Race Report: Pescadero Road Race, Men’s 35+ 123
Race Report: Pescadero Road Race, Men’s 35+ 123
Date: July 11, 2026
AVRT racers: Jeremy Besmer, Michael Matthews, Vasyl Stokolosa
Top Result: Jeremy (11/46 overall and 4/11 in 35-39)
Course: ~72 miles, 3 ascents of Haskins climb (1.6 miles at 7%). After a neutral rollout, the race begins on Stage Road with two punchy climbs separated by fast, technical descents. A right turn off of Stage leads to 7.5 miles of false flat uphill. Next is a right turn onto Pescadero Road with a short uphill/downhill before turning right onto Pescadero Creek Road for the final Haskins climb.
Nutrition: Two bottles with 75g super skratch each, two packages of shot blocks, and a neutral Bottle Grab with 30g carbs from Torq
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/19274180455
Recap (written by Jeremy):
This masters district championship race combined three age groups, 35-39, 40-45, and 45-49. All of the AVRT riders were in the 35-39 group. Since this was the masters district championship race, the combined age groups made for unusual race dynamics. In general I prefer to just race for the overall field so that I don’t have to keep track of who is in my field, but it quickly became apparent that most people were not racing that way.
On the first lap, the group took the Stage climbs quite hard, which resulted in some gaps in the field as we turned onto highway 84. A 35-39 rider rode off the front but no one responded. I didn’t think it was a threat to have a single person away, but shortly thereafter another 35-39 rider attacked and quickly bridged up to him. This was more threatening, but I knew following attacks on the flat part of the course would not be favorable for me. Spoiler alert: we never saw them again.
I looked around for some assistance from other 35-39 riders but it seemed most of them had been in the second group after Stage. Eventually some others moved up, including Michael, and we worked together to raise the pace of the group leading into Haskins. I knew my best chance was to climb Haskins as fast as possible in the hope that the two in the breakaway were not strong climbers. We did that, but still did not see them. After the descent, most of the group came back together. Vasyl, Michael, and I took some hard turns to try to chase the break. A few of the other 35-39 riders participated, but it wasn’t well organized.
This chase effort continued into the next lap on 84 and Haskins, where the moto ref told us the break still had 2+ minutes. At that point, we gave up chasing, but it was too late. In hindsight, we should have given up chasing much earlier and resigned to racing for third - the effort was fruitless and would come back to haunt me.
On lap 3, the other age groups in the field finally decided to start racing. Highway 84 was a constant series of attacks and counter-attacks by people in each of the fields. This was pretty chaotic and very hard, as I had to follow everything since it was impossible to keep track of who was in each field. I was feeling quite tired and felt leg cramps approach as we approached Haskins, but I managed to get myself into a great position going into the climb. I was third wheel behind the key remaining 35-39 rider. It started off hard but steady until a 40-44 rider (Adam White) attacked from just behind me. A line of ~8 others went with him (including three 35-39 riders), but I was unable to hang on. Fighting off leg cramps, I settled into a sustainable pace and just hoped to pass people who blew up trying to follow Adam. I steadily picked off a few people toward the top, including two of the 35-39 riders. One of these jumped on my wheel as I passed with 200m to go, but I was able to beat him to the line to secure 4th place in 35-39 and 11th overall. I was a bit disappointed at the finish climb performance, but still had a great day racing on this amazing course!