Training
Train for the Omnium.
Saturday's road race and Sunday's criterium ask for different things. The road race wants climbing you can repeat on tired legs. The crit wants hard accelerations, clean cornering and holding your place in a tight group. You don't need a race bike or big numbers to start. You need a few months of steady riding and some time in a group.
- Dates
- April 17–18, 2027
- Saturday
- Repeated climbs over the Three Bears
- Sunday
- Short laps, tight corners, lots of accelerations
01 Start here
Ride often. Ride with a group.
A few planned rides a week beat a big weekend followed by a week off. Most of it should be steady endurance riding, with one or two harder days and easy days that are actually easy.
A first-season week might look like this: two or three steady endurance rides, one harder session such as hill repeats or short intervals, a weekend group ride, and at least one day off the bike. Let the long ride grow slowly through the winter. If you're tired all the time, drop the hard session first. It's an example to adapt, not a plan; a coach can fit one to you, and juniors should plan training with their coach or club.
Fitness gets you to the race. Skills keep you from wasting it. Ride with a club so drafting, holding a wheel and cornering next to other riders feel normal before race day.
Start training with purpose
Endurance, climbing, intervals and easy days, around work and family.
How fit do you need to be?
Less than most first-timers think.
Find a club ride
Where pack skills come from.
Get a bike fit
Comfortable enough to ride hard for an hour or more.
Riding indoors in the wet months
What a trainer or studio class is good for, and what it can't teach.
02 Saturday · Berkeley Hills Road Race
Climb hard, recover, climb again.
The Three Bears reward the rider who can make the same hard effort again late in the race. Build endurance first, then add sustained climbs near threshold, shorter efforts above it, and surges over the top.
If you can, ride the loop before race day. The roads are open to traffic in training, so ride them that way.
Training for the Three Bears
Durability, repeated climbing and recovering while you still ride hard.
Positioning
Being near the front before the road tilts up.
Pacing and fueling
Not blowing up on the first lap, and eating early.
Race week and race morning
Taper, the night before and getting to Orinda.
Course pre-ride video
From English Endurance Coaching.
03 Sunday · Berkeley Streets Criterium
Corners, then sprint out of them.
A crit is short and fast, with an acceleration out of every corner. Train repeated hard efforts of a few seconds to a minute with short recoveries, and practice cornering on group rides until you can hold your line with riders on both sides.
New racers can ride the course in the Beginner Race Program before Sunday's racing starts.
04 Racing both days
Sunday comes after Saturday.
Race both and your points add up in the Omnium, but you'll start the crit on legs that remember the Three Bears. Practice back-to-back hard days in training, a long ride with climbing and then a shorter, faster ride the next morning, so race weekend isn't the first time you try it.
Eat and drink well after Saturday's race. That's when Sunday starts.
05 Coaching
Want a plan built for you?
Nate English, who won the Berkeley Hills Road Race in 2008 and raced professionally, built a race-specific training plan for the 2026 Berkeley Omnium. Local coaches can build one around your schedule, too. It helps, and it's optional: plenty of riders race their first season on club rides and a simple weekly routine.
Race it
Pick your field and start training.
The Berkeley Omnium is April 17–18, 2027.