Tokeneke Road Race Report

Today's race, the Tokeneke Classic, falls into the category of races I've done before, but sucked at, and have now returned to conquer.

OK, I didn't fully conquer, but the last time I raced Tokeneke, I have distinct memories of being dropped on the first of three laps in the cat 3 race, and then quitting.

Today, was a little different. I still felt horrible during the first lap, and thought I was going to puke several times -- due both to some fast and aggressive riding and an ill-timed cliff bar just prior to the start. In fact, I did get dropped on a long and steady uphill grind about mid-way through the first lap. Fortunately, together with team mate Adam, I managed to get back into the group. I had recovered enough (and my stomach settled enough), to hang tough on our first trip up the 2.5-mile long climb to the finish at the end of the first lap.

By this time, I was feeling better, and wasn't having any trouble at all on the smaller climbs that come early in the lap. Buoyed by my good sensations, I was sitting in the first third of the pack, near team mates Kevin and David, who were also riding well. Around the half-way point of the first lap, two riders went off the front -- it was BikeReg.com's Eric Schildge (brother of BVFer Adam Schildge) and an Exodus rider who I do not know.

Never one to sit in and let others dictate a race, I linked up with Adler's Matt Cutler in a bridge effort, taking off up the same roller where I'd been dropped on the previous lap.

We put steady time into the field, but weren't gaining on the break. Then James, of Embrocation Cycling Journal fame, and riders from CCNS and CCB came across to us. With five riders working, we were quickly able to bridge up to the two leaders.

We set up a pretty good rotation, and seemed to be putting in time on the field, as we were soon out of sight, and the SRAM car came up behind us. I later learned that we never had much more than a 40 second lead. Anyway, it was still cool to come through the finish line in the lead group, as it always is. We started the final lap with a 25-second advantage.

Unfortunately, we'd lost Cuttler and the Exodus rider on the climb to the finish, and Eric wasn't working, leave the other four of us to pull him along. We kept our lead going toward the lap's mid point, when Jake Hollenbach bridge across, and set a furious pace that quickly popped me and James.

I get that Jake wanted to get off the front, and had no reason to wait around for slower riders, but we'd been a mostly-well organized group up until that point, and his acceleration entirely shattered the group. Everyone was back in the fold in short order. Part of me wonders, with the climb coming, if we would have stood a chance to re-establish our gap without that big surge. Oh well.

In any event, I was pretty well spent when we got pulled back, and soon found myself dropped, along with David, James, and a few others. By this time, it was raining, and when others in the group started yelling at each other about pulling to hard or not pulling hard enough, I decided that I'd had enough, and shut it down. It was clear that we weren't getting back into the group anyway. I rode a more modest pace to the finish, where I bike-stabbed my way across the line to relegate a Colavita regional rider to 43rd, or some equally-unimportant placing.

Ah, small victories.

Coach Scott came out to watch the race, so I was glad to be able to put on a show for him, even if it didn't have the ending we would have liked. All in all, a very fun race. I'm now looking forward to the Capital Region Road Race on Saturday, which is shaping up to be an Anthem v. Spooky showdown. Hmmm... who would I put my money on in that race...