TNWCCS Round 5

Well, the 5th installment of the TNWCCS went off last night, and fortunately, it was a bit safer and less helter/skelter than Round 4. There were no crashes or even near misses last night, but there are still some folks that really need to think about what they are doing while they are out there. The cyclocross kid must have had some sort of spinal fusion as he doesn't seem to be able to turn his head to see where he's going when pulling into, or out of the line. I finally had enough and yelled at him with 3 to go. Of course this was after he turned left into the main group and nearly took out the guy in the Felt kit.
A certain VB who keeps coming out needs to spend some quality time learning to turn. This ain't no Cat5 crit. Get off your brakes and stop squaring off the corners! Oh, and get some big boy gears...! He's out there though. The rest of the Pink Ladies don't seem to have the testicular fortitude to show.
Any the fat kid on the Lemond who kept getting shelled and jumping back in the front should probably just stay home. I got tired of closing his gaps and worrying about his lack of skill and fitness. He looked like two octupi making love.

Anyway, the neutral went as expected when PMC is out. It's more like 3/4 of a neutral lap. PMC and 3 others attacked from the gun and opened a pretty nice gap. It came back pretty quickly. This seemed to be the theme for the evening. Things were constantly going and getting pulled back. Even the biggest break of the night got pulled back in two laps. The race was really steady and we averaged a tick over 40 kmh for the 56 minuutes. It was the first night we've kicked it to the full 50 minutes and the extra 5 minutes were definitely felt.
The group slowed to a crawl with 2 to go and then all hell broke loose. Attack after attack went and gap after gap appeared. On the last lap, a group of 6 got away with 1km to go and being the dope that I am, I decided to close it down myself. It's that whole, "What would Jens Voigt do?" thing...! I got across at 55 kmh and should have ridden straight past, but I sat up and got killed in the sprint. Yet another field finish. I did feel good last night though. Better than I've felt in a long time. I hate to miss Rock Hill on Saturday, but the H.O. could drop the baby at any moment. That kind of takes precedence over going to race.
The way my luck runs, I'll be lining up for the Masters 35+ race and my phone will ring...

Oh, and a big shout out to the guys at Crank Brothers. I dicked up one of my pedals a few weeks ago in the crit when I caught it in the bottom corner. I needed a stainless outside replacement plate. I emailed them and they sent out a complete rebuild kit, including all replacement plates and bearings...for a PAIR of Quattros. I've joined the CB tribe! Bigger companies could learn a thing or twelve from those guys! Great products and service goes a LONG way!