Manchester Road Race August 16,1992 Masters 45+
The rain held off and the racers were thankful. The course was extremely technical featuring numerous sharp corners, furious descents, and many, many hills. "It seemed like we were either going up or down with very little flat, my favorite part" said Barry. 200 meters from the start line the climbing began. The oddest sight, going up the long climbs, was Derek in his 42-26 spinning like crazy and Bill Hartwell in his big ring 53-19 slogging away. Both ways seemed to work well for each rider. After a breakaway of five rides escaped the field, Steve set chase. Steve opened up a 30 or 40 second lead and was closing on the break when cranks stopped turning, his free wheel shattered and wouldn't drive the wheel. Steve's day was over. The breakaway rolling smoothly through the ups and downs got to the 2 mile climb and got active. Art LeBlanc, riding on his home course, tried to sneak away with a powerful surge and dropped all but Derek. The break now two sped away. "I knew that this was Artie's home course so I grabbed the opportunity to go. It hurt but it paid off" added Derek. Coming into the KOM hill Derek put it into over drive and blasted across the line for the prize. From the top of the KoM the two worked smoothly to widen the gap between them and the chasers. After the final sharp corner about 3 mile from the finish Artie tried in vain to drop Derek and coming up into the line Derek unleashed his famous uphill sprint to claim the victory. In the final kilo Henry tried very hard to drop his chase companions but came up just short and settled for a hard earned respectable 5th. The next group of chasers lead by Barry got to the bottom of the 2 mile climb shattered. Barry climbing better than ever slowly pulled away from the field and soloed for 15 miles to take 6th place and the last B.O.N.E. point of the day.

NOTES: NEMRT had it's best B.O.N.E. weekend of the season scoring 18 point in the two days. This puts NEMRT in first place with the season coming rapidly to a close. Killington and Sunapee RR are the remaining races in the team competition. Splendidly done NEMRT.