This is my favorite race of the year, hands down. Being from Idaho its as close as I can get to a big hometown race, but what really makes it special is the atmosphere. Its held right downtown in Boise and the Pro men don’t start until 8:30 on a Saturday night. The course is packed, at places 5 deep, all the way around and as the laps start winding down people go absolutely nuts. People talk big game about some of the other classics out there, but I don’t know if there are many races that can rival the atmosphere of the Boise Twilight.
The course is really, really fast but manages to be fun and safe at the same time. Its more or less a four corner crit, but that doesn’t really do it justice. The first turn is sweeping, but its more than 90 and at 30-some-odd mph it ends up taking you all the way wide-tight-wide if you’re railing it. Then you’re already setting up for turn 2, flying down a long wide back straight and into two quick 90s before you’re back on the finishing straight. We picked one of the hottest days of the year to race and the mercury topped out somewhere around 103. Yikes! It was still near 100 when we took the line.
In the past there has always been a conflicting race somewhere and it was a chance for me to race hard and place well at an NRC that wasn’t overrun with pros. Not so this year. With Toona canceled and the Cascade Classic starting a few days later not far down the road a bunch of heavy hitters showed up, including Bissel, Fly V Australia, Type-1, Colavita, Land Rover and a smattering of other ringers. The race was blistering right from the gun and it seemed that they were tossing out $50 or $100 primes every other lap. I was all alone in the race so my goal was to attack hard and get off the front at least once for my family and friends who were watching, and then try to figure in the finish.
Well, I did manage to attack like a champ in front of 20,000 screaming fans, but it was a solo bridge to maybe the worst move of the night. It was only Cody O-Reilly of Bissel and another elite rider up the road and with so many other teams out of the mix this move was doomed to fail. Oh well. At least I got out there and tried to look good suffering for a few laps, plus we did pick up some primes.
When I got reeled back in there were only 30 minutes left and things started really flying. The field was totally strung out for what seemed like an eternity and I was running out of water and really on the edge. Its not often you see cat 1s and pros getting blown off the back in a flat 4 corner crit, but that’s what was happening. When it finally switched to laps I was relieved, but was too cooked to make that monumental effort it takes to get to the front. I was doing everything I could to invent lines through the corners and tag onto good wheels, all the while flying around the course under the lights with people screaming so loud I couldn’t hear myself think. I only managed to get into the top 30 and though the legs felt great sprinting, no one on earth can win a race from 30th in the last lap. I slinked in for 22nd, which was still worth some decent prize money and a bit of adulation from the fans.
Its actually the worst I have ever done in this race (well, except for the time I blew a tire in the last lap and lost part of my posterior), but it was still the most fun I’ve had racing all year. The course is super smooth (not a single crash or incident), the prize money is great and the fans, well, with 20,000 people going absolutely ballistic its the closest I ever come to feeling like a professional athlete. Toss in the old tradition that no matter how exhausted, bloodied or otherwise out of it you are, you must go out and hit the town, and you have one of the best bike races on the calendar.
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