Berkeley Hills Road Race
May 9, 2005
Webcor Team : Stefanie Graeter, Betina Hold, Cat Malone, Katheryn Curi
Report by Katheryn Curi

Due to construction going on near the old start of the race, the organizers moved the start to San Pablo Dam Road. They also changed the finish to the top of Papa Bear, I think, so there was a shorter distance between the finish and start!

The skies were overcast and threatening when a medium size group (29 riders) rolled from the boat launch (start) to the Dam road. The mood in the group was fairly sociable as people chatted with each other and seemed content to roll around the first lap at a leasurely pace. I don't know whether it was the weather or the 71 miles of rolling terrain that kept it mellow that first lap, but the four of us were content with the pace as we were not planning on doing anything until the fist lap. I don't think my heart rate got above 130!

Coming into the base of Mama Bear for the second time, the plan was to start attacking, using Betina, Cat, and myself, so that we could save Stefanie for later. I was the first to launch an attack and was quickly covered by the group. I think that the slow pace made my legs a bit stiff and unresponsive to a high intensity. Yet, this spurred the group on and after an attack from Cat, Eryn Alders (Tamarack) attacked and got about a 10" gap. The group seemed okay with letting her dangle out there until the base of Papa Bear when we got close enough and Stefanie countered her. Pat Ross and Penny Averil (Touchstone) covered Stefanie, with me on their wheel. When they got close to catching her, I attacked and got off briefly before being reeled back in.

All the activity did seem to trim down the group, as Pat set a strong tempo down the major decent. There was one kicker of a small climb that brought us back to the Dam road and Stefanie made a great attack on it. This again forced Touchstone to cover it and I again countered Stef's move and got off with Bev Harper (Touchstone). The two of us worked well until being brought back by the chase group - Jill McLaughlin (Velo Bella), Jane Despas, Maria Monica (Left Coast), Cynthia Mommsen (Olympic Club), Pat, Penny, Bev, and Sarah Bamberger (all four from Touchstone). The numbers were definately more on the Touchstone women's side, although they seemed more content with setting tempo at the front than lauching attacks. They did seem okay with gapping each other off, which would force us to close the gap. I rolled to the back of the group to take inventory of what was going on and noticed that Sarah was just sitting on; I rolled up to Stefanie and was about to tell her to watch for an attack, when Sarah attacked from the right! I quickly covered her and was joined by Jill. A quick look back showed me that we had a good little gap. The three of us rolled through quickly to maintain our break. I set tempo on the climbs, Jill did what she could on the decent and flats, and Sarah rolled through until she found out that she had Penny in a break of two behind. Then she just sat on. I made the mistake of not asking the moto who was in the chase group of two and came to find out later that it was Stefanie and Penny. Stef did a great job of just sitting on Penny until my break got a solid enough lead and then she rolled through, not pulled through!

Jill was definately motivated to make our break stick and coming around for the last time up Mama Bear we were told that we had a 2' gap. I had Jill pull on the rollers before Papa Bear and just as I was a the front near the base of Papa Bear, Sarah attacked. Knowing that there was still just over 1k until the finish, I did not panic and slowly closed the gap. This effort did pop Jill though. When I caught Sarah, she slowed down quite a bit and I was nervous that Jill would catch back up, yet I did not want to lead Sarah out. Fortunately, I train quite a bit on the course and knew that I did not want to go too early. With about 250m to go, I attacked with no response from Sarah. I rolled across for the win, just behind Glen Mitchelle from Sierra Nevada/Kodak who had won for the men.

Stefanie had managed to drop Penny on Mama Bear and rolled in for a stong 4th place finish. Betina and Cat were comfortably placed in the main group and finished 11th and 13th. Another great showing for the Webcor Women!!!

P.S. The weather was very unstable the whole race; we got rained on pretty hard and the only saving grace was that it was kinda warm out!

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