Race Report: 2025 Cat's Hill Classic Men’s Cat 3

Date: March 22nd, 2025

AVRT racers: Kevin Kauffman, Ryan Dyke

Top Result: Ryan 17/34

Course: 40 minutes of a 0.90 mile lap with an insane 12% climb followed by a descent to the finish.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/13957635719

Nutrition: 1 bottle of 80g carb mix. Race is too short for two bottles

Recap: What an insanely hard race. I brought a trainer to the start and had an easy 15 minute warmup right before the start. This paid off in a big way, because unbeknownst to me there was a dude from CalPoly that decided to average 395 watts over the whole race (Zane Strait if you’re curious). Luckily I clipped in quickly and shot to the front 10 riders just as things started popping off.

Rather than let Zane go, our field collectively thought that we too could do 395 watts for 40 minutes, so the first few laps were brutal. I hung on for dear life over the climb and tried to rest as much as possible during the descent. It was during these first few laps that Kevin got gapped along with about 4 other riders. Unfortunately, they were either too tired or too scared of him to do any work, so he ended up pulling on the descents and the flats. This meant that he was gassed for each of the climbs, and it also meant that his group would never catch back up to the peloton.

Before the race, I heard a lot of people talk about whether or not you could big ring it up the climb. I was way too scared of getting dropped to find out, but I’ll tell you what worked for me: on the approach to the corner before the climb, I shifted from the big ring to the small ring. I would then shift into 5th gear in the back, which I would use for the bottom of the climb, then slowly I would grab 4th and 3rd about halfway up. That seemed to work for me, but I’m a heavier rider at about 170-175, so your mileage may vary. Every climb was basically a sprint, but I was able to maintain my position in the group going over.

While I struggled to stay with the main group, apparently we caught Zane around the middle of the race. He then decided he would rather ride alone, so he soloed away to what I imagine was an easy win. Meanwhile, I was redlined on the back of the group, and every lap it seemed there was an open gap or a rider being dropped that I had to go around. If my positioning was better, I think I could’ve done better in this race, but as it turned out I came in last for the bunch sprint.

My main takeaways from this race were that heavier riders could do okay on the climb, and that the entire course could be done with no brakes as long as you had a halfway decent line. In fact, this course layout led to a race that felt very safe and fun. While many people were stressed about dropping a chain, it seemed to be pretty rare, and I don’t think anyone in our race had that issue. The crowd support and venue were incredible, and I would recommend that anyone do this race in the future. I know I will.