Women: Elite P12
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Ari Pascarella
Ari started her love for endurance sports as a cross country athlete in high school, then as an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley she enjoyed competing as a collegiate triathlete, including earning a national title her senior year. After college, Ari dabbled in age group triathlons for a little while and her first 70.3 was her last multi-discipline event in 2017. Having missed the camaraderie of being a part of a team, she tried out cycling at the early bird clinics in 2018. Since 2018, until now, she enjoyed racing crits and road races locally ad a member of Revolution Racing (formerly metro mint and JL Velo.) She is currently a Cat 2 and excited for her first year apart of Alto Velo! While Ari enjoys fond memories of the triathlete days and still goes on fun runs with her pup Brody, right now cycling is a great passion of hers. She gives back by mentoring at the Early Bird clinics that first welcomed her into the sport.
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Chris Davis
Chris has been racing for 9 years and enjoys being part of the cycling community. She is excited about the upcoming season, where she can apply previous experiences to help grow women’s cycling. Chris also loves being a first grade teacher, being around little people who are bursting with energy and enthusiasm.
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Gina Yuan
Gina found cycling in 2020 when the pandemic hit, joining Alto Velo for her first group rides. She loves exploring California by bike and anything technical on the road. In 2019, she captained the MIT sport taekwondo team to its first national title in 19 years, and is excited to bring her enthusiasm for competitive team sports to AVRT as one of the women's team managers. Gina is a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Stanford.
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Kelly Brennan
Kelly is a dynamic athlete who is equally passionate about road, gravel, and mountain biking. Her love for adventure led her to discover cycling three years ago. When not training with Alto Velo, she is a volunteer coach for a middle school mountain bike team. Off the bike, she does research at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and enjoys supporting women’s athletics of all types.
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Niky Taylor
Niky loves adventuring and being active. She picked up biking for fun in 2019 and started exploring gravel, cyclocross, and road racing in 2022 with Alto Velo. When she’s not biking, Niky works as a Geographer for the USGS and loves doing creative projects in her free time. She’s passionate about advancing diversity and inclusion in the cycling world and everywhere.
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Robin Betz
Robin started riding bikes while at Stanford in 2017 to take a break from being mad at the computer. After getting her PhD, she now works on fun science problems at a biotech startup and is professionally mad at the computer, and can otherwise usually be found on Kings Mountain Road. As a cat 2 road racer, Robin enjoys battling the clock in time trials and hill climbs, and is the 2021-2022 NCNCA TT District Champion, 2020-2022 Bike Hut Classic Age Group winner, and winner of the 2022 Low Key Hill Climb series. Robin also likes wrenching on bikes, descending, and eating.
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Sue Lin Holt
Sue Lin discovered bike racing in 2018 after previously competing in equestrian, running, and triathlon. She joined Alto Velo and soon ended up managing the women's racing team and joining the board. She particularly loves crit and track racing, but also enjoys riding gravel, running, tennis and skiing.
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Whitney Post
Men: Elite P12
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Andrea Cloarec
Andrea started cycling in 2019 after competing in running events and Spartan races. He’s now looking forward to keeping progressing on the bike and at triathlons. He loves training and data, and that's why, after being a construction engineer and mathematics teacher, he is now a coach, coaching cyclists and other endurance athletes such as triathletes and runners.
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Andrew Ernst
Andrew began racing triathlons in high school and continued competing through college with the University of Wisconsin Triathlon club team. During medical school, he transitioned to cycling and joined a local club team with which he raced regularly prior to the pandemic. During the pandemic, he spent most of his time doing adventure rides and completing challenges to include an Everesting, a triple-century, an Ironman, and a nonstop 24-hour ride. He moved to California in 2022 for his Physical Medicine and Rehabiliation residency at Stanford.
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Austin King
Austin's first race was a CX race in the Santa Cruz mountains in 2017. He then continued to race in college at UC Santa Cruz. Austin competed in all disciplines available: XC, CX, Downhill, and Road. After graduating college, he moved to the Bay Area and joined Alto Velo so Cam would stop bugging him.
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Cameron O'Reilly
Cameron started cycling when he moved to California in 2017 and began racing with AVRT in 2019. Prior to cycling he was a coxswain for the Dartmouth Heavyweight Rowing team. Cameron greatly enjoys climbing and long "base miles" rides all over the peninsula. Off the bike, Cameron works in marketing for Soylent.
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David Domonoske
David is a former downhill ski racer turned cyclist. He started racing bikes in 2021 and found his calling on the Track. David is part of the Team Pursuit squad for Team USA.
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Flo Costa
Flo grew up watching the Tour de France every summer with his Grandpa and would recreate each stage with his brother, hammering for hours on local trails. His all-time favorite riders are Andy Schleck and Mark Cavendish. Flo also grew up playing soccer and put bike racing aside to pursue soccer competitively in high school. While attending college at Cal Poly (Go Mustangs!), Flo rediscovered his passion for cycling and raced with AVRT in 2022 after graduating. He loves being outside, exploring new places, and going on epic rides.
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Grant Miller
Grant moved to the Bay Area in 2019 and started cycling competitively during his commute on the Bayshore trail from Mountain View to Palo Alto. In 2021, he got inspired by NorCal cycling videos to try out racing and despite crashing in his second race stuck with it. Grant joined the AV race team in 2022 and has raced with the team in road and gravel events. Grant works at Amazon Search in Palo Alto. Grant has been awarded "Cheapest AVer" 6 years in a row.
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Greg McCullough
Greg has been racing since 2013, competing on several different teams. After a few years of racing solo he joined Alto Velo in 2023 to help build the program to the next level.
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J Evans
J can't remember the first time he rode a bike, but all throughout high school he was doing subpar tricks on his BMX bike. He started racing in 2014 in college at Stanford. His first race was only 45 minutes long, but he still managed to bonk. He reps the mid peninsula, so you can find him doing repeats on Trousdale, San Bruno Mountain, Sharp Park, or Sweeney Ridge.
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Jack Liu
Jack started racing during his undergrad at MIT and began racing with AVRT in 2022 when he moved to Stanford for graduate school in Chemistry. He grew up in Taiwan and often misses the nice riding there. When he's not biking, he studies how plants produce complex molecules beneficial to humans.
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Jon Wells
Jon started bike racing in Colorado in 2016 after finishing his collegiate track career. Since then he has won a collegiate team time trial national title, numerous collegiate team omnium titles, and raced all the biggest pro crits in the US as part of Primal Audi Denver on the USACRITS (now ACC) circuit. Off the bike, Jon recently moved to San Jose to work as a scientist at NASA Ames and since joined AVRT.
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Nathan Martin
Nathan started racing in 2017 with Tieni Duro as a junior and competed with the University of Michigan in college before coming back to the bay area to race with Alto Velo. His favorite part of riding is climbing and you'll often find him on Diablo or other climbs in the East Bay. Outside of riding Nathan is a data engineer at Stanford.
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Nico Sandi
Nico started bike racing when he realized he was not fast enough at swimming and running to be competitive at triathlons. His first-ever bike race was a gravel race in Texas in 2019, followed up by a season of cyclocross. Nico now tries to balance his love for short and steep climbs, dirt, and race tactics by racing road, track, and cyclocross. Off the bike, Nico manages a bike shop in East Palo Alto.
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Pierre-Amaury Laforcade
Pierre-Amaury is a former XC MTB racer turned roadie. Originally from France, PA moved to the US for grad school.
Men: Elite 3
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Brad Lovegren
Brad became obsessed with cycling after downloading Strava in 2016. Since then he has raced on-and-off while collecting many KOM’s around the Bay Area.
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Daniel Fonyo
When Daniel realized 5-hour rides solve most of life's problems, he became hooked. He enjoys flat road races, riding trips with the team, and takes pride in being a great wheel to draft.
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Drew Matthews
Drew fell in love with cycling after graduating from college and moving back home to California. He grew up riding bikes with his dad, a former noon ride regular. Drew began racing in 2022 and joined AVRT at the end of the same year, and he plans to continue to race mostly on the road and dabble in gravel and MTB races. Drew is a mechanical engineer for a green-tech startup in Menlo Park.
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George Wehner
George picked up cycling in 2019 while in high school and joined AVRT in 2022 after starting college at Stanford. Along with racing for AVRT, he serves as a road captain for the Stanford Cycling Team. George loves climbing and exploring new places on his bike, especially with friends. Off the bike, he is pursuing a B.S. in engineering physics.
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Jeremy Besmer
Jeremy grew up mountain biking in Colorado and then transitioned to road racing at the University of Colorado Boulder. After burning himself out with four years of collegiate racing, he moved to SF and spent a few years riding just for fun until he returned to serious cycling and joined AVRT in 2021. Outside of cycling, he works as a chemical engineer in biotech and enjoys traveling, skiing, climbing mountains, and being a cat dad. You can often find him on long climbs or doing hundreds of laps around the Golden Gate Park polo fields.
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John Janetzko
John (he/him) has been riding & racing bikes since moving to the Bay in 2017. A former rower, John's move from Boston to the Bay meant trading oars for two-wheels to explore all that CA's roads and trails have to offer. John holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University, and is presently an instructor at Stanford University, where he uses fancy microscopes to study how membrane receptors function and respond to drugs. As a racer, John enjoys making races hard, organizing leadout trains and riding in breakaways. John has also been involved with supporting the local cycling community; he is one of the coaches for the Stanford University cycling team, and has been on the Alto Velo BoD since 2022.
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Peter Ambiel
Peter has been cycling competitively since 2016 when he "retired" from a 15-year soccer career culminating in 4-years playing Division I in college and a stint in the semi-professional ranks. He can found be exploring new roads - dirt and tarmac - and new places with a smile on his face. Professionally, Peter has found himself back in school pursuing an MS in Energy Systems at UC Davis.
Women: Elite 3
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Lora Maes
Lora started cycling in 2018 after retiring from competitive running due to an achilles injury. She is from the Seattle area where she ran cross country and track at the University of Washington and post-collegiate for several club teams including the Impala Racing Team in San Francisco. Lora loves team camaraderie and the competitive nature of bike racing. Aside from cycling, she loves spending time with her family, snowboarding, weight training, and yoga while not busy at her day job in commercial insurance operations.
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Louise Thomas
Louise has enjoyed cycling for fun since college but first caught the competitive bug in 2017 entering alleycat races while working as a bike courier in Vancouver. After a hiatus from cycling to develop a startup in China, she returned to the sport in 2020 and started racing with AVRT in 2022. Outside of cycling, Louise works as a mechatronics engineer at Tensorfield Agriculture, an agricultural robotics startup she cofounded in 2018.
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Rachel Hwang
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Steph Hart
A lifelong hockey player, Steph began dabbling in multisport as a grad student with the MIT triathlon team in 2019 and thoroughly enjoyed the bike training along the way. While she hasn't drowned in the swim leg yet, Steph isn't taking any chances and is excited to focus solely on cycling with AVRT in 2023. Off the bike, she is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and spends her days shooting lasers in an optical physics lab.
Men: Elite 4
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Clark Penado
Clark is a former triathlete and joined Alto Velo when he started to focus more on cycling. He joined AVRT in 2024.
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Henry Mallon
Henry started racing mountain bikes in college and switched to road racing when he moved back to California. He joined AVRT in 2024.
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Jack Larkin
Jack is a former D1 water polo player and turned to endurance sports after college. He joined Alto Velo in 2023 and after loving his first experiences racing joined AVRT in 2024.
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Logan Allen
Logan started cycling in 2018 in Vallejo, CA while attending the maritime academy. North and East bay rides were his outlets. Logan now lives in San Francisco and has found friends with local AVRT members, inspiring him to join the team for the 2023 season. Logan plans to exclusively race road for 2023 but enjoys an occasional off-road social ride.
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Mark Ofosu
Mark is an elite triathlete, representing Ghana on the international stage. He joined AVRT in 2024 to further his cycling training and try some road races.
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Maxime Cauchois
Max got into biking at Stanford in 2019 and became a more focused cyclist and climber during the pandemic. After discovering the Bay Are alongside friends for a couple of years, he joined Alto Velo in 2021 and enjoyed the occasional race with them. 2023 will be Max's first proper road season with the team. Before cycling, Max tried out multiple different sports back in France, among which were rugby, tennis, and soccer. From this time, he remains an avid and eclectic sports enthusiast.
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Michael Fryar
Michael's first year of racing was with AVRT in 2022. Prior to cycling, he ran cross country at Centre College. Michael loves early morning group rides and is a regular on the Palo Alto Morning Ride (TMR) and Willow Glen Morning Ride (WGMR). Off the bike, Michael is a software engineer at Nubank.
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Riley Chapman
Riley started mountain biking while in high school and has competed in all sorts of cycling disciplines from Enduro to road races. He started racing with Alto Velo in 2023.
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Steven Pelas
Steven is a regular on most Peninsula group rides and joined AVRT in 2024.
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Will Hakim
Will found cycling during an unhappy year (failing) on the US Rowing Team in 2017, and he's been hooked ever since. He enjoyed racing Road and Gravel in 2022 and plans to continue trying new things on the bike in 2023. Outside of cycling, he works as a data engineer focusing on NLP and spends his free time scoping out the latest and greatest baked goods in San Francisco.
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Zack Berger
Zach started cycling in 2020 and joined AV as a regular on the weekend rides. He tried racing for the first time in 2023 and joined AVRT in 2024.
Women: Elite 4
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Emily Schell
Like many ex-competitive runners, Emily got into cycling in 2020 after being sidelined with knee injuries for too long and ended up loving it. She started racing with AVRT in 2022 and is looking forward to continuing to improve as a teammate and cyclist in her second season... and maybe find joy in hill climbing (maybe). Outside of cycling, Emily is a PhD student in Developmental Psychology at Stanford and a part-time faculty member at the University of San Francisco.
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Emily Selman
Emily began her athletic career as a competitive swimmer (member of the USC women’s national champion team) and performed as an aerial acrobat. Always inspired by her dad, who rides daily even in the brisk Indiana winters, Emily started riding when she moved to San Francisco and started exploring the roads of Marin. After having a couple of kids, Emily joins the AV racing team as an excited rookie. She spends her weekdays working as a trial attorney at a San Francisco law firm.
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Hannah Chen
After years of putzing around on two wheels, aka commuting in San Jose, Hannah is excited to try out racing on the road and track. She loves all-day scenic rides, especially if they involve camping. For her 9-5, she is a program manager for Pinterest. Hannah’s favorite post ride snack is pizza.
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Katarina Zgraja
Katarina is joining the AVRT for 2024 season after discovering and participating in the B rides throughout 2023. Prior to cycling Katarina played hockey for the Wisconsin Badgers, and for 2 years in Germany before officially retiring in 2018. She loves all disciplines of cycling including road and gravel, but especially mountain biking. Outside of cycling, she enjoys kiteboarding, rock climbing, trail running, and works at Lucid Motors as a technical project manager.
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Katie Monoghan
Katie is a former collegiate field hockey player who found cycling after sustaining a few running injuries following graduation. She decided to try out triathlon and discovered quickly she was best on the bike. Katie then became a regular on alto velo b rides and joined the women’s racing team this year. Off the bike, Katie works as a physical therapist in Palo Alto.
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Kristin Hepworth
Kristin started cycling in 2020 and loved the alone time on the quiet roads away from her kids that were home all day, every day. She loves group rides and the cycling community in general. She finally found the courage to give racing a try this year and is super excited to be doing it with the Alto Velo team.
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Robin Kutner
Robin has been a competitive distance runner for the majority of her life. In 2014, she got a running injury (classic), bought a crappy bike, and rode very far on it (until the injury healed). During covid, she transitioned to more serious cycling, and in 2023 a friend cajoled her into trying her first bike race. She joined AV shortly thereafter. Outside of cycling, Robin is a chemical engineer, mom to 2 cats, world traveler, and lover of sustainable transit.
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Claire MacDougall
Men: Masters 123
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Bernardo Tapia
Bernardo's first tour with AVRT was from 2017 through 2019. While racing for AVRT, he regularly attended most road and crit races and earned awards for best domestique and best masters racer. Bernardo is happy to be back on AVRT for ’23 and looks forward to returning to a heavy racing schedule and putting the pandemic years behind. In 2022 he became race director for Pescadero and plans to stay in that role for the next couple of years. He is a multi-disciplined racer, frequently lining up at the start lines for XC, CX, Gravel, and Road. Most weeks he is a regular on Noon Rides and Spectrum and Wednesday afternoon Golden Spins in the summer.
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Brian Shreeve
Brian first joined AVRT in 2021 and started racing that same year. Before AVRT, he was riding mountain bikes and building trails in Oregon. He now loves all road races but especially crits. Off the bike, he has his hands full with two young boys.
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Colin Karpfinger
Colin’s biggest cycling achievement is winning a 20lb wheel of cheese in the Tour of America’s Dairyland race series. Colin joined AVRT in 2021 after joining several group rides and started racing in 2022. When not racing for dairy products he enjoys surfing and paragliding in Pacifica.
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Nat Green
Nat joined AVRT in 2022 and has raced on and off for the last decade or so. He is looking forward to racing more masters races, having tired of losing to 16 and 17-year-olds. When he’s not flatting after hitting yet another pothole in a road race, he can be found in a group ride or maybe suffering on a long climb, but almost never on the trainer. Off the bike, Nat hangs out with his wife and two daughters and works as a lawyer for a tech company.
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Shai Traister
Shai has been racing for 5 years and is super excited to join AVRT for the upcoming season, where he can help grow the masters team. He mostly enjoys hilly road races and is a regular on the noon ride and other penninsula group rides. Off the bike, Shai is married, a father of 3, and is working for IBM building voice agents that can take orders at fast food restaurants.