Balloonfest
Written by: Bill
Well in order to make it to Cambridge,NY on time I had to wake up at 3am and leave by 4am. This wasn’t so hard. We arrived in Cambridge and got something to eat at an Irish style restaurant where everything was organic and natural. It was very good! I then went to the school and registered. I met up with Charlsie Donnelly and Eli Robinson who had just arrived. Oh I forgot to mention it was 87 degrees when I arrived with little wind. Eli went to go register and Charlsie and I proceeded to warm up for the race. After we got done warming up it was 96 degrees high humidity. The Juniors lined up and thats where I met Ben Salibra and his teammate Jacob Gorke. I said hi , we shook hands, and exchanged some friendly banter.
Ok the race started and we weren’t going to fast until about 5 miles in where we hit a hill and it exploded from there. I managed to hang on for a while until we hit a dirt road. Someone attacked and left me and 5 others in the dust. We formed up but still got dropped. I could see Ben chasing them down but he couldn’t catch them. I decided not to bridge to him and let him tire out in the head wind. We didn’t catch him until lap 2. He had someone with him and we tried to pace line with the 5 guys we had. Ben and I were the only ones who understood what short pulls ment and we had to tell everyone numerous times to do short pulls to stay fresh, but to no avail. They just wouldn’t listen. We ended up dropping one on a small hill and we were down to 4. Ben, a guys from handlebars, an guy from farmerteam, and me. We went at a decent pace but the guy from handlebars was just sucking as much wheel as he could. I later found out his name was Milosz or something like that. His pin for his number came out and Ben tried to get it out for him. I don’t think he liked that because he started swearing up a storm about he should mind his business and leave him alone. He had a huge ego and I already didn’t like him. I tried a few attacks but the others held on. I tried talking to the Milosz kid and he told me to f’ off. We then slowed down and I started talking to Ben. I told him “This ***hole needs to be dropped”(So he could hear it). Ben agreed. We got behind Milosz and told the farmteam kid to come back so we could talk about how to drop Milosz. We slowed down considerably because the wheelsucker stayed on the farmerteam kid’s wheel. Milosz then proceeded to take off sprinting. I chased along with Ben. Ben came up alongside me and I told him to remember the head wind coming up. Milosz wouldn’t stand a chance in the wind alone. So we slowed down and so did Milosz. We came up behind him and I indicated to Ben that we were going to attack. He nodded and I sprinted away. Ben stayed on Milosz’s wheel and they didn’t chase me. I slowed down. The farmteam kid was nowhere in sight. We then got onto the hilly part of the course and I lead the climb. Ben then passed me on the last hill and Milosz gave up slowing down considerably and I almost hit him. Ben then attacked down the hill and I was right behind him. We got to the bottom of the hill and we dropped Milosz. We took turns pulling until we got to the windy section. I started to act tired and 1 mile away from the finish Ben attacked but Milosz caught us so he was on ben’s wheel. I caught them and they slowed down to 4mph… Yeah four miles per hour. They were talking up a storm on how each of them was going to win the sprint. I looked back and laughed and I started to ride off then they both started sprinting. There were 2 corners and I rounded each one right behind them. I started to sprint toward the finish with 200M to go. Then my right foot came unclipped as I was sprinting. I got It back in and started to catch them. I ended up finishing right behind them. Ben beat the kid in the sprint. And I gave Ben a congrats as the other kid rode away. I then got rolled out and I layed in the shade for a while. I looked over and watched the Kids who won on the podium get there pictures taken. I was sweating and I had a bad sunburn. I got the results then jumped in the car. We then made the 4 hour drive back home.
Overall I believe I did really well, but with more training (I only 10 miles this week…Thank you Sam 
) I should be able to even better next time I race. I also learned that you shouldn’t be mean or have an ego or other riders will plot to get rid of you =] (thank you Milosz).
-Bill Golembieski