Berkeley Hills Road Race + Memphis

Still have a few race reports to catch up on and some travel that I have done recently.  Going all the way back to mid-May I raced in the Berkeley Hills Road Race only a week after the Cat's Hill crit.  The race takes place just in the hills above Berkeley, CA around the San Pablo Dam.  The race is mostly flat with three climbs at the very end of the lap known locally as the Three Bears (Mama, Papa, and Baby if anyone is counting).  My race was 50 miles and it ended at the top of Papa Bear at the end of the second lap.  As a side note, Papa Bear is the longest of the climbs and the most consistent.

I arrived at the race early and got in a decent warm-up before we started.  It was a little bit foggy but we all knew that it would probably burn off during the race and heat up.  The race started pretty mellow with a few people trying to attack and establish a break on the first lap but they weren't very committed to it and eventually they came back to field.  Halfway thru the first lap I took the front of the field as nobody else wanted to ride on the front.  The race stayed pretty calm over the climbs and for the next 2 laps until we arrived at the start of the last lap.

At this point the whole field was together and everyone started fighting for position.  I was almost taken out by a Berkeley Bike Club rider who cut me off in the middle of the pack.  The rider next to me just looked at me and we both shook our heads.  It was very obvious that for the rest of the lap people would be fighting for position and where the beginning of the lap is on wide roads, the end of each lap moves onto tighter roads where it becomes very hard to move up.

My goal for this race was to stay with the main field as the previous road race that I had done was the Wente Road Race and I was dropped with one lap to go.  At this point in the race I was pretty confident that I wouldn't get dropped until the last climb when everyone would start attacking.  The fighting for position increased as we approached the spot where the road narrowed and there was a crash next to me when two riders came together.  I was already drifting towards the back of the field due to the increased pace but this just confirmed that it would be getting very hectic for the last 5 miles.

Sure enough there was a second crash that took out about 6 riders but because I had given myself some space at the back I just rode around it and moved up about 10 positions.  We now reached the last two climbs of the day and the last 3 miles of racing.  I hung on to field on the first climb but I knew that there would be a few riders who would get away on the last climb up to the finish line.  I also knew that there would be a lot of riders attacking to early and they would end up blowing up before the finish line.  On the last climb I kept repeating to myself to be patient and finish strong.  I was towards the back of the field at the bottom of the climb but as we continued our way up to the finish I was starting to drag back more riders that had attacked too early.  I was exhausted at the finish but happy that I had timed it correctly.  I finished in 28th place which put me inside the top half of the field.

Berkeley Hills Bike Race Results

The following weekend I had my first vacation of the year as I went to Memphis to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and my two nephews.  My parents also came down to visit as it was Graham's (youngest nephew) first birthday.  I took the red-eye on Thursday evening and arrived Friday morning in Memphis.  Kim picked me up from the airport with both Benjamin and Graham in the car.  Benjamin was very excited to see me and you could tell as he kept interrupting Kim and I whenever we would try and talk.

Benjo playing with the pinwheel that my parents brought for him.  Kim putting together a gift for Graham.

After a few hours of playing with Benjamin we grabbed lunch where the cashier at the sandwich shop confused Kim and I as husband/wife.  My parents arrived in the early afternoon and shortly afterwards Blair came home from work for the day.  Kim had called me earlier in the week to see if I would like to go to a barbecue contest in Memphis with Blair, and of course I wanted to go.  My dad, Blair, and I hopped in the car and headed down to the barbecue festival.  To say this was awesome would be a huge understatement.  Blair had a connection from his work and therefore we had free access to one of the 150+ vendors in the contest.  Let me elaborate a little bit.  The contest was set on the banks of the Mississippi river and most of the contestants are teams of people with a love of barbecue (there are restaurants that compete as well).  They build 3-story tall scaffolding rigs where they serve their delicious barbecue to anyone lucky enough to be given a wristband (you can't buy these from what I understand).

After arriving at the event we went over to the team location, grabbed a beer (free), and went to the top of the scaffolding house to chat while we waited for the barbecue to be served.  After a few minutes they announced that the food was ready and we went down to grab food from the feast before us.  Smoked chicken, smoked pork, smoked bacon, wet ribs, macaroni & cheese, and some very awesome baked beans were piled onto the plate and brought back up to the rooftop to watch the sun set and stuff ourselves.  The food/drink were free and I can't say I have had barbecue as good as this in a long time, if ever.

The birthday boy.

Saturday was spent prepping for the Graham's birthday party and at one point my dad and I took Benjamin with us over to the local Harley Davidson dealer to check out the motorcycles (he loves motorcycles).  I think we sat on every motorcycle in the place as we chased Benjamin around the store. After we got back we finished up the prep work and soon Blair's family and their friends started showing up for the party.  It had been a couple of years since I was in Memphis so it was great getting to see some of the faces from a few years back.  Sunday went pretty quickly as I was leaving to head home just after noon.  The visit to Memphis was great and I am sure that Kelsey and I will be going back to visit in the future.