What teams & years in the National Championship?

Teams? You gotta be kidding, right? I'm from Alaska, which means that we got to send one rider in each age category to Nationals.

The first Nationals I raced in was in Bear Mountain, NY, and I think it was 1981. I finished one and a half laps, barely hanging onto the back of the pack before I flatted. Of course the follow cars were following the lead group(s) so we backmarkers were on our own.

Second time was in Park City, Utah, probably around 1985. I got to watch Wayne Stetina give a lesson in bike handling: he'd go into the tight left-hander at the bottom of the hill a good five or six MPH faster than anybody else had the courage to do, coming out of the corner with a six bike-length lead every lap forcing everybody to sprint to get back up to him. After 10 laps there were only a handful left who'd even try it. After 20 laps, he was all alone and just rode off solo to the win. (I got to watch this because he raced in a different age class) In my race I cheered every time the leaders lapped me because it was one less lap I had to ride! The hill was so steep... I had 42x26 cogs (can you imagine? In a national championship race!) and by the time we were 10 laps into it, the riders around me had stopped making fun of my granny gear! Stetina had a prototype 7-speed freewheel on his bike (he worked for Shimano then) -- the first one I ever saw.

My current road bike is a Titanium Kona, mixture of Dura-Ace and 105 components, on Specialized Tri-Spoke wheels, about 18.5 pounds. (The Tri-Spokes are heavy, but they are *fast*)

I was a Cat III racer, and could have upgraded to CAT II, but only because in Alaska the race fields were so small that anybody could come in first-second-third in enough races to qualify for the upgrade. Since I couldn't even keep up with the "real" CAT III racers, it would have been silly to try and race as a CAT II.

tanstaafl.