Race Report: 2025 Winters Road Race - Men's Cat 3

Race: Winters Road Race - Men's Cat 3

Date: August 31, 2025

AVRT racers: Jeremy Besmer, Ryan Dyke

Top Results: Jeremy 13/27, Ryan 17/27

Course: Three laps of a 24 mile loop. Mostly flat but with a ~3.5mi climb (Cantelow), and narrow twisty descent. There’s also a short gravel stretch that is very doable on road tires (had no issues on my 28mm GP 5000S TR).

Nutrition: Two bottles of super Skratch with 90g carbs each and two sleeves of shot blocks (50g carbs each)

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/15574032472

Recap (written by Jeremy): 

This was a large field of 27 starters with no large team representation, so we figured this would be a pretty chaotic race with good chances for breakaways succeeding. We went in with a loose plan to follow moves on the climb and for Ryan to try initiating an early break, while I would go for a break in in the second half of the race. 

The race started off pretty chill for the first lap, and someone rolled off the front but did not look threatening so the field quickly let him get a large gap. A bit later, Ryan attacked to try to bridge up to the solo rider, and again the field was uninterested in chasing. Ryan + solo rider were (separately) off the front until the climb, and the field took the climb at a hard pace so we caught them both by the top. The climb was over much sooner than I expected so I was poorly positioned in the back half of the group going into the descent. That turned out to be a big mistake when a rider ahead of me crashed halfway down. Thankfully he didn’t take anyone else down, but I had to slam on my brakes to go around. At the bottom, I was alone ~10 seconds behind most of the field. I rode a hard pace for ~5min to try to catch back on for and was caught by a few riders who had been behind me. We worked together to get back to the field near the end of lap 1. 

Lap 2 also started with minimal group organization and a few people occasionally rolling off the front solo without any success. Ryan again rolled away from the group a few miles before the climb, which set me up well to sit in and get in a perfect position in the group to counterattack when we caught him at the bottom of the steep part of the climb. Excited to make some noise on the climb, I shifted to get ready for the steep section…and then I made no noise as I couldn’t pedal with a dropped chain (cry). I cursed a few times while trying to get my chain back in place without stopping. No luck, so I got off the bike to quickly put it back on. This was the most critical moment of the race, so 5 seconds felt like an eternity. I hopped back on my bike, and did my best to smash solo up the climb, but I was dismayed to see a group of 4-5 riders separating from the front of the group ahead of me. 

I descended, saw that I was ~10s behind the main group, and the break of 5 looked like it was extending its gap. I rode solo for a bit but then Ryan and another rider caught up to me. We worked together with Ryan doing some incredible pulls to get us back on to the main group near the end of the lap. The peloton had largely sat up with no organized chase of the break, which had a 1 minute gap. 

I was tired from chasing, so I wasn’t ready to take a pull yet. I sat in to recover, and because there was no organized chase, the gap widened to several minutes and we never saw those riders again. At some point a rider rolled off the front solo, which appeared threatening so Ryan and I went to the front to pull. A few moments later, I realized that I had unintentionally rolled off the front. his was on a flat section where I wouldn’t have intentionally attacked, but nobody was chasing me. I didn’t want to fully commit, so I rode a steady effort. My gap had increased to ~40 seconds by the start of the climb. I pushed harder as the road got steeper, got some ice from the feedzone (thanks, Roger!), and tried to smash the steepest section. Fatigue from earlier chasing caught up to me, and the peloton was absolutely hammering the climb, so my gap shrank to 10 seconds by the top.

I maintained this gap through the descent, and continued riding tempo, figuring this gap wouldn’t last on the final, flat 10 miles of the course. I was caught with 6 miles to go. I largely sat in, thinking of how to play the finish. I was in good position with 500 meters to go, but a pair who had been pacelining snuck around us from behind, carrying a lot of momentum. I wasn’t ready for that sudden acceleration and couldn’t respond. Instead of sprinting for 6th place, I rolled into the finish with the group.