The Tokeneke Classic was the New England Road Race Regional Championships. It was also the first “real” road race in some time, which was quite refreshing after all the flat crits and circuit races that New England has offered lately. Cat. 3s were doing 66 miles and 6000 ft. of climbing – the same as the Pro/1/2 race. Racing for GLV in the 3s today was Chris, Mark, and myself.
Most of the racecourse was well paved. There were a few sections of rough pavement but nothing that wasn’t manageable. And go figure…there was one diamond-cut section of road on a flat that they were repaving the next day. Still, it wasn’t that bad.
As usual with a race so close to New York there were a bunch of riders from the Empire state. These riders are evil evil people. However strong they may be, they are horrible bike handlers, don’t abide by even the most basic of racing rules (on the books and traditional, alike), and lake any semblance of respect for their fellow riders. To put it simply: they are not fun to race with. It all happened here at Tokeneke, just like it did at Connecticut Stage Race.
Beyond the cacophonic nature of the New York riders, the up-and-down nature of the course offered plenty of selection in the 68-rider field. First lap was great – I was at the front of the field most of the lap, covered some attacks, prodded at the field…the usual. I made it up the first big climb at the end of the first lap all fine and dandy. The second lap went well as well; nothing special, though I edge off the front of the peloton to win a Town Line for a shared chuckle at the front of the group. The final climb on lap 2, however, gave me a bit of trouble. With all the flat course over the last 2 months I’ve been forced to do my climbing legs weren’t quite up to snuff. I detached from the field slightly but quickly caught back up.
For the last lap (lap 3) I kept it simple. After moving it back up to the front I made sure to stay up there as best as possible for the final climb. We got passed by a large breakaway group of Masters riders just before the beginning of a very fun descent. As a quick aside: let me profess my amazement at the lack of ability in people’s descending skills. Now, I’m a decently small individual so my inertia on these long and gravitationally assisted sections of race courses doesn’t allow me to get to the 60+mph speeds that other riders I know have reached; therefore I need to not have to hit the breaks when I’m descending because idiots from New York fail to rub two pieces of grey matter together. I digress… As a results of the Masters passing us it because a real nightmare on the final climb since us all younger guys go up inclines easier than those older gents. I couldn’t hold the pace with the winning group in the 3s but I rolled in 56 seconds back at 27th, just one spot ahead of Cosmo.
It was good to see that they were indeed disqualifying people when the results came out. Rider 110 – beyond the fact that he had the worst bicycle-bob I’ve ever seen – flagrantly violated the yellow-line rule numerous times. Bottom line of Tokeneke: Great course, half-sketch field, meh climbing legs.
Kyle, New York City area riders are not fun to race with, but upstate is a totally different experience.
ReplyDeleteRacing in Central New York and anywhere near or north of Albany, is great, and often more fun than a lot of New England Events.