Race Report: 2025 Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men’s E3

Race:  2025 Berkeley Hills Road Race - Men’s E3

Date: April 27, 2025

AVRT Racers: Maxime Cauchois, Kevin Kauffman

Best Finish: Kevin Kauffman - 11/23

Course Description: Roughly 4 laps of an 18.7 mi loop with 1,650 ft of elevation gain each lap totaling ~74 miles and ~6200 feet including the neutral rollout. The main feature of the course is the “Three Bears,” which is a sequence of short climbs in the second half of the loop. “Mama Bear” is the first and takes about 2-3 minutes to climb; “Papa Bear” is the second and takes about 3-4 minutes to climb; and “Baby Bear” is the third and takes less than a minute to climb. There’s a short descent between Mama and Papa and a longer descent between Papa and Baby. The rest of the course is mostly flat with some rolling hills.(description borrowed from Fraser Bulbuc)

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/14295027471 

Nutrition: A tasty natural processed Ethiopian pourover at home, and some far less tasty cola caffeine tabs + water at the start. ~3x 100g carb bottles throughout the race and 1 gel.

Recap: 

It was a pretty chilly day at the start line, 48°F and overcast. The wave was combined with Collegiate A so in addition to me and Maxime, Devin and George were with us representing UC Davis and Stanford. The race started with a neutral rollout down to the start of the laps, which was a moderately trafficked open road and mostly acceptable quality pavement, with some significant exceptions manifesting in huge potholes near the shoulder lines. The group was awakened to these early as one rider hit a large hole and flatted in the first few miles. Turns were swept before the race so those also rode appreciably fast. 

The first lap was rather tame as we warmed up in the appearing sun and familiarized ourselves with the group. There were a few small surges over the rollers on the back side of the lap, but it was pretty clear that nobody was interested in attacking when wind was low and not really a factor in the race dynamics, and most seemed content letting the Bears be the ultimate separator. I knew that I wasn’t the strongest or lightest climber in the group so my goal was to stay toward the front as we approached the climbs and hope I still had some wheels within reach once over the top. This positioning was quite easy, as I could regularly make up 5+ wheels on the shoulders of small descents without any power cost.

When we made the final turn before the Bears, the position jockeying kicked up and as soon as the road pitched up, everyone launched. As expected, most of the field was over the climb before me but I was still able to find a small group of motivated, like-sized riders to set up a chase with some efficient slingshot rotations on the main descent into Baby Bear, and a high intensity rotating paceline as we began lap 2 in the flats. By the time we hit the first turn, we had caught the main group and were back in contention.

I could copy and paste the details of the first lap as this was the exact playout of the remaining 3 laps, and I was continually more surprised that we kept closing the chase. Each climb was a fast and hard challenge of attrition, which eventually took out Maxime with 1 to go. On the final lap, I was quite exhausted from the cat and mouse game but worked hard to keep 3rd wheel going into the final Mama Bear climb. Unfortunately, once the road kicked up, I couldn’t hold the power of the front group as I struggled to maintain threshold and ended up crossing over in 11th.

~Kevin

Descent off the back of Papa Bear leading into Baby Bear at the end of the lap