Anyone know anything about this one or planning to do it?

https://www.bikereg.com/Net/15708

I see only Nosson and Norm are registered in the cat. 4 at Tokeneke. This is a great course (22 miles x 2), not hilly with the form you'll have after racing in the Catskills, not too far from NYC.
Come on!

https://www.bikereg.com/events/Register.asp?EventID=13102

http://www.tokenekeclassic.com/

Removed this. Was thinking about Capital Region RR.

I just signed up.

^ Excellent!

Will decide between cat. 4 and 50+ during the next few days. Would like to race with team mates again, but also to train for GMSR by racing against the 50+. Moreover, I'm still recovering from my big scare at 40 mph+ yesterday when a NY racer cut my path...

I need a ride.

Ryan,
I'm thinking hte same, but not committed just yet.

Just signed up, ready for some sub 5 mile climbs

Can anyone describe this course?

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: Marc Bertucco</cite>Can anyone describe this course?</blockquote>

22 mile laps with some punchy stuff throughout and some very fast descents. The main thing is the climb at the end of the lap. 2 mile straight drag at I think 4%-5%.

2 laps for cat. 4 and 50+ but 3 laps (66 miles) for cat. 3 and four laps (88 miles) for pro-1-2...

Here's a map of the course

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&z=12&om=1&msid=104323537908643808487.0000011244507fe26d404&msa=0

Hey Guys --how long does it take to get up to East Hartford from Brooklyn? Google maps is reporting about 3hrs. Wondering what your experiences are...

thanks,
Norm

Looks like rain tmrw... looks like i'm bringing the embro.

good luck out there, guys. looking forward to your race reports.

Damn it! I want a do over!!

Great race. No great Kissena results to report so far. Hopefully WDC and Joe M. are smashing the 3 field right now. They’ve got some serious wet to deal with - our race was wet but it ended just before the real rain started.

Had fun driving up last night and splitting a hotel with Norm and Stephane.

Lined up with Norm and Andrew. Around mile three I saw an Astana helmet a foot above the rest of the heads and realized Nosson was there too.

It was wet enough to make the very fast descents a little exciting. There were a couple of gnarly crashes, apparently; I did not see them because, thankfully, I was at the front for the express purpose of not seeing them. I did hear the snap crackle pop of carbon and Sram Red derailers entangling with Campy record chain rings, and I briefly waxed poetic as I pondered the faint song of an ambulance siren approaching in the distance as Cat 4 Cancellaras blew through the front screaming “keep it going!” as we descended at close to 50mph on smooth wet blacktop with fresh new white and yellow paint.

Adventures aside, my goal was to stay calm and just follow early moves efficiently and take my chances on the final climb. But it just wasn’t fast enough and too many non-climbers hung on. We got over the final hill with like 15 guys still there and the pre-sprint fun started. Guy had a mechanical in front of me, I nearly crashed, got screamed at by an angry Cat 4 Cavendish, lost some position, got it back. 200m out I decided that rather than unleash my hellacious 500 watt sprint on the unsuspecting bunch I would just try to follow a wheel and drag race in for a top ten. Picked the wrong wheel. Sucked at sprinting, as expected. Got swarmed. Got 11th. Or 12th. Or something. In a hilly race on a day where I felt awesome. Shitballs.

Oh yeah, one other weird thing – I’ve heard of the “speed wobble” phenomenon, but it’s never happened to me. It did today - on the very first descent my bike started just violently wobbling back and forth. This at probably 45-50 mph during the heaviest rain of the day. I was shitting myself. Did my best to take deep breaths, relax, and let it correct itself. Thankfully it happened near the bottom of the descent and things flattened out soon after. Needless to say, I put myself over the top of the next descent so I could be first one down. Didn’t happen again. Hope it never does. Anyone who has advice on that phenomenon, I’d love to hear it.

Tom Kellogg of Spectrum cycles explains it pretty well... Shimmy shimmy

http://www.wjcu.org/files/audio/shows/outspokencyclist/wjcu-the_outspoken_cyclist_2011-08-06.mp3

relax and use your knees to brace the top tube.

Definitely sounds like a race of epic proportions, if not results. 50 mph descents in the rain, with no selection, followed by a sprint finish... Pretty much my nightmare race.

(I laughed out loud at the 500 watt sprint; glad I'm not the only one)

Consider it fuel for the hunger - fire for the rage, or powder for the ... you get the idea.

Kudos to everyone who pinned on a number today!

I cowered in my bed and then toodled around an empty park.

Speedy report: I did well on my positioning today, being at the front for most of 2nd half of the 1st of 2 laps. Ok, so I should have been up front the entire lap. Going up the "finish" climb that first time around, I was hanging in with the leaders pretty well --but I sensed that I was having to work harder at it than they were. But, I stayed with them and continued up front until the steep climb after the dam passage... I got dropped then. Pedaled with a small chase group for the rest of the race... I did a fairly good job of picking off my chase companions and a few of those who had been shelled from the lead group, that was fun. I don't know how many finished ahead of me, but perhaps I eeked inside the top-20. The whole race, except for witnessing one of the bad crashes was fun. I especially enjoyed the trip up with Ryan and Stéphane... and it was good seeing fellow Kissena Andy gasping after the finish recalling portions of his race.

I hope William and Joe have done well in their race and on a safe voyage home.

Cheers,
norm

Race in the 50+ at Tokeneke. Big mistake, instead of staying put till the climb, went we two others in a break till the climb, got dropped by strongest in the group then and spent the rest of the race having fun trying to break away from the others who had been dropped with me on the climb. On the final climb I was up front but my legs were tired for the finishing sprint (for 20th place). Poor placing (25th), but one of my strongest races ever.

Posted By: normanzo
I hope William and Joe have done well in their race and on a safe voyage home.

I'm going to try and not take it personally, that no one wished me safe voyages. Haha.

I lined up for 88 miles with the Pro 1/2 field. And yes, it was pouring, which means in the last 5 times I've been on my bike 4 of them have been in the rain. Doing hill climb intervals up Little Tor earlier this week with thunder and flooding roads was a joy. Today, the rain made normally good descending roads just a little treacherous, as such, I found myself giving the field extra room and was quickly at the back. To add to the fun, there was this long, wide cut in the road that was running at an angle that required bunny-hopping.

Long story short, bad positioning, timid descending, lots of early breakaway attempts that no one was letting get away ("seriously, we're strung out on a descent within 10 minutes of the start?!?"), semi-pros from Bike Reg team, just made my life miserable and saw me off the back early on in the first of 4 laps. I had some company and we hammered along, until he gave up the ghost on the 2 mile climb (which I found surprisingly enjoyable, since it was more of a JP/Norm Grinder Special vs the Bertucco, Punchyyou-in-the-face and bedonewithitquickly style), and I finished out the day on my own. Pouring rain the whole time, but it was pretty warm. Still 5 hours in the rain is a bit much.

Another lonely day OTB...one of these days I'll rediscover my form from old. Hopefully.

P.S. Had the "opportunity" to chase or be chased by some of the women up the climbs today, and let me tell you, they have some pretty impressive power-to-weight ratio going on.

Ah, and Marc was lining-up for the Pro/1/2... I almost forgot. Wow, 4 laps of that course on a day like today... massive!

Oy Marc, you out-punched me on the post! (you're always beating me that way). I had just got home from a caveman feast and remembered (somehow, with my caveman faculties well-fluxed in some quantity of vino) that I'd failed to mention your race... You beat me by a couple mins...

In any case, I'm glad you made it through safely on a sour weather day.

- Norm

Had a fun time yesterday.

Found myself getting left behind by the lead group on the first set of stair type climbs maybe a third of the way through the first lap. Norm passed me and I tried to stick with him as long as i could, but that was not happening. Found my self chasing for a few minutes fearing i had been popped off of the back. Then all of the sudden i was swallowed up by a chase group of maybe 8 other guys. As the race went on the group grew larger sucking up more people until by the end of the race it reached a max size of maybe 20+ riders. Race was pretty uneventful aside from the last climb where the strangest thing happend... i was passing people on a climb. When I saw a Kilo to go i put it in the big ring and and started hammering.


Got really lost on the drive home...

It's gonna rain. And by all means it sure did at Tokeneke yesterday. Still this was one of my favorite races this year up there with Pawling and Housatonic. Its was good to see so many familiar faces out from the past couple weekends the BH team, Steve Marmo, and some other familiar faces from the Catskills. The weather started to sprinkle as I lined up with WDC and by the first descent it started to downpour. +40mph rain feels like little bb's on your face and lips.

The first lap was pretty tame there were some break attempts but nothing that look like it had the legs to stay away. WDC was toward the front for the whole race but I wasn't feeling all that comfortable on the descents so I ended up slowing moving back but would make up the time when we started to climb again. Al came up to me on the second lap and said now is the time to just conserve and take it easy. Up and over the 2 climbs and I was starting to feel a little tired in my legs so I really wanted to conserve.

A little in to the third lap WDC came over and we had a quick team meeting about how we should play out the rest of the race. WDC said he was feeling a little burnt but I should stay directly behind him and he would guide me safely through the descent and have me in at the front incase anything good goes. We went over the first hill and the pack started to string out. They were now chasing down a break of 4 really strong guys. About 20 guys started some what of a pace line chasing. I took some turns and skipped some turns knowing that there were so many riders still together I was going to have to ride smart. We caught the leaders somewhere before the climb, I must have blacked out.

At the base of the final climb there was a huge acceleration and about 20 riders were strung out with what was left of the field behind. I worked my way up but a large gap opened up between myself and the 9 riders in front. DA managed to bridge up but I was unable to hold his wheel and I ended up towing 3 guys on my wheel. When I hit 1km I decided I was going to try and channel my inner Gilbert and drop the 3 guys behind me, so I launched my greatest attack. When I looked back all three were still there. F. So I just pulled to the side and decided to recover and sit on some wheels then attack again around 200km. Once we hit 200km it was a lo speed drag race I was able to get one guy at the line but didn't catch the guy in front of him and got passed by someone from behind. For 14th place.

Results are up on Road Results: http://www.road-results.com/race/1158

I don't see Stéphane's race in there... perhaps it will follow shortly.

Sounds like everyone had fun and got across the line safely... we must endeavor to secure better results next year!

Complete results on Bikereg: http://www.bikereg.com/Results/2011/08/14-Tokeneke-Road-Race.asp

I see very well from the results in the 50+ that 10 guys were very strong, but my fellow riders, if they had worked with me, could have caught the group ahead of us (11th-19th place finishers). Why don't they push harder? For once, I really regret the race was not longer.

There are pictures posted at http://www.printroom.com/ViewGalleryPhoto.asp?shopperid=VL541M694VGK9MRDQJFSHS77F8QD8C87&userid=paiwacket&gallery_id=2715539&image_id=116&pos=1

picture 4, I'm hidden, but I'm the third racer in the foolish break after the start, lasted till we got to the climb...
picture 6 Ryan and Norm.
Great picture of Marc under the rain, No 175.

Tokeneke 50+ race report by the winner, Hank Pfeifle (racing age 60, the second was John Funk, age 50, who this past year has won Bear Moutain, HH and Pawling, among others), who soloed the last 30 miles of the race.

This guy has been a serious athlete all his life: skier (college), marathoner (2:20 in Boston in 1980, Marathon: 2: 16.27 Houston-Tenneco 1985); cat.1 racer.

But is that guy serious when he writes "My magnificently muscled legs spun to life and whirled the cranks into a delirium of speed"? (I don't think so). He saw clearly why I was in a break at the start ("Three guys were off the front (trying to get a head start on the climbing), so I quickly solo’d up to them and then through them."

http://portlandveloclub.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/tokeneke-classic-road-race-masters-50-race-report-august-14-2011/

I'm doing it.