Date: April 26, 2025
AVRT racers: Shai Traster and Adam Fiss
Top Results: Adam Fiss (3/14), Shai Traister (6/14)
Course: Three laps of the 3 bears loop for a total of ~53 miles and ~4000 feet including the 2-mile neutral rollout. The main feature of the course is the “Three Bears,” climb which is a sequence of punchy climbs in the second half of the loop. “Mama Bear” is the first and takes about 2-3 minutes to climb (with a descent in the middle); “Papa Bear” is the second and takes about 3-4 minutes to climb; and “Baby Bear” is the third and is a short kicker at the end of the lap. The race finishes with a final climb of Papa Bear.
Strava: https://strava.app.link/ay9LhDWKVSb
Nutrition: One bottle of SIS 80 gram carbs, 2 X 50g CarbFuel and 1 GU 20g
Race recap: Written by Adam Fiss
This was a race that was not originally on my calendar as I had been planning to do one or both of the Hincapie Gran Fondo and/or Levi’s Gran Fondo, but between weather and family commitments, I did not do either. So, after about 25 years, I decided I would do my first true road race again. It was quite the endeavor to get USAC to find my license information and they could not locate my previous Cat 3 license information, but they did find my Cat 4 license.
At the race line, Shai and I had a very short race strategy conversation which was don’t get dropped on the climbs.
The race started without incident and we rode the first lap at a fairly leisurely pace. Our first time up the climbs, no one made any really strong attacks, and we all stayed together (except for one racer whose chain dropped as soon as we hit Mama Bear). On the second time up 3 Bears, two riders were able to create a bit of a gap on Mama Bear. I had been caught grabbing some nutrition and figured that someone would close things down, but no one did. So, coming into Papa Bear, and seeing the two riders up the road working together, I came to the front and set a hard tempo to avoid them creating too big of a gap. I kept them pinned probably between 20 to 40 seconds up the road. After cresting Papa Bear, I thought someone would help me with the chase, but to no avail. So, I stayed on the front – except for about 30 or so seconds of a pull from one other rider – from Papa Bear until we hit the little bump leading into the 3 Bears. Since I had been pulling about 4 racers for about 16-18 miles, I decided to use that bump to go off on my own and try to bridge to the two riders ahead. As soon as we hit the bump, I used about a 90 second effort and got a gap of about 15 second on the chasers. I then spent the next 10-15 minutes bridging to the two riders ahead. We started to work together going into the final time up Mama and Papa Bear and got caught a mile or so before Mama Bear. At Mama Bear, the same rider who initiated the prior attacks went and I jumped and went with him. Unfortunately, due to a lack of drinking and intake of fuel (as I had to use the restroom for about 90 minutes so choose not to keep drinking) my quad cramped up a bit and he hit the top of the climb about 10 seconds ahead of me. I started to catch back up to him on the descent, but got caught behind another group which allowed one person to catch back up to me. On Papa Bear, I tried to go but the quad was not cooperating so just pushed as hard as I could and ended up in third.