Berkeley Hills Race Report

Below is a combined report from Bo and Tore. Sounded like another cracker of a race at BH.
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Berkeley Hills RR
11 May 2008
P 1/2
90miles
7300' elevation gain
Start List 65 riders
Webcor AV: Bo Hebenstreit 21st, Jono Coulter, Jeff Williams, Tore
Nauta

Winner: Nate English
2. Jesse Moore
3. Taylor Kuphaldt
4. Mike Sayers

I had bad memories of rain and/or pain racing Berkeley Hills in
previous years so I only decided to sign up a few days ago. It is so
much fun to race with the team I just could not keep myself from
going.

We had a quick meeting before the race and Tore volunteered to go out
in an early break. Within the first few miles Tore and seven others
were off the front. This was fine with me and I don't think anyone
else was complaining, we still had 90 miles to go.

Due to Tore being in the break I was able to relax, drink, eat and
enjoy the view for a while.

We had a total of five laps to race. There are two main climbs with a
few small climbs in between. The feed zone is half way up the last
and largest climb and the finish line is at the top.

Jeff and Jono were doing a fine job patrolling the front of the pack
and I was bringing up the rear. The first time passing through the
feed zone I had no problem moving up through the pack to get myself
up with Juno and Jeff for the screaming descent to follow. The pace
was quite tame being that most of the main teams were represented in
the break.

Jeff flatted on the first lap but was able to get it changed.
It took Jeff 31 minutes at threshold power to catch back on.

On the second lap riders started rolling off the front. It happened
that 1 and 2 rides at a time were getting off the front and joining
together up the road a ways. It still was early in the race and I
knew the first break had already ready put some significant time
on the pack so I thought to myself no big deal. WRONG! I guess a total
of eight more ended up getting away and were able to join the first
eight man break for a total of 16 off the front.

We rolled around for three more laps loosing riders every time we went
over the climbs.

On the fifth and final lap we started catching riders that had lost
contact with break. Unfortunately Tore was one of them but by time we
caught him the pack was down to 13 riders.

With about 8 miles to go the pack finally put the hammer down. I was
sitting near the back when it split into two groups. I made a few
feeble attempts to bring it back together but that was not happening.

The last time over the climbs we started to pass a few riders that
had fallen off the original 16 man break and the last 6 man break. It
was still the six of us going up the final climb to the finish line.
Approaching the finish line it was strung out. A few riders were in
front of me, that I was not going to catch, and a few riders were in
back of me that I didn't need to worry about. WRONG AGAIN! I looked
over my shoulder with a hundred meters to go and it looked like I was
okay to roll in to the finish but then people starting yelling from
the side of road saying "GO! GO!" I thought they were just being nice
but I turned around and there was a Giant Berry guy barreling down on
me trying to take my big 21st spot. I really did not want that to
happen in front of friends so I went a little harder and held him off
by a few feet. See photo.



I had a great time and thanks to Amy for feeding everyone today.

Great job Tore, Jeff and Jono!

Thanks for reading Bo,

Now read Tore's view from the front break!

My BHRR experience in a nutshell:

First part of the break was with eight guys working very well together
in a rotating pace line. After about 1.5 lap we were caught by the
chase group of eight. The pace was pretty fast and the motor told us
we had about 7 minutes on the pack.

I'm still not fit enough, which became pretty apparent at the end of
the third lap: fourteen of the group were simply riding away from me
on the first climb. Crossing the feed zone Amy saw that I got dropped
and she relayed my situation to the others (we didn't have radio). I
let myself drift back to the pack; after being in no-mans-land for
another lap, I was swallowed by Bo's group. In the last half lap they
picked up the pace while I was too knackered to follow.

Tore