MaxPowerCycling

-Bill Golembieski

My mom and I met Andy Ross and Wayne at 6 to head down to Albany for the race. We managed to cram everything into Wayne’s car and we departed on our 2 hour journey. We arrived and I went in and registered. After registration I warmed up for around an hour and jumped in with my race group. I was riding with Masters 65+, First Timers, One day license, Juniors 15-18, and Local Police,Fire, and Military. I could tell this race was going to be pretty easy to keep up with. We got read our pre-race instructions and there were a few hilarious questions coming from the first timers. Such questions as “What’s neutral start?”, “What’s a feed zone?”, “What’s Junior gearing and do I need to have it?”, and the best one “What’s a race marshal?” My friend Jordan Strober and I were trying not to burst out into laughter.

The race started and we had a 3 mile neutral start. The car was going at around 15-17 mph and I was drafting it with Jordan right beside me. We told the guy to turn on the radio and we were listening to music for around a mile or two. Then I looked back and saw a huge line of cars behind us which I thought was pretty funny. Jordan and I started singing “What is Love?” by Jimmy Haddaway and there were a few people who joined in. We reached the first hill in the neutral start and we sang all the way up to the finish line dropping half the field in the process before the race even started. As soon as we crossed the start line Jordan and I started to Sprint. Everyone jumped on our wheel and we hammered up every hill we came across. We now had a group of about 8 a few minutes later. We slowed down and a Master took off but I reeled him in. Jordan then came up beside me bobbing his head and we started singing “What is Love?” again while everyone was gasping for air due to our constant attacks going up hills. I think a few people then decided to sit in as much as possible after our singing because I was in the front pulling until “The Wall”. On the downhill section I opened up a gap in order to be first to reach “The Wall”. I dropped it into my little gears in order to respond to any attacks that were launched. Sure enough a kid from Farm Team sped by me up the hill. I jumped on his wheel and let him pull me up “The Wall” we reached the top and I took over in the front in order to keep the 10 second gap we had. I was hammering down the hill and through most of the flat section. When I pulled off the front I looked back and I didn’t see the field. This got me motivated to try and destroy the field. When I took over the front again I got down into a TT position and was doing 33 down hill and 27-28 in the flats. I was dropping the kid I was with on flats and downhills. I asked him how he was doing and he said he was fine. I let him pace for a little bit then I took over again. I would do 27ish for around a minute or two then he would take over and do around 25 or 26. I thought “They are never gunna catch us!”. We came into the finishing hill and he pulled up along side me. It seemed he wasn’t going to play cat and mouse so we chit chatted until the 200M mark. I said “Ready?”, then we both took off side by side. He had acceleration but I eventually pulled in front of him with around 50M to go and won the race.

I headed back down to the school and got rolled out by one of the officials. I then went back up and saw the Cat 3/4s finish. I rode back to the car where I met everyone and we went down to the school to receive the medal I won. We got inside and I went over to the table with all the medals and an official came up to me and asked me for ID. I showed it to him and I received my medal. He also gave me a cycling cap,a water bottle, a shirt, and he told me I should join his club and he would get me a coach. My mom said that would be great but we live in Syracuse and unless I biked there it wouldn’t be possible. He said “Well I hope to see you next year.” and I said “I will see you next year.” We then made the 2 hour car ride back. When we got back we got all my stuff out of the car and I packed it into my car. While we were packing my mom said “at least you didn’t get hurt today” because I was complaining about being tired. Not 2 minutes later I slammed my finger in the door and It was bleeding for at least 5 minutes.

It was a great race and a fun coarse! I plan on doing this race again next year. Also I would like to thank Wayne for allowing us to carpool with him and Andy Ross.

((Side Story- We pulled into a rest stop on the thru-way and we went and got something to eat. I got a BK double stacker (regret it) and Wayne got a smoothie of some sort. We sat down and started to eat. Andy Ross then proceeded to eat a plum in front of me while I was eating my heart attack on a bun. I offered him a fry as a joke and he obviously refused. Then Wayne went over to Dunkin Doughnuts and something strange happened. Andy Ross went over and got a jelly filled Doughnut!!! I think he gave in to the pressure hahah.))

-Bill Golembieski

I woke up to the sound of the rocky theme playing on my phone because I set it for my alarm to wake me up. I was running on 4 and a half hours of sleep (1:30am-6am) but surprisingly I wasn’t really that tired. We departed at 7:45 and arrived at 9:15ish. I quickly registered and got dressed. I also switched my junior gearing out from the other day. I then found Jake (another junior) and we started it warm up. You see I already felt warmed up because I was racing 15 hours before this race haha. I was feeling like crap and I went back to the car to take my underarmor top off. I then ate some power gel gummy type things and I gave some to Jake to try out. We then went back up to the finishing line and turned around to go to where we were going to start. Andy Ross called me over and told us to stay as a team through the start because it would get a little squirrelly. The race director told us it was a controlled start and we wouldn’t go more than 12mph or so. Andy was like “yeah right” to me and told me they’ve went fast at the beginning in recent years.

We started off and I got stuck in the pack a little bit until I saw an opening and rode up to the front with the rest of the team. We started to climb a hill and I was feeling a little better. I was going a little too hard and Andy reminded me to not go too hard up this hill. So I backed off and grabbed his wheel. We crested the hill and we then sped up. There was around 40 or so riders still with us and we thinned out to 2 wide as we reached speeds of 27-30mph. Jake had junior gearing on so I got up next to him and asked him how the gears were because he was spinning out. He said “GREAT!!” and we both laughed. I asked him where this KOM hill was and he said we go through a town and it starts right after we get out of it. I then moved up toward Andy Ross as he opened a gap in our group. I stuck on his wheel and then we encountered a pretty decent hill I asked Andy how long this hill was and he told me “oh not long only around a half mile”.  We hit the hill and I went up to the front and rode tempo at around 11-12mph. We reached the top and I felt great. Andy then proceeded to pass me. He then accelerated down hill and I got onto his wheel. We then hit a semi-flat section and I asked Jake where the KOM hill was. He told me we would go into a town and then it was right after we left the town. Andy accelerated down the hill and others grabbed his wheel. We got into the town, made a right turn, and hit a 25 yard hill.After cresting this little hill I looked up the road and I saw it winding up at around 5-7%. I then grabbed a wheel and tried to ride my own tempo again. They were going slightly faster up this hill (12ish) so I had to work a little harder. We then reached a flattish section and I asked Andy if that was the top and he said “No we are around halfway done”. He then told me that he would give me a hand signal when we were reaching the top. A few minutes later someone crashed behind us and we were worried it was Jeff Hoover but then Jeff told us he was still with us and we continued riding.There were around 10 guys with us in the lead group by this time. We encountered the final uphill section and Andy gave me the hand signal. Halfway up the hill a guy took off and Jake followed. I was kinda blocked in but I managed to get out. I was catching up with Jake and the other guy when I noticed Jake’s glasses were on the ground. I got in front of the guy chasing Jake and slowed up, and Jake took the $100 KOM hill prime. I caught up with him and so did the others. I then told him that the $100 should go toward his new glasses haha. We had a downhill section and Andy took off and I grabbed his wheel. He then powered through the rolling section of the course. He was really hammering and I had a hard time holding his wheel. We had a nice 4 or 5 second gap but were eventually caught. We then went onto a gravel paved road and there were a few rollers on it but everyone managed to stay together. We then reached a flat section on top of a hill and it started to downpour. My glasses fogged up and I couldn’t see very well. We then got back onto a paved road and it was raining harder than before and as an added bonus there was lightning! We then encountered a hill and Jake attacked. I Thought he was trying to establish a break so I tried to catch up with him and a few guys passed me and I grabbed their wheel. We eventually caught him and I was like “Hey what was that for??(jokingly)

“. He said he had enough of getting water in his face so he wanted to get out of it. We then powered along and Andy took over the front stringing everyone out into a line. Jeff was behind him and I was behind Jeff (GO MAXPOWER lol). We then exchanged some pulls until we reached the turn into the finish. Andy was in front and I was behind him. I started to brake for the turn and I wasn’t slowing down that much. Some guy was off to the side yelling “SLOW DOWN!!!!!” I ignored him and took the turn at around 20 or so. I past Andy and looked back because there was 200 Meters to go. I was right in front of Andy and the rest of the group was about 2 bikes behind him. I then saw the finish line and started to half sprint. I looked back and saw I had a pretty good lead then started all out sprinting. I saw FINISH and looked under to see if anyone was there. I saw no one and crossed the line in First place. I was extremely happy.

We rode down and gave our chips to a girl and she threw them in a bucket. I then got dressed and went down to to registration tent where I saw all the trophy and stuff. Pretty cool. I then talked with Andy for a while about the race. They then started the Awards Ceremony and I received my trophy. We then got a picture of Andy, Jeff, and I holding our trophies. We then packed up and went home.

It was a great race and I had a lot of fun doing it!

-Bill Golembieski

I arrived in Rochester and we drove around for a bit until we came across the race. We asked a police officer where registration was and he told us to go park in the parking lot and it was near the food tents somewhere. So we parked and asked around where registration was. We were told it was in the first floor of the library right behind us after wandering around for 10 minutes. I registered and warmed up on the course in between events. It was a real technical course with a bunch of turns, potholes, and what-not. After my 10 minute warm up, I rode down to the staging area and joined in with the master 35+ group. Right after the womens race we were sent out on the course to go to the starting line. Everyone was going pretty fast. There was this one back road I didn’t like because the road was in bad shape and at the end of the road was a 180 degree turn into an uphill finish. We got to the starting line and I positioned myself in the top 15 or so. I was then told to go to the back of the race because the other juniors were there. I was pretty mad but I went back there anyway to meet my two competitors. We were staring with the masters and I didn’t understand why I had to move back because they positioned themselves poorly or whatever happened.

Anyway, the race started off but the pace car didn’t so I almost smashed into it as everyone went around it. We took the first turn pretty fast but I managed to get myself a few spots up. We then hit a downhill and the pace quickly picked up to 35+ mph and I had trouble keeping up with my junior gearing as everyone I overtook at the corner motored past me. I was at the tail end of the main pack and there was another group about 4-5 seconds back containing the other juniors and I thought “Great they will never be able to keep up at these speeds. So I took I took it easy and drafted the guy in front of me. We came through the start and the announcer said “Look at the masters go!! They aren’t wasting any time at all!” He said that because we came flying through the start at around 27mph. Whoever was on the front was really hammering it because the speed didn’t drop at all until we had 10 or so laps to go. Around 15 laps to go our group split in 2 as people off the front attacked. I hammered to bridge it but I couldn’t close the gap until we hit the hill. I took off after them and eventually caught them. Around 7 laps to go I looked back to see if the other juniors were there and there was one. I stopped pedaling and let him pass me. I grabbed his wheel and stayed on it until around 3 laps to go. We both slowed because we didn’t need to race with the masters because we were riding our own race. A little cat and mouse ensued and I attacked as he swerved over on the downhill. He eventually caught up and I was pulling on the front for a lap. I thought about ways to get him attack. I remembered on one of the tour stages were a Team Columbia guy was in the same situation but I didn’t have a jersey to zip up. So I decided to wait a little bit and around half way through the course on the last lap I shifted down a cog and took a drink out of my water bottle. Boom he attacked as I thought he would and I grabbed his wheel as we went down the road I don’t like and started to go to the finish. At 200 meters to go he started sprinting and I grabbed his wheel and moved back to about a bike and a half back. At 150 meters I accelerated into the slipstream and passed him to take 1st.

I got rolled out and rode around for a bit and watched the Mens 3/4 race. Then around 7:50 I went on the course and rode around with the pros that were about to race. I had a nice chat with a few guys from Toyota United and Colavita. I then exited the course and was stuck behind a bunch of spectators. Just then a kid came up to me and asked if I would sign his helmet. Haha. I was like uhhhhhh sure? I then went back to the car and got dressed. I watched the pro race and wow they are FAST! It then started to rain pretty heavily and a bunch of guys crashed. They took they’re free lap and got back in. They had to do 50 laps to complete the Crit. As the last lap came up I went to the finish line where I could’nt see anything because of the number of people there. All I saw was a Toyota United cyclist cross the finish line first. I watched the award ceremony then went home. We arrived back at the house at around 1-1:30 am and I went to sleep to prepare for the race I had to do the next day.

All in all it was a great race and I had a lot of fun doing it! I also was able to keep up with the masters that were hammering it until 7 laps to go.

-Bill Golembieski

-Bill Golembieski

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

I arrived a little late but managed to register. It was fairly windy and around 68ish. I talked with a few temamates and then it was time to go to the time trial course. I heard “Oh its not so bad” a few times so I wasn’t too worried. Well I warmed up and it was my time to go. Just as I was about to head off a tractor trailer came rolling by. I started off and the tractor trailer started to turn so i had to slow down and pass it on the right. I managed to avoid the huge pothole filled with water and I turned up the hill. I was going at a good pace of around 20-21mph and I thought this was how the hill was going to be the whole way up. Wrong I looked up and boom hill. I spun up the hill at around 13-14mph and my legs felt terrible for some reason. A bunch of teammates passed me as they went down the hill for the return trip back to the parking lot and they gave me some encouragement. I then stood up and tried to sustain at least 15mph but I just wasn’t feeling it so i dropped back down to about 12mph or so. I then saw another hill and thought “Oh this must be the finish” because I saw a bunch of guys who started 4 or 5 places before me heading down the hill. I was wrong I still had another 200 or 300 yards to go. At around 200 yards to go a guy in a yellow jersey passed me and I paced myself off of him. I then tried to pass him, but he began to sprint. I finished with a time of 11:04.

I went back down the hill and didn’t have to pedal once(34-35mph)

-Bill Golembieski

Haha well, It started off by me arriving there at 9:00
I was trying to hurry up only to find out my race started at 10:30 =p
Then i got signed in and got that neat little sensor to put on your bike.
I found Dave and we rode around for a bit and I received my jersey (neato )
After that i rode around for a bit until they called Masters 40+ up (and one junior)
We rode out to the staring line (or should i say up a hill) and i guess we were doing a rolling start
Haha they just started hauling ass and got on one of their wheels (they may be old but wow they’re strong!!!!)
A guy broke off about half way through the first lap and i headed up front and got on a wheel.
We eventually caught him and I looked over and he seemed like nothing happened!!(again very strong)
The masters were giving me tips such as stay on a wheel and get up front when climbing. They were very helpful.
Another guy broke away while we were climbing a hill and he was gone…
I saw that Dave went to attack to go catch him i think… and a few other guys went with him so i grabbed one of their wheels and followed.
We started pace lining a little bit then the main group caught us and I dropped to the middle to regain some energy.
We eventually caught the guy but, when we did there were just relentless attacks( I was just trying to keep up!!)
The third lap came around and on one of the hills I was dropped (worst feeling in the world )
So I tried to catch up but i couldn’t so I rode hard and i eventually caught up to a guy that looked like he was struggling a bit.
I decided to make a friend and suffer with someone rather than alone haha
He had a really nice bike! TREK Madone 5.2 with nice bontrager aero wheels (I want it)
So we talked for a bit and he told me his legs were cramped up so we rode nice and slow for a while and we stayed together till the finish.
After the race, I rode back down and looked at the results…..
2:24 was my end time. Then i looked at the masters and they finished something like 14 minutes ahead of me… wow they are good!!
Went home and now i have a massive tan line due to lack of sunscreen
Ive learned a lot from that race and hopefully will do better next time!!!

-Bill Golembieski

-Bill Golembieski

Started out a little chilly but by the time the Masters 35+/Junior Field got to the starting line the sun came out and warmed things up a bit
We had 5 MaxPowerCycling Members in my race (Scott G, Noel B, Marcello P, Wayne M, and Rich Jarvi)
The race started out pretty slow compared to all the other races I’ve been to…
I was talking to Marcello about an early attack (I was egging him on)
I started to move to the front to attack then, Marcello attacked(1) and I grabbed his wheel
We rode off into the sunset and won…………..kinda…………….ok…….not so much
But we had a good 15-20 seconds on the main group then 2 other guys caught us
While in the break we encountered a mini hill and I attacked(2) and kept the gap until about halfway up the first hill
Some guy caught up to me
He was from Chris’s Cookies and I said “Hey whats our plan”
He said we would most likely get caught, but if we worked together we could stay ahead
I asked about the guy on his teammate behind us and he said that he was’nt a good climber but he would catch up
So he continued to power up the hill and i just said to myself “I’m not going to kill myself on this hill” and went up it nice and easy
The guy then had about a ten second gap on me and I tried to catch up but I failed
I was flying solo for a while then the group eventually caught me before the “Wall”
I noticed none of my teammates were in the field that caught me, and I thought maybe Noel took a bunch of people out for me
I grabbed a wheel… I was feeling pretty good so I attacked(3) again before the wall so I didn’t get dropped
Again I took it nice and easy up the hill but they caught me and I was in the back of the pack when the hill was finished
I regained some energy and the pace was still slower than what I would have liked to be going so I attacked(4)
I think they got the idea because they caught up and they were going considerably faster
At the 3 mile to go mark we encountered a mud/dirt covered road and I felt good so I attacked(5)
I had a good 10 second gap on them but I let them reel me
I was thinking “I can tire them by attacking constantly before the last hill and i’ll have a chance at getting a decent place.”
So I attacked(6) as 2 other people tried to break off
We held the attack until about the 20 Mile mark when out of nowhere my left calf tightened up and I couldn’t move it
It hurt so bad I thought the world was going to end
I was pretty pissed because we had 2 miles to go and all that work was for nothing
So I decided to at least make it to the finish
I unclipped the immobile leg and started pedaling with my right leg
Some of the marshals were giving me weird looks as I rounded the corner with one leg unclipped
I was actually going at a decent speed of around 22mph
Then I was thinking I could have stayed with the pack if I immediately went to the back and unclipped that one leg…
But I eventually made it to the base of the finishing hill and I clipped in the other leg cause I was going to need it to get up the hill
That hill was the worst climb I’ve ever done because I was only using one leg to push and it was steep!!
I sprinted to the finish(7) (luckily my calf didn’t tighten up again) and as soon as i got far enough away from the line i put my bike down and stretched
I then waited for my other teammates and we rode down the hill and got to eat these huge cookies that were pretty tasty!
I got to talk to Eli the other junior, and he was a really nice kid
He sugested that I do a few of the races he was going to do and I think I will
I also got a lot of helpful advice from teammates about what to eat, drink, etc before the race
And also about some racing tactics (which I could always use)
I felt I was a little too aggressive and could have conserved more energy for the climbs
All in all I had fun doing this race but it was unfortunate that my leg cramped up
(attack count of 7)<– probably why
Great race everyone!!!

-Bill Golembieski