Race Report: 2025 Mt Diablo Challenge - Men

Race: 2025 Mt Diablo Challenge - Men

Date: Sunday, October 5, 2025

AVRT racers: Erik Levinsohn, Nathan Martin, Andrew Ernst, Leo Minami, Jeremy Besmer, Michael Matthews, Kevin Kauffman

Top Results: Erik 3rd, Nathan 5th, Andrew 10th out of 772

Course: 11.2 miles, 3249 ft hill climb. Closed to cars! It was a notably good weather day - chilly at the start, a bit windy in the second half but not as bad as previous years, but most importantly it never got hot.

Strava:

Nutrition:

Recap (written by Nathan):

Diablo Challenge is always fun, and usually the end of the race season for many. The climb is rather drafty for a hill climb, averaging 14-16 mph for big chunks of it, and having a few flat and fast sections, so the strategy tends to be staying with the front group as long as you can.

Most of us in group 1 started near the back, and immediately paid for it as a 2 man break attacked from the gun, who would stick it to the end.

The plan was to try and have Erik and I trade attacks as things got steeper, for now we just sat in the first half and let people pull on the front. As we neared the halfway point, the junction, Erik attacked first. He was followed by most of the group, and I counterattacked after him.

I had some good daylight, but could see Sandy hunting me down and keeping the gap honest. Eventually Erik would ride the bridge of Yoann to me and they would go past me.

As I got caught by 3 or 4 more people, there was lots of looking around to see who would chase Erik and Yoann. I was just sitting in, since I didn’t want to chase Erik.

After Juniper, I launched my attack, and got some decent daylight on Sandy and Jovanni. I tried to bridge up to Yoann and Erik, but Yoann was setting a really fast tempo. On the last steep climb, Erik attacked Yoann for 3rd and I held off Sandy and Jovanni for 5th.

Tough day when we miss the initial break move of the day and never see them again, but still a fun outing!