Race Report: 2025 Pescadero Coastal Classic Men’s Cat 4 7/12/25

AVRT Racers: Jack Lund, Vasyl Stokolosa, Sam Moskal, Adam Beliveau, Shai Traister, James Riegger, Phillip Maier

Course: ~47 miles, 2 ascents of Haskins climb which the race finished on. After a neutral rollout from Pescadero High School, the race begins on Stage Road with two short climbs separated by fast descents. A right turn off of Stage leads to 7.5 miles of gradual 1% uphill with a few punchy rollers. Next is a right turn onto Pescadero Road with a short uphill/downhill before turning right onto Pescadero Creek Road for the final Haskins climb (1.6 miles at 7%).

Strava: https://strava.app.link/VqN9nt4T0Ub

Fueling: 1 large bottle with 3 scoops Formula 369 (1 of which had caffeine)

Our event was the largest of the day, ~60 total entrants. The plan: No plan, just hang in there and survive the attritional race as best as possible. Our biggest worries going into things were the initial chaos stemming from 60 Cat 4 riders, and the speed of our first Haskins.

Leading up to the first two stage climbs was chaos. Our peloton took up the entire road, with no regard for oncoming cars. The first two climbs went off really hard immediately shedding ~1/3 of our numbers. In addition over the top of the second climb a small group of 3 riders went for a break (1 Thursday and 2 unaffiliated). The peloton did a half hearted attempted at chasing leading up to Haskins due to overall confusion about who and how many riders were up.

Luckily the break itself was falling apart as two of the members were larger guys able to handle ripping the flat terrain between mountains and one was not. The two started to play games to drop the third eventually leading to the breakaway being reabsorbed after the first Haskins.

A bunch of us tried to Sag climb the first Haskins, which led to a required hard effort after the descent to catch the leading group (which was itself pushing hard to catch the break). Vasyl, was the man of the hour here, repeatedly bridging gaps and ensuring a large group of us were still in the race.

The second lap is when the attrition really began to show, after the two Stage climbs the group had shattered, requiring multiple riders to bridge to the front group, eventually leading to a front peloton of ~20 going into Haskins.

Vasyl attacked going into the final climb, but the peloton kept him within 10s. The race ended with a brutal final effort up Haskins where amazingly one of the initial breakaway riders had the strength to pull off first. There was a small sprint battle for 2nd and 3rd in the 1ft gap between the yellow lines and a train of cars with Alto Velo’s top results pulling in for 4th (Phillip Maier) and 6th (Jack Lund)

Overall this was an amazing race, and we (the AV participants) are eternally gratefully to all of you (the volunteers and community) for making it all happen !!!