Race Report: 2025 Patterson Pass Road Race - Men’s E3

Date: August 3, 2025

AVRT racers: Wil Gibb, Jeremy Besmer, Matthew Younkins, Ryan Dyke

Top Result: Wil Gibb (3/13), Jeremy Besmer (4/13)

Course: Three laps, ~22 miles/~2.2k feet climbing each. The course starts with a 3.9 mile climb of Patterson Pass Road into an absurd headwind, which makes the average gradient of 5.4% seem deceptively easy. A fast descent on decent pavement leads to the Flynn Road climb (2.2 miles, 4.3% but with a false flat lowering average gradient). After Flynn Road there is one very technical/slow corner followed by ~12 miles of faaast, straight descending on mostly excellent pavement with some small “kickers.” The race ends on a heavy crosswind section, culminating in a 0.44 mile 6% kicker to the finish line. 

Strava: https://strava.app.link/ZIJRvzGPxVb

Nutrition: Three bottles with 110g carbs (one from Nathan’s dad!), one neutral water

Recap: Written by Wil 

This race had it all – ripping headwinds, the threat of cows on the road, a breakaway (doomed), another breakaway (success!), and a rider who dared to ask the question – do the rules really apply to me, even if I don’t like them? 

I wanted to try something new going into this race, so the team agreed to support a breakaway effort. We felt this could be successful as we were the only team in the race, and it wasn’t a pure climbers race. Jeremy suggested that I try on the flat/false flat sections of the otherwise fast Altamont descent because it would be easier to distance the junior riders on those sections compared to the climbs. Naturally, I inexplicably went for a break on the steepest top sections of the Patterson climb – I did get a decent gap thanks to the (surprised) team blocking, but was caught a few minutes into the descent, first by someone supertucking (more on that later) and then by the rest of the group.

The rest of the descent was uneventful, apart from supertuck dude almost crashing. On the Flynn climb, I rode up to him and started with a compliment (he was riding a really cool Scott foil, clearly inspired by SAFA Brian) before kindly asking him to please not do that again. A few other riders chimed in (even one of the juniors), baffled that he thought supertucking was legal. Also, petition to change the name supertuck as it does sound really cool. Tubesitting?

Back in the race, we had finished the Flynn climb and were zooming on our seatposts all the way down Altamont. There was a moment of soft pedaling from the front riders and I used this moment to attack on the false flat section of this fast road. Thanks to great teamwork, the gap widened. Not anticipating success, now I had to figure out how to do a solo breakaway – I decided to keep my heart rate below 170 to avoid cracking, keep drinking, and wait at least 30 seconds in between glances over my shoulder. 

Going into the base of the Patterson headwind climb, I had a 2 minute gap, which narrowed to 1:20 at the top of the climb. I sent it pretty hard (for myself) on the descent and kept my own pace on the Flynn climb, but there were fast and furious attacks on Flynn in the peloton and I was caught shortly after the crest of the climb by two U23 riders. I could tell they were strong and were willing to take more risks than me on the fast sections of the course, but fortunately we were all working well together and managed to get a comfortable gap on the peloton going into the final lap. We were together until the final sprint, when the youths predictably danced away while I pedaled in for third. Jeremy was first from the bunch in 4th, Matthew 7th, and Ryan (despite recovering from illness!) 11th. 

Perspective from the peloton from Jeremy:

We enjoyed the opportunity to sit in with Wil off the front. There would occasionally be an attack or a concerted effort to organize a chase effort, but we stayed in good positions to follow those. There was more consistent chasing on the patterson pass climb, which set up for what we expected to be a hard effort to chase down Wil on Flynn. This fell apart a bit on the second half of the climb until the two U23 riders attacked on the steep part. I was unfortunately out of position to follow this to get a free ride up to Wil, but figured that if they caught Wil that group could hold it to the finish. It seems everyone else felt the same way, so there was minimal chasing effort for the rest of the lap.

We decided to sit in until Flynn on the next lap where we would decide whether the break had enough of a gap for us to attack the remainder of the field. At the top of Patterson Pass the break was 3+ minutes ahead so we were ready to race for fourth. The descent was pretty aggressive and I got separated from most of the group as we turned into the Flynn climb. Thankfully Matthew came by and did a great job pulling me back to the group just in time for the steep part. I waited at the back of the group for the steepest part, where I attacked and quickly got a gap that I held to the top of the hill. Then I settled in for a hard and fast ride down the descent and windy flats to the finish. My power meter hadn’t worked all race so I just kept riding on old school vibes, which worked out to keep me away solo for fourth place.