Race Report: 2026 Giro di SF - Men’s Cat 3/4

Race: 2026 Giro di SF - Men’s Cat 3/4

Date: Monday, September 7

AVRT Racers: Adam Beliveau, Wil Gibb, Kevin Kauffman

Best Finish: Kevin Kauffman 20/53

Course Description: Somewhat bumpy L-shaped 6-corner course with a little bump on the front half and the worst pavement toward the back stretch in the heart of San Francisco.

Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/20081717838

Nutrition: about 75g carbs + cola caffeine flavor, coffee flavor coffee, a banana before the start then half a bottle of carb for the race

Race Recap (by Kevin Kauffman):

I love this race - there’s so much energy with a solid crowd of spectators both cycling fans and those who just happen by the race on their day in the city. The course is pretty safe, with wide turns with plenty of space for a few bikes across, pretty much all pedalable. The bump around the 3rd corner does a nice job breaking up any big moves and keeping things from getting strung out, but is still too short for any real weight advantage so the course ends up favoring a pretty tight group.

I don’t get a lot of races with both Diesel Wil and Zoomies Adam together, so I was quite excited going in! I think we all learned our lessons from experiencing or witnessing the whole Cat 3 squad from last year crashing out, so we stayed in the front 1/3 of the field from the gun and throughout the race. I was impressed by how cleanly the group was racing. I felt like this year, we didn’t have near the accordion as last. Another perk of late season races!

The bulk of the race was pretty uneventful, until things got a little dicey with ~7 to go. As the numbers were shown and got down to single digits, people started chopping wheels, deviating lines and trying to force space between curbs and riders twice their weight. And… that big boy would be me in the fast lane when I got an elbow to the thigh, an “oh sh**”, and the sound of sliding bikes from behind. “That was close” I thought, until a lap later I found Adam peculiarly on the sidelines instead of in the field. Turns out it was the sound of his beautiful new whip sliding across the asphalt just a few minutes prior. Wil got caught behind and spent the last of his energy chasing back on just before the finish. 

With just a few more laps to go and the boys ever more eager, I found Wil in the field and just sat in for the storm with a newfound conservatism from the accident and déjà vu from getting crashed out in the Grio last year. Mailed it in in the group sprint with Wil.

Sick film shot by @jordanalogue