Race Report: Berkeley Hills Long course
Race Report: Berkeley Hills Long course
Date: April 26, 2025
AVRT racers: Steph Hart
Top Result: 8/12
Course: 4 laps of three bears loop- each lap is 18.7 miles with 1600 ft of gain. Key features are a ~3 minute climb up “mama bear” and a 4 minute climb up “papa bear right before the finish.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/14295035425
Race Recap (written by Steph)
The women’s 1/2 field was a mix of Terun + Monarch riders, plus some additional ringers- Rachel from Coalition, Elena from some British conti team (I think), and Laurel (former twenty24). As the solo AV rider in a stacked field, the expectations were low.
The first lap was pretty chill- very easy pace in the first 10 miles, and then Terun launched some attacks on mama and papa bear, but the field came back together at the start of lap two on San Pablo Dam rd. The next half lap was dominated by pretty negative racing, as no one was really willing to put in an effort. Finally in frustration, one of the Monarch riders said that if the field was going to track stand, then she was going to take a nature break. Then despite the fact that we were free wheeling and causing a traffic jam on Alhambra Valley rd, the entire peloton ended up stopping and peeing on the side of the road. This is the kind of stuff I struggle to explain to my friends who aren’t into bike racing.
Shortly thereafter, Rachel from Coalition attacked before mama bear and Terun covered (mostly Jamie), but at some point Jamie dropped the rest of the peloton and joined Rachel. Then halfway up mama bear Laurel attacked and Elena went with her. About 10 seconds after this happened I was like, shit that break of 4 is definitely going to stick based on the strong composition. This left Jen and Jacqueline (both Terun) + a solo rider, Shannon in a chase group with me. Going into Papa bear I knew Jen was going to attack, because she hates not being in the break. Sure enough, Jen sends it about a minute into the climb and I visited the deities of several different religions and set a 5 minute power PR trying to chase her down. We finally caught her at the start of San Pablo, and for the next two laps everyone was pretty chill. At the start of lap 4 we heard the gap to the break was 6 minutes, further disincentivizing anyone to work. At the end of the lap, everyone gave papa bear the beans, except me, because I was not in the mood to crank out a 3 minute effort for 1 upgrade point.