Race Report: 2026 Winchester Circuit Race - Women’s Cat 5

Race: Winchester Circuit Race - Women’s Cat 5 

Date: May 9th, 2026 

AVRT racers: Meghan Kransz (Sedovy)

Top Result: Meghan Sedovy 6/7 (Women’s Cat 4/Novice)

Course: The race was four laps of a 4.5-mile course. Each lap started with rolling terrain and ended with a longer descent followed by a longer climb back up to the finish. Overall, the course had pedalable descents and gentle corners that made for a fun, fast ride.

Nutrition: One bottle of high carb drink mix (carborocket 333) and a Carbs 50g gel before the start. 

Recap (written by Meghan): This was an incredibly fun course, with fast but non-technical descending and a mix of punchy and sustained climbing.

The race started with a neutral rollout, and once the real racing began, the group settled into a steadier pace, with harder efforts on the steeper climbs. I found myself near the front early on, especially on the descents, but struggled to respond to some of the bigger efforts on the climbs.

My plan was to carry speed on the downhills and preserve as much momentum as possible for the uphills, but partway through lap one, I started having issues with my electronic shifting. All of the batteries were fully charged, but a pre-race wheel swap mishap left a spacer stuck to the cassette. It was just wide enough to keep the derailleur from consistently shifting out of the easiest gear. 

Needless to say, being stuck in a gear that was too easy for descending made it hard to pedal at speed, and I quickly found myself dropped from the front group. I kept pushing through the remaining laps and ended up finishing 6th out of 7 overall. Congratulations as well to Alto Velo club member Kira Harman on her third place finish!