 seconds. Rolled in for the win.

The Takeaway:

Good to win the opener. Not as hard as racing guys 10-15 years younger. Might go back to 35+ or try 50+ 1/2/3 next time.

Fun day on the bike and that is only what matters.

Teammates: None

Valley of the Sun Road Race - E3 - 4/42

Teammates:

n/a - despite trying to convince other 3s to make the trip to Arizona - highly recommend for next year - super fun stage race!

Course:

4 laps of a 16 mile mostly flat course in the desert surrounded by cacti, with a ~5min finishing climb at 3% as the main feature

Race Conditions:

Bit of wind, but not a huge factor. Finish climb was largely tailwind.

Other Teams:

My first time at one of these national races. Not really a lot of “team” presence at the Cat3 level. Lots of strong individuals but not ones that I had a lot of intel on, which made reading the field tricky. A pro triathlete who dunked on us in the TT the day before was definitely a marked man. Also Chris Horner’s (former Vuelta winner, makes youtube videos now) son in the group as well (more on him later)

Plan:

This was my first race of the year, after putting in a pretty big offseason with the goal of being super competitive in the 3s and upgrade quickly. Been focused on maintaining power while shedding some kgs so I feel much more comfortable going uphill especially in punchy sections. And - with the uncertain field dynamics, I figured that a strong break could go if it had the right guys in it (since it’d be more likely that all the individuals would be playing group 2 syndrome back in the field) - and I wanted to be in it. Finally, between the RR and the Crit (on Sunday), I figured the RR was a better high probability chance to get a good result from my upgraded fitness, given how random crits can be, so I was most focused on a result here.

What Happened:

After a lap 1 of a lot of surgy field dynamics, I found myself on the front chasing back a guy or two, and then just kind of rolled off the front and then grouped up with them, to make a group of 4. Of the 4, i was confident in me and 2 others, and less sure of the 4th guy. In any event, we started working together well, and quickly had about 20-30sec or so as the field was clearly dicking around. After about half a lap, the moto-ref told us that a group of 3 was bridging to us, and they eventually caught us. Most notably, that group included Garrett Horner (Chris Horner’s son), who immediately whipped the group of 7 of us into shape, getting a really solid break going, with good rotations and keeping the speed high. Emphasis on staying together over the climb, and managing the duration of pulls for guys that were injecting vs. removing speed. Honestly really impressive stuff - it was super fun racing with him.

Anyway, we held a strong gap, and kept getting gap updates from the moto ref, which maxed out at ~1min-45sec. As we came into the end of the last lap, I started to figure out where i stacked up with the 7 of us to figure out how to play it - I could tell that ~3-4 of the guys were fading, so figured I’d have a good shot at the podium if I conserved energy well for the last climb. That mostly played out, as Garrett and one other strong guy started to turn the screw in the steepest section, and that faded me off, but I was with one other guy. But - it turns out the the chase group put in a huge effort on the last lap / last climb and were closing fast, so we couldn’t play games, so I put in a dig to try to drop the guy I was with, which just ended up being a leadout for him. I rolled in for 4th, and the field was ~5 sec behind me, so came perilously close to not sticking the break! See the time gap chart below - I’m the horizontal black line, Garrett (chase group of 3) is the blue line, and the field was the yellow line - you can see the close in the last lap.

Closing Thoughts / Learnings:

Really fun day out there, and pleased with the fitness to be able to do 315w for the last 2hrs (my PR), including ~400w/5min 4 times for the climb. I’ve never rolled a break like that, but it was super fun - and a really good learning experience to see what it takes to actually stick it. I was a combination of nervous and excited for the national level race, and so really stoked to get a good result from it!

(Quick PS on the TT / Crit)

• TT: Good day overall, 16/42. Struggled a bit with pacing the headwind / tailwind, and definitely lost some time without a TT bike, but did the best I could. Fun effort regardless!

• Crit: Another fun one, 10/42. Super fast (~28 mph), with wide good roads and a flowy figure-8 course. Missed the move with the best two guys there with 2 to go and tried to bury myself to catch them, but just didn’t have enough. Then, sprinted for the 2nd last corner for position, which was good, but then got outkicked by ~8 guys with 1400w sprints who teleported out of nowhere for the actual sprint.

• GC: Ended up 8th on GC

Teammates:

• Wei Yan (17th)
• Jake Ramirez (23rd)

Course: same course as Land Park Crit if you've done that one. Pretty wide and smooth for about 90% of the course. One chicane and a baby chicane right before the finishing stretch.

Plan: after seeing pre-reg with virtually all the who's who of E3 last year along with some new guys I personally new were also strong the plan was to sit and and do as little as possible until 3-5 to go.

Race: fair warning this is too long but I love to talk about races. virtually immediately attacks are going but no one is getting anywhere, I slide back from 2nd wheel off the start line (speedplays are an advantage at Crits. I promise) as the surges go. Me, Jake, and Wei are all sort of sitting midpack for a while. I kept moving up when it was easy and letting wheels go when it got surgey knowing my plan was to be in good shape for the final laps. I did get into 2 breakaway attempts, 1) because I happened to be on the wheel of a guy who went to it so why not take the free ride? 2) my local buddies Keegan and Will S were bridging to a breakaway that looked like it had some potential. Keegan pulled, Will pulled, I dropped the hammer and nuked it across the gap without them 1200+ watts. Dumb. . I caught the break and immediately overcooked the baby chicane and grabbed brake at which time everybody came back together. A few other plausible breakaway attempts went, with Jake getting into the mix in some of them. It comes down to 3 to go and I'm looking pretty decent, me and Wei are both top 10-15 wheels I think, but a surge comes over that I don't want to respond to so I get chucked way back in the field. Coming into the finish with 2 to go I ask Jake if he would like to burn a match to drag me back to the front. He obliges and gives it his best work. I come around him and finish moving up to about 10-15th wheel by time we hit 1 to go and I'm ok with that. Not much movement until the chicane where I'm able to move up, and then again in the baby chicane. Passing Wei here who had been sitting in fantastic position up til now. He hollers that "it's all you" as I go by and I look up and much to my luck I see that Matt Lynn has already opened up his sprint 2 wheels in front of me so I'm along for the ride. Matt essentially functions as my lead out. I come around with probably 200m to go passing both Matt and the guy directly in front of me and I think a couple others (memory a little hazy on exactly how many) along the way to a 4th place finish. Nearly 3rd, probably should have jumped out a couple seconds earlier, hindsight 20/20 and all.

Takeaways: I had 0 confidence in my fitness today and I rode accordingly. I made cornering and efficiency do most of the heavy lifting today and I'm very stoked with the finish. Being able to move up in a Crit like this is super critical. Today, more critical than fitness.

Teammates: Parker Jellison (7th)

Plan

Haven't raced since I was a junior in 2010… get a vibe, test the legs a bit, don't crash, hopefully be on the way to 4. Better suited to breakaway than sprint so I was hoping for a couple attacks reeled in the counter attack in the last 5 mins and hope to get some strong riders to make it stick. I've been doing vast majority z2 too so I didn't know how I'd handle proper intensity.

Race

I stayed in the first 10 riders for the whole race, there were some crazy/slow lines and I really wanted to be close to the front to stay smooth and fast. Generally tried to push a bit through the corners to give more accordion to the group.

Was generally sub threshold so I did a few vo2-ish efforts and opened up a gap, didn't find a good group and wasn't committed enough myself so we kept getting pulled back. Generally the group was chilling but would chase things down. After about halfway I decided to just rest and conserve for a real effort towards the end.

I wasn't paying attention to the lap marker and somehow a bunch of people decided it was almost certainly the last lap, plus this was over 40 minutes in, so when others sprinted I went for it, first across the line… and then heard one lap to go.

Next lap, I had good position through the last chicane and was ready to sprint, but the line came earlier than I expected. Third across the line, but both were collegiate so the organizers said I was first! But looking at the results online, maybe #2 was not collegiate and actually won, I'll have to clarify with the organizers.

There were a couple of crashes and I'm glad to have avoided them with good positioning, and generally stayed efficient and conserved energy well. Happy with the result!

Takeaways

Arrive earlier (I was scrambling a bit to get to the line)

Use @Dustin Wolf ‘s tips for better number pinning

Pay attention to laps remaining!

Map out 200m before the finish so I know when to start the sprint

Figure out what to do to not sit in the whole race but also not do halfhearted attacks that get reeled in

I wasn't… that gassed at the end? Take more risks and leave it all out there

Footage (from someone else): https://youtu.be/tmO5IYkGSxM?si=eAcaIuS5F6_yxlyo