Race Report: 2026 Berkeley Hills Road Race - Women’s Short Course
Race: Berkeley Hills Road Race - Women’s Short Course
Date: April 18, 2026
AVRT racers: Sophia Hu, Katie Monaghan, Ella Say, Kathay Tousant, Sandrine Veillette, Samantha Dewees
Top Results:
Sophia 1/34 (overall), 1/2 (Cat 1/2)
Sandrine 4/34 (overall), 2/21 (Cat 4/Novice)
Katie 8/34 (overall), 3/6 (Cat 3)
Course: 2 laps of the 3 Bears route. Poor pavement with potholes and large cracks, but everything was well marked by the Berkeley Bike Club. The most significant feature are the bears, a series of 3 climbs. The finish line is at the top of the longest climb - Papa Bear, a steep 4 minute climb. Low wind today with a small tailwind at the finish line.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/18162004511
Nutrition: 100g of carbs + LMNT in my bottles, 1 gel, toast and cereal for breakfast. There is a feed zone before Papa Bear but I didn’t partake.
Recap (written by Sophia):
Lap 1:
The race started with 40+ women including the juniors. I was mostly hanging in second wheel and the race was uneventful until we approached the bears. On Mama Bear, a Super Sprinkles rider, Allie, was pacing the climb at a good pace. I noticed that there was still quite a big group so I attacked on Papa Bear, but it got closed down pretty fast. At that point, I decided it was best to sit in and conserve energy. We crested with a reduced group of about 20 women.
Lap 2:
The pace started slowing on San Pablo Dam Rd and a few more people joined our group. Right before the bears on Alhambra Valley Rd, I gave up a lot of positions on the outside and then found it hard to move up since the road was quite narrow. In retrospect, I should have made sure nobody came around me because I ended up having to move up on Mama Bear, which took way more effort than if I had just stayed in position.
When we hit the bears for the last time, I knew it was time to move up - there were a lot of strong climbers in our group and I needed to be on the right side of the split. I used Mama Bear to move up, but as we crested, people seemed to sit up, so I was like ok sure I’ll lead the descent into Papa Bear and just pedal at z1.
As the climb started, a couple of people started accelerating past me, and I jumped and made sure I was about third wheel. About one minute into the climb, there was a gap of me and 2 other riders - a junior named Olive, and a collegiate Stanford rider. The Stanford rider got dropped and I focused on trying to stay on Olive’s wheel, but she attacked with 2 minutes to go and I was already on my limit. After that, I gave it my best to keep my gap, and rolled it in for second.
Sandrine, Katie, Ella, and Kathay finished close behind. Sam was doing very well but had a mechanical on Lap 2 and Robin came to her rescue. Our field ended up being scored separately from the juniors, so ontheday.net has me as P1 in the Women’s Short Course. Kudos to Olive for winning the combined field at 15 years old!
Overall, I’m happy with how the race went and stoked I was able to PR Papa Bear by 25 seconds. It’s always great to do a local race with teammates, thanks to the BBC for making it fun and safe - already looking forward to next year :)
