Birds of Prey 2026 Race Report

Wind and Team Tactics!!!

Breakdown

Birds of Prey is a circuit race held near Boise Idaho. The circuit is a 5 mile square, with one 100 foot climb at the finish. The roads themselves are exposed, and the centerline is loosely enforced. This particular year, the wind was consistently blowing, giving two key crosswind sectors, one false flat uphill, and another faster section after a fast downhill corner. The goal this year was to fight for the win, not particularly to maximize USAC upgrade points. The other defining factor of this race was the presence of one team, High Desert Hustle(HDH), with 3 strong riders. There were no other teams of strength or depth, which lead to particular race strategi. Knowing this, I was incentivized to race aggressive, as in to get in front of the race with hopefully a HDH rider. I made this choice as racing in wind is often very hard and attritional for everyone involved, so sometimes it is better to invest energy early so that I can dictate pace for the rest of race. Crosswinds make races harder for everyone involved it so is not always advantageous to race patiently and be at the mercy of others in the group to attack and split the race. With this in mind I started with the intention of being aggressive.

The race started at 9 am. It was a cold and windy 9am. I started in a field of 18. The race kicked off pretty chill as I was able to surf in the wheels for the first 2 of 8 laps. At some point one HDH rider got off the front, and it seemed that little riders where interested in chasing. Coming into 6 laps to go, a rider attacked up the finishing straight, however no separation was made. Everyone sat up across the top, leading to a good opportunity to attack to the front of the race. The lead HDH rider was solo with perhaps 30-40 seconds. I used the change of speed over the top of the climb to get a gap, then tuck into the descent and rail the corner at the bottom. After cornering into the fast crosswind section I looked back, saw a decent gap and a strung out peloton, so I pushed forward.

I chased hard for half a lap to catch the front rider, and after making the catch I sat on for a few minutes, then began pulling with him. His name was John and he looked strong and was willing to pull hard.

We pretty much rode the next lap well. We both took even hard pulls, extending our gap. I believe our maximum gap may have been just over a minute or so. I also asked John at some point if his teammates would be happy to let us ride, or if they would chase. His answer was something along the lines of “they will be in the chase”. This didn’t give me much confidence… It became apparent that his team was chasing as our gap was steadily coming down. In the next 2 laps our gap came down to around 20 seconds.

My suspicions were confirmed when I looked back and saw two HDH riders and one strong rider I had marked chasing us. It became clear to me that I was getting caught whether I pushed hard or not. I decided that I would use the up coming climb to sit up and get caught, giving myself some recovery before I get caught and perhaps countered. I also was getting hot and wanted to take my jacket off, so I used this opportunity to take it off and get more comfortable.

I got my jacket off, then coasted down the descent and got caught on the crosswind section. I was attacked by an HDH rider, but I was able to stay on. Me and the other solo rider, Carson, then tempo paced, as there was still the HDH rider off the front. Soon enough other groups rejoined us and a more official pace was set to chase back John. Coming into one lap to go Allan, the strongest HDH rider, attacked on the climb. Some small gaps were made; me, Carson, and Allan at the front, but they all came back together. In the process of attacking and scrimmaging after, John was finally caught with half a lap to go. We rolled into the final crosswind section before the climb and Allan attacked.

Here I find myself in a catch 22. I find myself in 3rd position, behind Carson, who is trying to close a gap to Allan. In this moment, I have the option of trying to attack around Carson, try to hold Allan’s wheel and beat him in the sprint, or relay with the group I’m in to catch Allan, then negotiate the sprint. For the first option, I believe it would have been possible for me to make contact with Allan, but I believe the most likely circumstance to have been that Allan would then sit up and back a teammate for the sprint. I would then get caught and have sacrificed my race. There is also a chance that I make contact and can’t hold his wheel in the crosswind. I decided to sit back and hope that the riders I am with are willing/able to relay to keep Allan in sight. I have to be careful to not over exert myself and ruin my chances in the sprint, but also give enough gas to keep Allan in check. It was a bit unfortunate for me that the riders in my group either were unable to pull, or didn’t account for the fact that HDH would not pull their teammate back, as riders would pull off and get behind HDH riders. This led to blocking by the HDH riders, at which point it makes it near impossible to bring back a strong rider.

We end up coming into the climb with Allan perhaps in reach? He is certainly a long reach out, but I end up launching early. I launched earlier than I would have wanted to, but if anyone was to catch Allan it would take a long hard sprint. I decided to trust my legs and launch early, which went well until the last 15 seconds. I fell pretty flat and got passed. Second place ended up being a few seconds behind Allan, not quite being able to make the catch.

Analysis

Time to look at numbers. The race lasted 1 hour 37 minutes and covered 39 miles, averaging 24 mph. There was 2300 feet of climbing. The entire power profile is shown below. For the race I normalized 297 watts or 4.8 w/kg. Unfortunately my hear rate monitor did not connect(it was likely too cold for me to sweat on the contact patches). For power analysis the 30 second average shows the clearest story. You can see the pretty chill 2 laps from the start and where the race kicked at the second ascent. Right after this uphill attack is where I countered over the crest of the hill to get my gap to bridge. The attack and bridge lasted 5:36 and I normalized 386. I recall this effort being quite hard and the power shows so. I would estimate my current 5 minute all out effort around 400 watts, so this effort was quite maximal. I only had 5.8 kJ left in my W’, meaning I was reasonably close to completely blowing up. I am quite happy with my effort here to bridge, and my ability to recover and start pulling with John.

A 1-2 minute dip in power is seen after I made the catch, where I sat on John’s wheel and recovered. We then settled into a good rhythm, where I’d pull above threshold and recover in z2 on the wheel. This lasted 3 laps before I sat up to be caught. The segment from the attack to getting caught lasted 36 minutes, I normalized 312(5.0 w/kg), and averaged 25.1 mph. This was for sure the fastest part of my race. What I am happy/proud of was my ability to utilize my W’ and CP, as seen in the W’ balance graph.

You can see I pushed hard, having to use my anerobic battery to make the solo bridge. You can also see an uphill saw-toothed shape during the breakaway phase, where I would pull above threshold, but be able to recover below threshold, enough so to sustain the effort. The trending upwards of the W’ balance is important, as it gives me more anerobic capacity to fight for the win if the breakaway succeeded, or to be sure I could catch on to an attacking group which might catch me. Unfortunately the latter was the case, but at least I had the energy to latch on after they attacked around me. You can see in the last bit of that lap, as the catch began to be inevitable, I pulled a little softer to get some extra recovery before sitting up.

The next two laps were chill as we slow paced and let groups return, and to keep John in check. That lasted 25 minutes and normalized 255. The next attack on the climb was from Allan, taking 522 watts(8.4 w/kg) for 65 seconds to hold on the wheel. For the remaining lap, I did 270 NP for 11 minutes before the sprint. During this time some of the group relayed to catch John, whom had spent nearly the whole race off the front, doing near 320 watts for 90 minutes. Certainly no slouch of an effort. At the moment Allan attacked I had 83% of my W’ balance left. This is where I decided to wait for the sprint. In hindsight I believe I should have at least tried to jump for Allan’s wheel. Some quick maths: Allan did roughly 470 watts for the last 5 minutes. At the moment Allan attacked I had theoretically enough W’ to do ~390. I think in the race scenario I feel confident I could have done at least 370 for the last 5 minutes. This is 100 watts less than Allan did. I don’t know how heavy he is, and especially knowing that the first half of the 5 minutes was in a cross wind, there is certainly a good chance I would not have been able to hold the wheel. I guess we may never know, but I wish I would have tried.

The final sprint ended up being 641 watts(10.4 w/kg) for 31 seconds. This is 140 watts off my 42 day best for 30 seconds. I wish I would have been able to sprint at my best power, but to be frank I know that I often do not have my peak sprint at the end of a race. This is something I have been working on in training, but it may have been a better idea for me to take this into account in my racing tactics in the finale. It is somewhat a delicate balance of needing to believe in your abilities, as in having a strong self-confidence in yourself to perform your best, but also being realistic in your abilities and playing to your strengths in a bike race. As I write this I kick myself for not trying to go with Allan, instead backing my sprint(as I had trained much and had seen much improvement as of recent), but that is racing.

Summary

In summary I am happy with the efforts I put forth in this bike race. After having lower numbers at wattfest, I was happy to see some higher pace and fitness pushed in this race. Of course I have things to look back on and improve upon. The night of, I felt regret for not committing to the duo breakaway, but now after analysis and thought, I feel I made the right decision. I now feel remorse for not jumping with Allan in the finale. The day after was Pickle Butte. My takeaways from Birds of Prey were that my legs were strong, but I was lacking in race craft. It also became clear that HDH were strong and smart. I went into Pickle with the plan to hopefully isolate HDH and commit to a large effort to do so. Overall Birds of Prey was fun and a good experience I am glad to have done and learned from.