Crockett Road Race (UC Berkeley RR) - Collegiate Mens D - 4th
Course is a 10 mile loop consisting of a small shallow hill, straight fast downhill, some rollers, a 1 mile steep climb (McEwen Rd.), short downhill, and a slight uphill to the finish. The whole race is basically McEwen Rd. Stats vary depending on who you talk to and what device they have, but it's somewhere around a half mile averaging 12-15% with pitches close to 20%, followed by a half mile around 6-10%. Mens D only did two laps for a short 20 mile race.
Started with 30-40 riders and things were pretty mild the first lap with one small scare on the one sweeping right turn on the descent. It had been raining and there was a wide very shallow stream of water. The guy to my inside decided he was going to stop turning and go straight through it, people on the outside (me) be damned. He forced me over the center line and, a little off balance, I hit a Botts' dot and started wobbling (we were going about 32mph). I grabbed the top tube with my knees (learned that one here on BF) and regained control, heart racing.
No more excitement until McEwen where I made the selection of about 8-9 riders, with one off the front. We kept the pace pretty high trying to catch the flyer on the second lap and were within 15 seconds when we hit McEwen again where he rode off to win (the kid couldn't have weighed more than a buck twenty). By the top of McEwen the second time we were down to 5, one guy crossed wheels at the top and went down right in front me, almost went down myself and had to ride over his rear wheel to stay up. And then there were 4.
In the lead up to the finish there was an attack that I didn't have the legs to follow, thankfully I wasn't the last wheel and the fourth pulled around. He got us about half way back and I had to close the remaining 30 meters, but that left me totally spent with only a few hundred meters remaining. I rode wheels to the finish, unable to pull around, and got 3rd in our group, 4th overall. I'm thinking it might be time to upgrade to the Cs.
Strava link