The New England road cycling season basically spans from April through October, and geographically is literally scattered across the entire map of the northeast.  With that in mind, there are only a few road races that actually take place in our home state of Connecticut over that seven month span of each year, and the Tokeneke Road Race is held near the end of the season.  Looping around the Barkhamsted reservoir, this course is not only challenging, but is also very beautiful and fast.  This is a hilly race with over 4000 feet of elevation ascent in the 44 miles (for Category 4 racers).  Relative to other races, this is a short race and an extremely fast course, which has riders eagerly vying for position to earn upgrade points just before the end of the season.  This year the Expo Wheelmen proudly displayed our sponsors on our jerseys at a race that was practically in our own backyard.

Team Expo lined up five Cat 4s together (Dave J, Dennis D, Joe T, Mike M, and Tom H) in the deep field of almost 100 riders at the race on August 8th, 2010.  Even though they started together, it didn’t take long before each of them were separated and off racing on their own.  The hills and tough competition, combined with varying degrees of fatigue and differing levels of fitness made for five very different Expo experiences.

Dave J’s mental fitness was clearly in excess of his physical fitness as he toed the starting line on Sunday morning.   A couple of days of riding immediately prior to the Tokeneke event clearly sapped his energy and he reluctantly retired at the start of the second lap.  He ended up driving away armed with a big lesson learned, and determined not to repeat the same mistakes.

Dennis D has perhaps raced one too many races over the last few weeks as he suffered and suffered pushing the pace over the first lap.  He changed tactics on the 2nd lap though and managed to hitch his wagon at the back of the lead group and pretty much let them pull him to the last hill, leaving him in 27th place and a minute forty off of first.  For more details on Dennis D’s trials and tribulations, read here.

Tom H tested his mettle in his first ever Cat 4 race.  The field challenged him in ways he hadn’t experienced previously with the Cat 5s.  The pace was much faster on the descents, forcing Tom to hold his brakes with a white knuckle grip.  The field attacked the hills harder as well, but Tom managed to stay close enough to the field such that he could close the gap with a group of chasers on the few occasions he was dropped.  Even the officials seemed more challenging – one official barked some harsh words (though done clearly as a demonstration of “tough love”) to motivate his group of chasers to close the gap.  Fortunately, Tom responded to all of the challenges, and ultimately bombed the final decent placing himself in the upper half of the field prior to the start of the final climb (reaching his race goal).  He climbed his way to 33rd for a good finishing result.

Mike M started the day still smarting from a flat tire and subsequent DNF two weeks ago at the Tour of the Hilltowns, so his goals for the day were more focused on finishing – ride a strong pace and finish with a pack.  While Mike lost contact with the lead group on the day’s first large climb, he got into a groove with two different groups throughout the course’s two laps.  Due in part to the “share the pain” approach Mike and his chase groups employed, he ended up finishing strong and feeling that it was a fun race and a good course.

Joe T had registered for the Tokeneke Road Race with even more modest goals than Mike – taking a big step in his physical recovery and finishing his first road race of 2010.  Well to make a long story short (the long story can be found here), Joe finished the very well organized race feeling as though it was the perfect day for him and inspired him to already look forward to racing it again next year.

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