Alpine Valley Road Race (30+), 2002
by Ben Neff
On the second of four laps two guys were up the road. I attempted to reel them in but no one else wanted to work so I tried the old shake-and-bake at the front of the field. I attacked in a zig-zag manner from yellow line to the edge of the road; about 10 times back and forth. The mirror payed big dividends here as I was able to see the group snaking around behind me. I burst out laughing at the sight of it. I sat up, then launched again. This time they had grown tired of my antics and I got free. As I dangled in no-man's land a guy came blowing by and I had to struggle to get on his wheel. He towed me up to the two-man break at about 29mph and we all started working together.After one lap together, our breakaway dropped one of the Nova guys who was part of the original two-man; he fell back to the field. The motor who pulled me up kept coaching and yelling at us. "Keep it smooth!", "Quit drinking at the front!", "Pull to the left". I concentrated on taking my pulls. The field was well out of site as we caught a few dangling 4/5s. Supple and Nilsen did an excellent job of shutting down an organized chase effort from the field. Henning and Plane were struggling to hang on to the peleton as the temperature came up and the blacktop started to cook us.
On the last lap (fill in the holes here, Dave and Paul) VanSustren (Red Army; part cyborg) attacked the field and Supple covered him; they got off together and stayed away, with Supple hanging on for 5th. Paul led the field out and still held off all but 5 others at the line for 11th. I worked too hard in the break and ended up (predictably) with last in the break, at third.
