Race Report: 2024 Cat’s Hill Classic - Men’s P1/2
Race: 2024 Cat’s Hill Classic - Men’s P1/2
Date: 3/24/2024
AVRT racers: Andrea Cloarec, Pierre-Amaury Laforcade, Jack Liu, Greg McCullough, Cameron O’Reilly, Jonathan Wells
Top Result: Greg McCullough 4/62
Course: The classic Cat’s Hill course, with 6 corners and a 20% hill that defines the experience.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11024611260
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WkilQiQTJU
Recap:
Written by Greg. This year’s field was pretty stacked, with Mike’s Bikes and Voler with full squads, plus strong solo riders like Tyler Williams. With our relatively smaller squad, we bet on these guys keeping any breakaways on a short leash and conserved our efforts for a last lap run at the hill. I was the protected rider, with PA on primary lead out duty. PA has taken on this role for the early part of the season with good success. Any other support from the team would be a bonus. With the hill in the course, a traditional multi lap leadout rarely happens.
Another wrinkle this year was the rain. Luckily, it only sprinkled for the first couple of laps and dried out pretty quickly, with the exception of the second corner at the top of the course.
The majority of the race was pretty uneventful, with Mikes and Voler taking shots at one another, resulting in a blistering pace throughout. This ended up being one of the fastest editions of the race with an average speed over 27 mph with nearly 2k of climbing. In large part to PA’s lead out, we also set the KOM on the final lap.
Personally, I struggled a bit for the first half of the race with the final corner, taking it too slowly and putting in an effort to close the gap on the front straight. That put me into the red when added to the hill effort every lap. My semi-functional brain eventually sorted it out and I started leaving a little more room in the braking zone and carrying more speed to get a run onto the wheel ahead of me. The later laps showed similar hill watts but much lower overall watts and heart rate.
With 2 laps to go, Jack gave me a tow toward the front, which gave me a nice positioning bump. Coming over the hill the second to last time, I was able to easily maintain my position in the top 10 as no one really wanted to stick their nose into the wind. Crossing the line with 1 to go, PA sailed in on my left and I jumped on his wheel for the hero tow to the bottom of the hill. He dropped me off at the front of the field and I gave it everything. I finished 4th the last time I raced this in 2022 and felt like I would have had a better result if I had committed harder from the hill. This year was all-in to the line. I was hoping to get to the top with some separation from the field, with a small group of riders at most, then trust the legs to survive the downhill and final sprint.
Blake Macheras jumped super hard before the top of the hill, getting a few seconds really quickly. Eamon came by with Ryan and Gavin on his wheel on the top stretch. I pushed to get on Gavin’s wheel and make what I could out of the finish. Gavin passed Eamon into the last corner, but Eamon got him back and I got Gavin before the line for 4th.
Given the competition, I’m pretty happy with the result, but already chomping at the bit for another crack at it next year.