Mount Hamilton Race Report

Recent Cat 2 upgrades Jeff Williams and Bo Hebenstreit recently tackled a monument of NorCal cycling: Mt. Hamilton RR. This is probably the only point to point race in the district and climbs up and over the highest peak in all of the Bay Area. Bo and Jeff finished in the top half, which is a major accomplishment. Good job guys. Below is Jeff's report

Official Results
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Mt. Hamilton RR, P1/2
5/25/2008
21st of 59
Teammates: Bo H. 28th

I wasn't too excited about doing this race. I haven't been doing too much climbing lately, and this was going to be my second road race in the P1/2 field. Plus it didn't help that my legs were still tired from the Beat the Clock time trial the day before.

There was no real team plan. The climb was going to dictate the tactics. Our goal was to try and stay with the main group over the top and go from there.

The race started off a lot slower than I expected. I thought we were going to be going hard from the beginning of the climb, but that wasn't the case. The first 30 minutes of climbing was totally doable, it was hard, but doable. The hardest part was moving up. The road is so narrow that you have to be really aggressive to move up. I wasn't too aggressive when trying to move up because I kind of feel like I'm the new kid on the block. Not being more aggressive was a big mistake, because once we hit the third part of the climb things started to pick up a bit.

This is when a Cal-Giant rider went to the front and slowly ramped up the pace. A lot of gaps started to happen on and I was constantly going around and trying to close the gaps. Plus it didn't help there were a lot more sharp steep turns the closer you got to the top. Being towards the back going into these turns meant you had to accelerate hard out of the turn just to catch back on. This along with the gap closing took a toll on my legs. Looking back on the switchbacks I could see our main group had dwindled to about 20 or so riders.

With less than three miles to the top I lost contact with the main group. I tried to catch back on, but my legs were spent and I knew there was still a lot of racing on the backside of the mountain. So I continued on at a steady-hard pace. I ended up towing three other dropped riders up to the top.

Just before the top I caught five more riders. One of the riders we picked up was a Cal Giant rider, and on the descent he was going especially slow. I'm pretty sure he was the rider who set the pace all the way up the climb. One of the other riders was Kevin Klein of Rock Racing.
After fast, and sketchy, descent we picked up some a few more riders just after Isabel Creek. Oh yeah, that little climb coming out of Isabel Creek KILLED my legs. I guess my legs went into sleep mode on the descent.

Our group, now about 15 guys, started working together in a paceline. Kevin Klein of Rock Racing was just sitting in on the back because his Teammate Adam Switters was up the road in the main group. We actually caught a glimpse of the lead group on a long straight away. They were probably over 45secs up the road. Seeing the main group got us a little more motivated, but then our paceline started to become disorganized with too many people sitting out pulls.
Going into the hill after the feed zone I told myself I had to keep contact with our chase group. So when two riders started to pick-up the pace a little I jumped on their wheels. One of the riders, Sierra-Pacific Racing, was pushing the pace with a Specialized jr. rider glued to his wheel. Meanwhile I was struggling to hang on. My legs were hurting. When I looked back to see how many people had come with us I was surprised to see the three of us had a sizeable gap. We continued at a hard pace to the top of the climb and quickly started trading pulls once we were at the top.

The Sierra-Pacific rider was super strong and would continually gap myself and the Specialized rider. I told him to not pull through so hard, but I guess he had extra energy to burn. We continued to work together. I was a struggling to maintain the pace. My legs were burning, but I kept pushing myself. We kept looking over our shoulders to see if the pack was gaining on us, but the road was too twisty to see. The Specialized rider started to fade causing our pace to slow. Luckily we were on the descent into the valley. I started to think we might stay away because we were only about 4 miles from the finish. Then I looked back and saw Kevin Klein and about 5 other riders bombing down towards us.

After they caught us there were a few attacks but nothing stayed off. I thought about attacking on one of the small inclines, but didn't think my legs had enough juice left to get me to the finish line by myself.

We hit the 1km sign and somehow I ended up at the front. I was pedaling easy waiting for some to take control or jump. I slowly started to pick up the pace 500m out, then a Lombardi rider jumped. This got everyone going. Just as I went to stand up my quads cramped up. They were super close to locking up. I managed to push through and pass a few people, but in no way did I sprint. I guess I should have taken in more fluids.

Looking back on the race I should have been more aggressive with moving up on the second part of the main climb. This could have aloud me to stay with the main group longer, or maybe even over the summit. I also should have taken in more fuel during our break attempt. Lastly, I should have attacked on one of the last inclines before you hit the bridge. Who knows I could have gotten, and stayed, away. I'm still learning a lot about racing. As long as I can learn from my mistakes I will become a better racer.

Thanks for reading.
Jeff Williams