Beil Report (still in progress)

http://services.datasport.com/2007/sic/sic08/
Its hard to believe it, but Biel is the final race of the Swiss Inline Cup, which is run simultaneously and in conjunction with the World Inline Cup.  The last race is probably the most crowd friendly, as it is 6 laps of a 6km course.  It is really a great race.  The course is flat and fast, and there is a tonne of tight corners with narrow exits.  Before the race I even said to a few mates that I was pretty sure there was a good chance someone would be dead before the end of the race.  Then I took a close look at the last corner of the course, some 100m from the finish line, I noticed the memorial for someone who actually had died in that corner.  Of all the courses of the SIC, I think that Biel is probably the most technical.  The turns on this course would surely disintegrate any other peleton in any other race in the world, but the peleton here is always of the highest ability.  We would have no trouble snaking our way through the six laps, with only a few crashes standing out.
The start of the race was tight and crowded yet again, but this time was a little different.  For the first time, I started on the front row of a SIC race.  It was kind of cool for me, because I really felt like I knew everyone around me.  I took a second to realize it even at the time. 
[Start Line Picture]
The first lap was relatively easy, but the traffic made things chaotic, a bit dangerous, and made the corners really unpredictable.  I was getting pushed from the inside by guys throwing passes up the inside at the last second.  I saw Jade Pauley (visiting from Canada) in the mix in the pack with a bit of a gap in front of him, and gave him a nice shove forward.  Good Karma, I hope.  He looked good, but I only saw him early in the race.  Things remained chaotic for the first lap and a half until the peleton thinned out.  After that, it was pretty uneventful with a few small attacks dangling off the front, some with quite a bit of time, but nothing really very concerning, until a decent attack of Danny Finster (Spirotiger) , Sevrin Widner (IXS Fila), Kepa Cabellero (Alessi Powerslide), and Giovanni Conte (Inlinecenter/Bont, my teammate) got away towards the end of the fourth lap. 
With only two laps to go, this had Powerslide and Matter put two men to the front to pull the attack back, leaving those in the teams represented to sit in for the ride.  I had a great spot right up front for the entirety of the second last lap, surrounded by Peter Michael(s) [Powerslide], Ewen Fernandez [Matter], DJ Nation[Spirotiger], Nicolas Iten [Sportvital Rollerblade], Massi Presti [Bont/Hyper], and I was feeling good and the lap was easy though it was fast, due to the more consistant speed.  I actually felt better than I ever had this late in a race.
Even before the race I had been talking to the boys about how I felt about the finish to the race.