I registered for Tokeneke Road Race in the early summer with high hopes of doing well in a local hilly race. I call this a local road race since it takes place in Connecticut, even though it is over an hour drive from home. I call it hilly since I am not a rider who normally excels in the hills. The last time I did this race (I believe was way back in 2002 when I was 10 lbs lighter) I stayed with the main bunch until the final climb of the last lap, and I even passed some riders on the last climb.
I was initially hoping for a repeat performance of 2002; however my training plan over the summer had been blown apart by a broken collar bone in June and chronic L4-5 disc issues in my lower back. My broken collarbone had kept me off the bike for about a month and a half in June and July. And as a result I lost my conditioning and sacked on a couple of pounds of fat. To add to my disadvantages, my back pain still had a slight but negative effect on my riding, especially on some rides over 2 hours. So I decided to scale back my desires of being in the top 25 or so, knowing how I felt in the days leading up to the race. I decided I should shoot for finishing the race. I figured if I finished this race, then I would have at least one road race result (rather than another DNF) for 2010. My goal was to dig hard for the first lap and see what happens.
My facebook status @ 7:24 am the morning of the race read: “Driving to Tokeneke road race. Planning to kick ass off the back.” My status reveals my true level of confidence before we started…
Upon arriving at the field where everyone parks, I noticed it was beautiful weather. The sky was a bit cool and misty, but I could feel the sun was trying to slice through the cool morning fog. It was about 68 degrees F, which is in my opinion a perfect temperature for cycling. It is a temperature that is warm enough to wear shorts and short sleeves, but not so cool that you get a chill. I was one of the first ten or so people to park, and I quickly got my bike off my rack and road the .3 of a mile down the road with a guy who parked next to me named Al. We found our way over to the registration tent and everything was setup exactly the same as when I did this race before. For me, it was a bit of déjà vu.
After riding back to my car, giving a good morning wave to Dennis as he arrived in his car, pinning my numbers to my jersey, changing into my clothes, and riding a brief warm-up; Dennis wisely suggested we get lined up early so we get a good starting position….so we did. We started out the race in the front few rows. Dennis rode beside me for a few miles and he even joked that we were in a top ten position. I thought to myself that I like being up there. After the pace felt like it was slowing, I worked my way up the gutter and set the pace on the front for a nice long pull or two. I felt rather comfortable and strong on the bike at this point.
As our group hummed along, the sky got progressively cloudier, and rain began to mist as our peloton as we neared the long decent before the dam. On a couple of the short rises, I was trying to be very conservative with energy, and dropped back about 20 positions. When we were descending the steepest hill before the dam, I was riding right near the yellow line, the rain began to lightly fall, and I heard lots of rubbing of cork on carbon. Suddenly one of the riders in the middle of the pack (who was just slightly ahead of me) began a death wobble since the front wheel and handlebars viciously jerked from side to side at 40+ mph. For a second I thought this was going to be a nasty pileup, carnage, with full fledge pandemonium. “Attack” I thought, but miraculously the rider recovered control without incident, and everyone else quickly got back into formation.
(Yup!, that's me!)
We rode past the photographer at the dam, and things were still pretty intact. At about mile 7, we turned a corner onto the very rough Beach Rock road, which was a climb. I focused on not hitting potholes while I dug deep to stay in the top 35 or so.
As we powered on, I looked over my shoulder and saw the damage. It looked like the group spit out about 10 or 15 riders on the first surge. I tried to keep my speed up, but I felt myself losing ground to the faster guys as things strung out. At mile 10, we hit a very long hill that seemed to go on and on. I spun and spun at about 13 mph on this steep little section, but it wasn’t enough as I slowly drifted back through the group. When the official’s car crept past me I knew I had been popped. I jokingly held out my hand and asked the official in the passenger seat if they had a water bottle for me to hold onto as they went by. I was now in full chase mode with the car right ahead of me for the next few miles, but I never made up any ground. Eventually I caught a bunch of others who fell out of the back like me, and we formed a small group that basically rode out the second half of the first lap together as we watched the car go out of sight.
We descended the long twisty (smooth) shaded road at just about 50 mph in a full tuck position. Then at the base of final climb of the first lap my legs were feeling pretty good. In our chase group of 8 guys or so, I sat on the front and set the tempo. I knew we had zero chance of catching back on to the main group or even another chase group…but I was still turning the pedals over ok. I thought about abandoning the race since my body was cooked, and mentally I was a little bit frustrated. So looking for ideas, I asked one of the guys I was sharing the pace making with if he was riding a second lap. He said of course he was since it was a nice day and he was going to get his money's worth out of this race. His opinion sat well with me, and it changed my frame of mind, so I decided to finish the second lap as well. As we crested the hill, we passed under the finish banner for lap #1. As we went past the finish area and then through the crooked junction of rt. 20 and rt. 179 there were sparse bunches of spectators, who were cheering and ringing cowbells for the dropped cyclists. Even though my heart was pounding fast, and I was trying to catch my breath, I caught a glimpse of my kids cheering away as I passed by and turned my focus to stay with the chase group.
I was initially hoping for a repeat performance of 2002; however my training plan over the summer had been blown apart by a broken collar bone in June and chronic L4-5 disc issues in my lower back. My broken collarbone had kept me off the bike for about a month and a half in June and July. And as a result I lost my conditioning and sacked on a couple of pounds of fat. To add to my disadvantages, my back pain still had a slight but negative effect on my riding, especially on some rides over 2 hours. So I decided to scale back my desires of being in the top 25 or so, knowing how I felt in the days leading up to the race. I decided I should shoot for finishing the race. I figured if I finished this race, then I would have at least one road race result (rather than another DNF) for 2010. My goal was to dig hard for the first lap and see what happens.
My facebook status @ 7:24 am the morning of the race read: “Driving to Tokeneke road race. Planning to kick ass off the back.” My status reveals my true level of confidence before we started…
Upon arriving at the field where everyone parks, I noticed it was beautiful weather. The sky was a bit cool and misty, but I could feel the sun was trying to slice through the cool morning fog. It was about 68 degrees F, which is in my opinion a perfect temperature for cycling. It is a temperature that is warm enough to wear shorts and short sleeves, but not so cool that you get a chill. I was one of the first ten or so people to park, and I quickly got my bike off my rack and road the .3 of a mile down the road with a guy who parked next to me named Al. We found our way over to the registration tent and everything was setup exactly the same as when I did this race before. For me, it was a bit of déjà vu.
After riding back to my car, giving a good morning wave to Dennis as he arrived in his car, pinning my numbers to my jersey, changing into my clothes, and riding a brief warm-up; Dennis wisely suggested we get lined up early so we get a good starting position….so we did. We started out the race in the front few rows. Dennis rode beside me for a few miles and he even joked that we were in a top ten position. I thought to myself that I like being up there. After the pace felt like it was slowing, I worked my way up the gutter and set the pace on the front for a nice long pull or two. I felt rather comfortable and strong on the bike at this point.
As our group hummed along, the sky got progressively cloudier, and rain began to mist as our peloton as we neared the long decent before the dam. On a couple of the short rises, I was trying to be very conservative with energy, and dropped back about 20 positions. When we were descending the steepest hill before the dam, I was riding right near the yellow line, the rain began to lightly fall, and I heard lots of rubbing of cork on carbon. Suddenly one of the riders in the middle of the pack (who was just slightly ahead of me) began a death wobble since the front wheel and handlebars viciously jerked from side to side at 40+ mph. For a second I thought this was going to be a nasty pileup, carnage, with full fledge pandemonium. “Attack” I thought, but miraculously the rider recovered control without incident, and everyone else quickly got back into formation.
(Yup!, that's me!)
We rode past the photographer at the dam, and things were still pretty intact. At about mile 7, we turned a corner onto the very rough Beach Rock road, which was a climb. I focused on not hitting potholes while I dug deep to stay in the top 35 or so.
As we powered on, I looked over my shoulder and saw the damage. It looked like the group spit out about 10 or 15 riders on the first surge. I tried to keep my speed up, but I felt myself losing ground to the faster guys as things strung out. At mile 10, we hit a very long hill that seemed to go on and on. I spun and spun at about 13 mph on this steep little section, but it wasn’t enough as I slowly drifted back through the group. When the official’s car crept past me I knew I had been popped. I jokingly held out my hand and asked the official in the passenger seat if they had a water bottle for me to hold onto as they went by. I was now in full chase mode with the car right ahead of me for the next few miles, but I never made up any ground. Eventually I caught a bunch of others who fell out of the back like me, and we formed a small group that basically rode out the second half of the first lap together as we watched the car go out of sight.
We descended the long twisty (smooth) shaded road at just about 50 mph in a full tuck position. Then at the base of final climb of the first lap my legs were feeling pretty good. In our chase group of 8 guys or so, I sat on the front and set the tempo. I knew we had zero chance of catching back on to the main group or even another chase group…but I was still turning the pedals over ok. I thought about abandoning the race since my body was cooked, and mentally I was a little bit frustrated. So looking for ideas, I asked one of the guys I was sharing the pace making with if he was riding a second lap. He said of course he was since it was a nice day and he was going to get his money's worth out of this race. His opinion sat well with me, and it changed my frame of mind, so I decided to finish the second lap as well. As we crested the hill, we passed under the finish banner for lap #1. As we went past the finish area and then through the crooked junction of rt. 20 and rt. 179 there were sparse bunches of spectators, who were cheering and ringing cowbells for the dropped cyclists. Even though my heart was pounding fast, and I was trying to catch my breath, I caught a glimpse of my kids cheering away as I passed by and turned my focus to stay with the chase group.
My legs were now more tired than ever, even with the cowbell adrenaline boost. I somehow caught back on and followed wheels for a while. Then a state police cruiser slowly drifted by with lights flashing. Uh oh I thought… I began to wonder what group is catching us. How could they? We’ve been keeping a tempo above 21 mph average… I didn’t have much time to think since on the next climb our group got swept into the middle of the 45+ field. Phew. We were flying…that was only for a few minutes until the official on the motorcycle rode up alongside the group and ordered the cat 4s to “neutralize off the back”. He then forced us to follow his motorcycle which he slowed down to a crawl on the descent towards the dam (which let a huge gap open up between us and the other cat 4 chase groups who were just ahead of us). Damn I thought and perhaps uttered. The little bit of enthusiasm that I had now was completely deflated since we were forced to sit up for over a minute as we watched the riders ahead of us ride away. When we were signaled to race on, we proceeded down what was left of the hill and across the dam again without anybody in sight. We did however manage to pick up a couple of cat 4s when we were motoring along with the 45+ field.
As we approached the turn onto Beach Rock road again, I asked if anyone had a gu since I knew I was zapped, and my legs weren’t going to be able to do much more. I heard a voice say “Hello neighbor”, and Al (who parked next to me at the beginning of the day) courteously held his hand out with a gu pack. He joked and said “shwag!” since it was something he had gotten from free at the race registration. (I owe you one man)
Our chase group was now comprised of about ten or eleven riders and we worked up the next series of climbs. The natural attrition of not very well conditioned and overweight riders left Al and I watching the other guys ride away. These guys ended up finishing 4 minutes ahead of us, but my legs were cramping at around mile 37 and I could no longer hang onto them. Oddly enough, Al had the same cramping problems, and we eventually came upon a shelled 45+ rider who knew what we were talking about. He sucked our wheels for a while but eventually even popped off of us on the second to last climb of the day.
On the final climb, I was struggling to keep a high enough cadence to maintain a respectable pace, but Al set a nice slow tempo and I followed it. Every turn of the crank I kept telling myself, ”compact, compact, compact”. Even in my misery, it was really nice to be riding with someone. We chatted about things like cold beer and ice cream. While we dreamt, we kept the pace nice and steady, and at the 1K mark, there was a cat 4 rider just ahead of us. I decided to set the tempo, which Al followed until we caught this lone rider. Then I told Al to sit on the train and I led it out at a measly 25 or 26 mph so he could easily slide by the two of us at the finish.
Overall, this was a very well organized race and a fun event. And as usual the course was very beautiful and fast. Even though I placed 72 out of 100, it was a perfect day for me since I met my goal of finishing a road race. I am already looking forward to racing it again next year and doing better.
Joe Tindal is a member of the Exposition Wheelmen
1 comments:
It looks like you were posing for that picture as opposed to getting ready for the fun climbing that was about to begin right after the dam.
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