Race Report: 2026 Tour de Murrieta - Men’s Cat 2/3

Race: Tour de Murrieta - Men’s Cat 2/3

Date: March 28-29, 2026

AVRT racers: George Wehner, Henry Mallon

Top Result: 
Crit: George 7/53
Circuit: both DNF

Course: 
Crit: 1.1-mile 6 corner crit with a sweeping 180 between turns 2 and 3
Circuit: 4-mile rolling circuit with a KOM point halfway into the lap

Strava:
Crit: https://www.strava.com/activities/17893449804
Circuit: https://www.strava.com/activities/17906896861

Nutrition: Lots of water (it was over 90ºF both days)

Recap: (written by George)

Crit: Our plan going in was to have Henry try to get into some moves and have me stay protected for the field sprint. We did a pretty good job at executing this plan; Henry was in a few different moves and overall quite active while I sat back and got an armchair ride. In the final few laps I was able to navigate myself into perfect position, being in the top 5 wheels going into the last lap. With about half a lap left in the race, Thomas from Terun Elite got to the front of the race to lead it out for his teammate Donald, so I hopped right onto Donald’s wheel; this was perfect. However, Donald launched super early, with about 400m left in the race, and I had no choice but to follow him. With about 150m left I thought I had a real chance of winning, but soon after that I got passed by a bunch of sprinters who had waited until a better time to launch.

Circuit race:We thought this race would be pretty attritional due to the heat and KOM point, and I felt really good about both our chances. For the first half I felt good and really felt a result coming. Unfortunately, halfway through the race, someone hit a pothole on the start/finish straight and caused a massive pileup that took out both Henry and myself. Henry injured his ankle and got some pretty nasty road rash, and I sprained my wrist and really