Race Report: Cal Aggie Criterium - Men’s Cat 1/2/3 Master 35+/50+

Race: Cal Aggie Criterium - Men’s Cat 1/2/3 Master 35+/50+ (35+ and 50+ picked separately)

Date: January 31st, 2026

AVRT racers:

• Louise Thomas

• Paul Levy

• Rachel Hwang

• Sophia Hu

• Steph Hart

• Sue Lin Holt

Top Result: Paul Levy (14/28 35+)

Course: Flat 1.1 mile course at Land Park in Sacramento. One technical chicane in the middle of the lap.

Strava: 

Steph’s ride: Cal Aggie- Masters Men’s 1/2/3 | Ride | Strava

Paul’s ride: Cal Aggie Crit - Masters 35+ then P123 | Ride | Strava

Nutrition: Paul - Started with one 600ml bottle of plain water and one 600ml bottle of homemade drink mix consisting of sugar, maltodextrin, honey, lemon, lime, salt, and lite salt.

Recap (written by Steph Hart and Paul Levy):

Steph’s perspective/Women’s team (blissfully ignoring the macro-level race dynamics):

In the spirit of ripping the bandaid off race season and making the drive to Sacramento worthwhile, Rachel, Louise, Sophia, Sue Lin and I hopped into the Men’s masters crit before the Women’s 1/2/3 race. As the women’s races tend to be short on riders, my goals were to get some practice riding/cornering in a large field while conserving energy before racing in Tucson.

Kudos to the guys, because honestly this was a super smooth and safe race, with zero sketchy cornering, etc. The race stayed together pretty much the whole time, and by the end I was getting the hang of which spots were good to move up each lap when the field tended to accordion together. I found that because I didn’t actually care what was happening at the front of the race, I was free to focus all my mental energy on just sitting on good wheels in the top half of the field, minimizing surges, and always moving up when the opportunity arose. I think Robin Betz calls this “lizard brain” when you’re only worried about the handful of wheels in front of you, and its actually very fun and borderline meditative. Rachel and I stuck with the field the whole time, but kinda backed off on the last lap to avoid any crashes/burning matches. Overall, it was a pretty chill “ride to vibes” 40 minutes and a good warm-up before the women’s race.

Paul’s Perspective:

This is a hometown race for me, only a few miles from my house and a typical loop for me to ride over lunch. But while I didn’t have to drive very far to the race, I did get there early to cheer on friends racing in various fields all day long and set up a little tailgate spot for socializing at the chicane with coffee, snacks, cold beverages, and (sonic) jams. So it was actually kind of a hectic day for me before my race even started.

The masters race was 57 starters total, split almost perfectly between combined but picked separately fields of 35+ 1/2/3 and 50+ 1/2/3. Relatively early in the race I made one hard effort to follow a move by a buddy on Dolce Vita who I know is a solid break-mate and we tried (unsuccessfully) to maintain a gap. Somewhere else in there I tried to put in a solid dig on the front exiting the chicane to see if that would stir up the race a bit. Neither of these efforts yielded a whole lot, but I also wasn't committing too much because I had the P/1/2/3 race immediately after with a few teammates. So after these two pokes at the field, I sat in the rest of the race and tried to conserve energy. But honestly with the punchier side of my fitness still developing this early in the season, even those efforts were leaving me feeling pretty tired and hanging on more than chilling the rest of the time.

It was interesting doing both this and the P/1/2/3 race and being able to compare the two. The combined masters race was the larger field of the two and even though the average speed was only slightly lower (by less than 0.5 mph), we were hitting the turns much more often as a giant blob whereas in the P/1/2/3 we'd be taking the turns only 1 or 2 people wide which I felt much more comfortable with. I spent noticeably less energy and preserved my placement better through turns in the more strung out field. I never felt like anyone in the masters field was taking the turns in a sketchy way, but I found myself hesitating through the turns in such a large group and having to make up lost places each lap.

In the end I finished exactly midpack (14/28) in the 35+ field, then found a friend to cut my number off to reveal the P/1/2/3 number pinned underneath and went to line up for that race.