Treasure Valley Cycling Club

It was a fun race. Matt, Tim & I were there representing Team Reel. I was seriously doubting if I could even hang at one point about 15mins into the race. There were a lot of strong attacks right from the gun with several BODE guys trying to break off. Matt launched and chased a few down and was really firing bullets off. He said those early moves did hurt him later in the race though. The pack finally let them go (I think 3 BODE plus another guy) and those guys were never seen again, so they took 1st thru 4th.

We semi chased here and there... and people from our pack would attack like they were going to bridge but nobody ever could do it. The pack would just slowly reel them back and we'd be back to where we started. I was finally getting semi comfortable (as much as you can in a crit) towards the end but was happy to see lap number start showing up on the board. I was a little surprised to see the pack so whittled down at this point... we definitely lost quite a few starters by now, including Tim. So things start really winding up with 2 laps to go and I'm feeling good... locked in at 4th spot or so. Right as we cross 1 lap to go it's really cooking and small gaps are opening. Matt comes flying up beside me and I grab onto his wheel for a sweet pull into the action. Things look good until Matt clips a pedal thru the double turn and immediately loses focus and a gap forms. He tries to regroup but has lost the mojo. So I crank it up to maximum on the back stretch to pass him, close the gap, and pass one more that has fallen off the lead 3. Around the final corner I'm maybe 25ft behind the lead group, I'm flying... but not quite fast enough... I come within about 10ft of those three as we crossed the line. So I ended up 4 in the pack sprint and 8th overall by my estimates. The 4 off the front almost lapped us, but not quite. That's how I remembered it all anyway... take it for what it's worth. :) Fun race.

My overall power average was higher than Eagle, and overall work was higher as well... so it was a tough race and felt harder to me. The Eagle crit attacks were definitely more violent and hit more often though with almost 3 times as many efforts over 600watts. The FCA was a more steady effort overall. The course was smooth and well laid out with big corners. I didn't hear of anybody crashing all night.