Ironclad Cycling

Apologies from us on our lack of blogification, we have so much to say!

Our successes have been widespread and prevalent, and we’re pleased to announce so much goodness.

Anna Grace Christiansen wins the NVGP Best Amateur Jersey – 2nd year in a row this team sends the winner.

Leia Tyrell wins the OBRA RR champion’s jersey for W1/2/3, also the Mary’s Peak Hillclimb

Our senior women’s squad won the OBRA TTT, our cat 3 women’s team and our master’s mens team both took 3rd in the same event.

Alex Schultz wins the Hammer Criterium down on Swan Island in the Cat 4 ranks

Brenna Wyre-Simpson gets 3rd in the OBRA Cat 3 Champ race, also wins her first PIR in the Senior Women class

Rachel Bagley scores 2nd in the OBRA Cat 4 Champ race – her first podium for the team in a road race.

Joel Crouch won the 3/4 PIR with Rob Thompson in the top 10 as well, chasing the cash in the Oliphant June Race Series.

Vivian Loar, Leia Tyrell, and Brenna Wyre-Simpson all won their respective fields at the Crank! Time Trial and PIR

I think I’m missing some stuff here, I’m not a very bright person, nor is my memory any good.

Also, we have tons of tons of photos at our Flickr page right here. In the meantime, we’ll just leave you with this picture of Alex going fast!

A whole pile of us jumbled into Walter and made our way down to Eugene to contest the Eugene Roubaix road race. This is a fantastic road race held on an amazing course with fantastic organization.

The Ironclad/Yakima team had a great day! Lots of good finishes by Mens 3′s, Women’s 4′s, Men’s Masters 1/2/3, and Women 1/2/3, lead by Anna Grace Christiansen and Leia Tyrell taking their leave of the W 1/2/3 field and holding a Dirk Demol-esque break to the line. Well done to them and the entire team. Tops tens all around!

Ace, Alana, and Leia, all smiles

Our favorite image of the day was captured by Matthew Lasala, and you can SEE IT RIGHT HERE.

More photos coming to our Flickr page by Monday.

In other news, we had our new fledgling Brenna Wyre Simpson kick some booty at the Rose Garden Series race, taking the overall series win, and 1st place in 3 of the 4 races. Nice work kiddo! Also, Dave “AT” Davis clawed and scratched his way to 3rd overall in the Senior Men’s field, no small feat given the stacked fields! Another great Rose Garden series in the books!

There’s been more going on than we can keep up with around here, but the highlight news is Ironclad/Yakima’s Leia Tyrell won the overall GC at the Tour of Walla Walla.

Nailing the opening TT put her in the leader’s jersey, and she never gave it up over the 3 stages. Anna Grace Christiansen was the steward, doing the hard yards to keep Leia nice and safe in the jersey against some hard charging local competition.

Leia and Ace at the line

In other news, we sent 6 ladies (including our Anonabird!) and a Joe Martin down to San Francisco in Walter to do the Rapha Prestige ride. Suzy Nelson finished her collegiate obligation and donned her first black and yellow at PIR. Some of us did the dastardly Ronde PDX ride. Others have been cruising around on the gravel, or doing the Open Invitational Classic “sorta kinda alley cat” race, and Cristina is off to Iowa to do the Trans-Iowa race. Good god, that’s a lot of shit!

All kinds of goodness coming down the pike these days for the Ironclad/Yakima team!

The ladies took a little vacation down to San Francisco to take on the Rapha Prestige Ride, overcoming a broken bike to complete the ride and bring home the hardest fought and won Lanterne Rouge EVER. Well done! They also took Joe Martin, just for good measure.

Leia Tyrell went to King’s Valley and brought home a smashing win! She also won the first Crank! TT at PIR in the senior women. She’s baaaaack! Nice work, Leia!

Brenna Wrye Simpson continued her ascension with a somewhat easy win at the Rose Garden, after slipping the pack on lap one, never to be seen again. She also was 1oth over the line at Gorge Roubaix, and thusly the 1st placed cat 4. Hell of a start to her first ever season racing bikes.

Alex Schultz scored 3rd on Monday’s PIR in the 4/5 ladies, fighting solo. Larry Hiday took on the old dudes in the 1/2/3 and safely finished in the pack.

Our first Tuesday PIR came and went, with a whole bunch of dudes (and Ace) in the 1/2/3 race, getting Crawford a nice finish near the top in the bunch gallop to the line. We brought some of the rookie chicks out into the 3/4 and tried to mitigate an early race break with a nice, organized team chase. Alas, we couldn’t bring them back. But what the legs couldn’t do, the rules took care of, DQ’ing the two guys off the front for committing the capital offense of failing to neutralize and hitching a ride in the 1/2/3, extending their lead. Ah, the density of the 3/4 field, sometimes worth a bunch of laughs. But hey, everyone has all their skin intact, so everybody won!

More soon, see you Thursday at the Rose Garden Race!

Looked like this….

more soon……

For the 2nd year running, Ironclad/Yakima has sent the winning rider to the NVGP qualifier race, this year in the form of Anna Grace Christiansen, who won (in a sprint?!!?!) after dishing out ferocious attacks and being assisted by her teammates all race long. Alana Armstrong, Jenn Levo, and Leia Tyrell did the spadework all race long to help Ace launch probing attacks and stay fresh until the end.

We’re super proud of the squad for going up to Washington and getting the job done. Ace will head to MN to take on the Nature Valley Grand Prix this summer!

See you all at the Rose Garden….bring your climbing shoes….

all smiles after the winning miles

Whoa, fall into a drunken stupor for 2 weeks, and look what happens?!?! No one told me there’d be racing and grabass and whatnot…time for me to catch up. We’ve been busy. The sun must have been shining, as we’ve been making hay.

Dirty Circles race series wrapped up, and we did alright for ourselves. We went 1 – 2 in the ladies 4, snared 2nd in the ladies 1/2/3 (Anna Grace), and managed 3rd overall in the men’s 3/4 (Dave Dezellum). All kinds of good. Special kudos to Lara Kessler for her winning the last race of the series, as well as the overall in the 4′s, with help from our ever impressive Cat 4 ladies squad of Lara, Brenna Wyre-Simpson, Vivian Loar, and Alexandria Schultz. We must also welcome our new Cat 4 ladies, Suzy Nelson and Rachel Bagley, both of whom will prove rock stars in their own right.

Lara jets out of the gloom to nab 1st place

Then, we went over to the inaugural Gorge Roubaix race and brought home some good results from that one, too. Anna “The Ace” Christiansen took the ladies to battle and came away with a fine 2nd place, and a full tank of gas after the race. Bodes well for the upcoming IVRR NVGP qualifier, eh? Also of note was Brenna Wyre Simpson winning the cat 4 ladies contest, while scoring 10th overall, beating a lot of higher category riders. Watch this one. Newly minted Ironclad rider Rachel Bagley made the podium in 3rd as well, doing her part and still having enough to finish well for herself. All the ladies pulled hard to make these results happen. We had Joe Martin and Kevin Driscoll (both 1st year Ironclad riders) in the guy’s affair along with Mark Koller who snared some points with a hard fought top 15.

Walter just sat in the parking lot on his fat ass and napped.

Brenna races by my old house (photo: Castelli Cycling)

Hooray for new races! Hooray for new races in good weather! Dirty Circles #1 went down in Woodland, WA, put on by the fine folks at Zone 5 Promotions. We sent a pile of folks up in good ol’ Walter to contest the matter, while our Ace raced up at the Mason Lake RR, and our Leia was doing her collegiate duty down in Corvallis.

The rest of us tackled the salad toss-y sounding Dirty Circles in chunks. Highlight of the day was our dear Dave “Dizzy” Dezellum taking the win in the MST 3/4 field, helped out by the selfless riding of his teammates. Our new cat 4 ladies, still gelling on the road, did an amazing race and came up with a fine 2nd place finish for Lara Kessler. Levo, Sharon, and Alana went at it in the W1/2/3/. Our own Fuzzy STINKY Dan Penner raced the elite men, with Crawfalini racing the MST elite field.

All in all a great day for the Ironclad/Yakima team!

the boys bring home the W

the ladies doing the damage all race long

Or, something like that. Jack Frost, Heiser Farms, and we’re off and running!

Leia Tyrell made her Ironclad/Yakima debut at Heiser Farms, and outnumbered and fighting off the remnants of a stomach flu, took 2nd by herself in the 1/2/3 field. At Jack Frost the next day, Anna Grace won the W1/2 field, with Lara Kessler making her Ironclad/Yakima debut to take 3rd in the ladies’ Eddy open category. Congrats to all! We only snaked one picture during a Walter stop. Ain’t they all such purdy people?

smiles and snot rockets and salsa bombs

A large portion of the Ironclad/Yakima team went up to Woodland to recon the Dirty Circles course, a race we’re excited about. Yesterday, another group went out to The Dalles to preview the Gorge Roubaix course, another race we’re excited about. I guess you could sum it up by saying we’re excited about racing. It’s so close!

Hooray for the warming shelter of teammates

all the good times happen by Walter