Mt. Tam Race Reports

Ryan Eastman
Mt. Tamalpais Hill Climb
Juniors 15-16
3rd place

We were all very excited for this race. It would be the last race of the season. So Tyler, Ethan and I went out the weekend before and rode the course to see where to attack and other tactics to use. The day finally came and I woke up early, so Ethan and I drove to Tyler’s and then got on our bikes and road from Fairfax up and over Mt. Tam to the start in Stinson Beach. The race started and before we would hit the climb we had to ride up Highway 1 for about 4 miles. We made that right-hand turn and we were now facing the base of the climb. It was basically a sprint from there, we were climbing at a very fast pace so there were not very many attacks, but there was a couple accelerations. I worked my way up to the front and I got there and started to ride a steady hard tempo so that nobody would want to attack. I was riding there for a long time and I noticed that the pace was getting a little hard on some others. So the road kicked up a bit and I attacked and flew u p the road. I knew this would be hard to follow, a few guys got across the gap. I created a break away of 6 guys including me and we dropped the rest of the field. I was super happy my chances of winning just increases by a lot and I was feeling good. We reached the top of the major climb that was around five, six miles of steady climbing. Now all that was left was the ridge that climbed up and then went down a bit and this repeated quite a few times. We hit the first one and it was tough and steep and the whole break made it up, we crested the top and rolled down. We gained some speed and real quick we hit the next little climbing and an attack was made, one guy chased it down and the others followed. It was difficult, we were all back together again and I don't know what happened I was finding my self drifting away from them. They got about 50 meters on me but I would not give up. They were now not getting any more distance on me. They rolled over the top and then went down and t hen a little later so did I. The next little climb was the longest and I new I could gain some ground I hit the climb and just put my head down and did not think about any thing else but each peddle stroke, didn't focus on the pain and I was riding back up to the pack. There was one small climb left before the finish and I was just hammering it. I caught the breakaway right before the little climb and Peter looked back and saw me, and I knew he was going to attack right then and sure enough he did. I just held the same pace and hammered it to the finish line and I got 3rd place. I was super happy with my result and my time 45:22.

Well this race concluded my first year racing, and it was the perfect race to do so. I am looking forward to getting a bit of rest in and I am especially looking forward to next season and where it will take me.

Ryan Eastman


Tyler Brandt
Mount Tam Hill Climb
4th Place Junior 17-18

The day started out good and ended well, but the middle involved some dead legs. I got up early and Ryan and Ethan drove over to my house and we went for a warm up over Tam. I could already tell that my legs were not feeling good, but you definitely do not want to admit that to yourself before a race. I just kept rolling along hoping that they would come around before the race. We got down to Stinson a bit slower than we would have hoped and that meant for a little bit of a rush of getting pre-race duties done. I made it to the line with plenty of time, but I couldn’t find Ryan or Ethan, but they both made it there on time and we were off. Ryan, Ethan and I had ridden the course the week before and we were all excited and prepared. There had not been many tough competitors pre-registered so we had thought about doing a tough pace along the flats in order to get a really good time. However, quite a few other strong riders had showed up so we decided to just sit in on the flats and take it easy. It was a good steady pace around 22 mph, I would have liked for them to go faster, but I wasn’t going to go on the front and waste myself, especially considering how my legs felt. We got near the hill and I made my way towards the front and started the hill up there. I soon realized that it was indeed true that my legs felt terrible and I was dying to hold onto the last wheel of the shattered front group. After a few miles of the climb I lost all contact and was left to fight it on my own. My legs felt horrible, but I just kept telling myself "Keep Fightin...keep fightin..." I was caught by Danimal (Daniel Tisdell) and I hung onto his wheel for a while. I was hoping that I could find my legs and catch some riders that would blow up from the front group. That did not happen and I gave it my all to the finish, but was definitely not happy about my result. I was more than 2 minutes slower than my time of last year! I was thoroughly disappointed, but I had a lot of fun descending down Panoramic back to Stinson. Ryan, Ethan, and I plus my father and his friend Jeff rode out in the general area of the Lighthouse. On the way out towards Pt. Reyes I was suffering horribly, but I eventually found some decent legs. Ryan and I raced up a couple hill with one leg and we made our way back to my house. We were even able to drill it for the last 8 miles and we made it back with 100 miles under our belts for the day.
-Tyler

Ryan Eastman at SFGiro

Team Swift's Ryan Eastman on the front of the Giro di San Francisco's Cat 3 race, in which he won a prime.

Ryan's Race Report: Nationals

Ryan Eastman
15-16 year old
Junior National Championship Time Trial

I was expecting it to be hot and humid in Pennsylvania but when we got there it was actually pretty nice. I had one day to get ready before the first day of racing, the time trial, so we went out to ride the road race course. So the day finally came on Friday the 13th, the day of the time trial. It was a 20k race back and forth on the freeway; my start time was around 10:30. The weather was nice but a little cloudy. I was warming up on the trainer looking around and I guess I was a little bit nervous about my first nationals and how it was going to play out, but I was so excited to be there. I got up on the start ramp and the clock started to count down from ten, I was so anxious to just get out on the road, and then there was the beep and I was off. I sprinted off the start ramp and then got into my aero bars and I was off pedaling at a high cadence down the freeway. The course was a little weird because it went off the off ramp and swished back to go down the on ramp. I pedaled my way though that and got on to the straight out and back part of the course. Now this was my first time trial so I wasn't sure exactly what to do. I guess go as hard as you can until the finish line.

I was riding my way out to the first turn around and I was feeling pretty good. When I got to the turn around I was a little confused. It looked like the cones were going in ten different directions. I went around the corner and sprinted out of it. On the way back there was a head wind that didn't feel so good but I pushed my way through it to get to the next turn around. By this time I was a little tired but at least I had a tail wind. I started to feel better and I picked it up a bit. I looked on the other rider’s faces and it looked like it was wearing on them also. I went through the last turn around to face the last 5k. I was riding and I was having such a good time. This was awesome, with about 2k to go a guy passed me and I used him to pace me. With 1k to go it was a slow drag up to the finish and with 100 meters to go I sprinted as hard as I could, coming in with a time of 30min. 46sec. In the end I got 69th with 92 guys in my field.

Junior National Championship Road Race
26th place

This was the race that I was looking forward to the most out of the three, because it was the longest, there was climbing and it was 48 miles. The day started out with some pretty heavy fog but by the time my group went off it was clear and sunny. My race was delayed about and hour and a half due to the massive crash in the 17-18 race. So they decided to neutralize our start. The start was on top off a ski resort so we descended down a ways before they gave us the go ahead to start to race. Now we had three laps to do and then we would climb back up to the finish on top of the resort. It didn't start out as fast as I thought it would but then it slowly started to kick up. It was weird racing in this big of a pack. I'm used to racing with around 25 juniors but in my race there were 92 guys. It was definitely cool though.

We got to this steep little pitch in the road where I thought it would brake up a bit, but it didn't. We flew through the little rolling hills of Pennsylvania until we reached the climb on the course. It was probably about a kilometer or so but it was pretty steep. I knew for sure that it would brake up a lot here. I made the left hand turn and then drilled it up the climb. Quickly one by one people were dropped off the back. I stayed with the pack. Once we reached the flats there were a few attacks, none got away. I made another left hand turn and went across some big rollers and descended down to conclude the first lap. We went around and reached the climb once again, about half way up I let a gap go and they slowly started to ride away. For some reason I wasn't feeling good on the climbs and that's where I should feel the best. I crested the top of the climb and felt horrible.

A small group formed with me and we started a pace line and that lead pack seemed to be getting closer and closer until I was finally in it. Now I was really tired, luckily there was a short decent coming so I could recover. Thankfully I did and was feeling better. Now we were on our final lap, there were around 4 or 5 attacks but everyone else chased them down. Once I reached the climb my plan was to set a steady tempo up the climb and save a final burst for the top of the climb. I did exactly this and it worked to perfection but I was about 15 meters away from the back of the peloton. I got to the top and they just slipped away from me. I was a little disappointed because I just wasn't climbing the way I always do. I got in a group with about 10 other guys and we worked together in a pace line and I started to just have a really good time. I was feeling better and better.

The group and I reached the climb that would bring us to the top of the resort to the finish and I started to lift the pace. Me and another guy rode away from the small pack and then in the distance I saw Edan (who is a strong rider on Davis Bike Club) so I knew that he and I could work together and make this gap that I had bigger. So I lifted the pace and dropped the other guy bridging my way up to him. He was with a couple of other riders as well, and once I reached him we took off working together extending the gap. We rode hard and strong and man I was having a great time, I also was climbing a lot stronger. We got to the 200 meter sign and then we started to sprint the final kick up to the finish. He crossed the climb around a wheel ahead of me. I had nothing left. That was an awesome race it was so fun, and I got 26th out of 92 guys so I improved a lot from the time trial.

Junior National Championship Criterium
33rd Place

I finally got to sleep in because my race wasn't until 3:30pm, but unfortunately it stated to rain in the afternoon. When I was driving to the race it really started to come down hard. I road over to the tent in the pouring rain and thankfully it stopped and by the time that my race started the course was basically all dry. We were all at the start bunched up to fight for a good position. We started to feel little water drops, but the race started off with a sprint as usual. I didn't have the best position around a third of the way back. It was hard to move up because I would get the accordion affect and once I would get back up to pace, the field would spread across the road. I slowly moved up a bit but it was tough. We got deeper and deeper into the race and it got wetter and wetter, but I was having a good time.

The race whittled down to a smaller group due to the riders that got dropped and then pulled. The race was getting toward the end and I knew that I needed to get up the re but for some reason I couldn't. Now the race was around 3 laps to go and it just started to pour really hard. It was raining so hard the rain drops hurt a bit when they hit you. I actually thought it was really cool. Obviously some other's didn't and they started to slow down leaving these gaps that I was left to bridge. I was feeling awesome so I did just that, it was raining so hard that when I had my mouth open it would fill completely up with water every 20 sec. It finally got to be too much so now I was about 6th wheel back just behind the pack and we flew through the last corner to the finishing straight. I didn't feel like sprinting, then suddenly I did, and I just gave it everything I had and I passed around 5 or 6 guys coming in 33rd place. I was very happy. I road up to the tent to Laura dripping wet and said, "Man that was the Best Race ever." I just had a really good time.

Over all, Nationals was one of the best experiences I have ever had. The big accomplishment for me was just going to Nationals since it was my first season racing. I had to race so hard to get those upgrade points so I was able to go, and I am so glad I did. I am really looking forward to next year because I will be one year older, stronger, and more experienced. Great job Team Swift!

Ryan Eastman