Alpine Valley, WI Norba National 2002 RACE REPORT by Ransom Weaver

June, 2002

Thursday I flew into Madison for round 3 of the Norba National Series.
Our pint-sized regional jet had left Chicago in the pouring rain, and we
were racing a big front coming in from the west. I had a premonition of
mud.

I was in Wisconsin to visit friends as well as enter my first NORBA
event; I'd lived in Madison before attending college and setting down
roots in Philadelphia. My best friend Dan Mather and I drove down to
Alpine Valley on Friday, after a tour of the Trek factory in Waterloo,
courtesy of Dan's friend and Trek employee Rob Kozitch.

Parenthetical comment about the tour: No shortage of Armstrong mementoes
here. When will we see our heroes Eatough and Bishop canonized in
Waterloo? Maybe not very soon as I can't recall seeing any Roland Green
posters or signed jerseys around. I'm sure they're there, just hard to
find under the piles of yellow jerseys. Its hard to overstate what a huge
operation the factory was. And this was only their high-end
manufacturing! Some of the highlights were the 4 welding crews buzzing
away with their TIG machines, the bonding of tubes and lugs for the
carbon bikes, bontrager rims being made from straight extruded aluminum
sections, the annealing, quenching and solution heat-treatment of
aluminum frames, and the conveyer belt orbiting the building to carry the
frames and frame parts to the packing crews where they were boxed and
shipped down the road to Whitewater to be built up.

Anyway I digress. Dan and I arrived to see the last hour of the Pro men,
and after a quick and easy registration (where I received an extremely
durable-looking number) we took in the parade of riders. Trek's Roland
Green looked to have things pretty much in hand, with youngster Jeremy
Horgan-Kobelsky giving chase a minute back. I gave Chris Eatough a cheer
as he came through well up in the top 20. Marc Gullickson went by while
giving an animated account of how he had been right up there, then
crashed and broken off his seat, ridden a lap with out it, then retrieved
and reinserted said seat. Don't these guys get tired? Gullickson
finished 14th.

As I waited for the race to end so I could pre-ride, Eclipse-like
darkness descended on alpine valley. In moments rain was flying
sideways while tents were being overturned and giant inflatable marquees
battered by wind. As I huddled behind the SoBe bus I saw a large
umbrella/shade ripped from it's base and flip end-over-end towards a man
with his back turned. Just as the aluminum pole was swinging down on him
he turned and fended it off with his hand.

Saturday I stayed away from the Alpine mud slide, but I hear that our man
Don Morrison was there racing among the older experts. Report Don?

OK here's some report finally: Sunday we rose at 4:30 to make the 1 1/2
hr drive from Madison and the 7:30 AM start, ugh. Blessedly the weather
had been clear for Saturday and Sunday was a fine day too. 7:30 was to
see the launch of the Semi pros, Jr Experts, 19-24, 25-29, 30-34 and 35-39
Experts in that order. I was in the 30-34 group.

The Mid-Atlantic was represented by Don M. as previously noted, Jay Duffy
in Semi-pro, Chris Kuhl and Thais Silva in Junior, Mike Kuhn, Ryan Leech
and a couple of Speedgoats in 25-29, and myself, the fearsome Roger
Aspholm and the ever cheerful Alexi in 30+. Others, sorry I missed you
there!

The course: It was a mess by any standard. It was slick just about the
whole way, with many, many wet roots, stream crossings that looked like
cows lived there, and greasy clay embankments to thank God for toe-spikes
on the other side. There was a steep borderline little ring climb
up the ski slope and some genuinely scary drops on the downhill,
one down a slick bank into a stream filled with rocks, and another
over a log that required a nose-wheelie be turned into a right hand
turn in a about 15 feet. Really it was a course worthy of OUR series,
though afterwards it seemed to me that this was the LEAST muddy my bike
had been post-race this year yet.

I was lucky to get a good position on the second row, and after 500m of
grass and 3 corners I was about 8th onto a steep and slick doubletrack.
I was able to keep tabs on the leaders down through some nasty off-camber
rootiness and across a field and into tight climbing single track.
Things got busted up on the climb up the ski-slope though. I spent a
good part of the race riding with Jerry from California, the series
leader. It was an East Coast type of course and I clearly had the edge
in the woods, but up the hill he was hurting me good. He finally left me
on the last lap and finished 2 places ahead of me. At the end I was 9th,
waaaay back from a Minnesotan who would have won the other expert classes
by over 3 minutes, in spite of having to pass absolutely hundreds of
people.

So a quick rundown of results:
Ryan Leach of Speedgoat was our regions top finisher at 4th in 25-29,
with Mike Kuhn in the same group at 8th, suffering some derailleur munching
that left him with 2 gears for much of the race.
Roger Aspholm of Westwood Velo was 5th in 30-34, I was 9th and I'm not
sure where Alexi finished.
Jay Duffy was an excellent 6th in Semi-Pro.
Chris Kuhl of Gettysburg was (I think) 9th in Junior. Super result!
A heart-broken Thais Silva was taken out by a wrecked derailleur.

Though I enjoyed my first Norba, I must say that I feel lucky to have
such an excellent local series in the Mid-Atlantic Super Series. We can
and do do a lot better than $40 entry, $5 parking in a muddy field 1/2
mile away up a steep hill, 7:30 start,hundreds of lower age groupers to
pass and NO prize money. (I actually didn't know this last part till Ryan
Leech told me after the race). Vive la Super Series!