Travis Bickle.

“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin’ to? You talkin’ to me? Well I’m the only one here. Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?“

Fuck Cancer In The Face

(this post has lots of swearing in it, be warned)

Yep, you read that right. Fuck cancer. In the face. Why should we be nice to it, or show it any candor whatsoever? Nay, we say, nay. Fuck you, cancer. You wish to fuck with us, then the reaction will be ten fold. You started this crap, and Kira is going to finish it. You’ve clearly picked the wrong adversary this year, pal.

Turns out our dear women’s team Captain Kira Crawford will indeed be undergoing chemotherapy starting in mid-July. As her cancer is both aggressive and on the high end of probability of reoccurence, doctors and patient concur it’s time to carpet bomb the little fucker to make sure it’s gone for good.

So, sickness is on the way. Pain, lethargy, lots of reading, and all the attendant crap cancer brings is at the fore for our squad. A little time off the bike, and a long, arduous battle or trench warfare looms. Hand to hand type shit. But we’re all in it together and we’ll all be with her every step of the way and we encourage you to join us.

We have limited edition “Fuck Cancer In The Face” chainstay stickers for you if you like. We’re asking $1 a piece to help defray some of the considerable cost of treatment. See an Ironclad rider at any race and say “I want to fuck cancer in the face” and we’ll hook you up. And to defer any further questioning, the cancer and the fight ahead are the reason you see us with pink bar tape or arm bands or tape. Solidarity. I would assume some shaved heads are soon to follow…and boy howdy, we’re ugly enough as it is, we don’t need to accent that with our misshapen noggins.

read the top tube

So we’re cleaning our rifles and checking our equipment before we join in battle against this wicked foe. I assure you we’ll be victorious, but the road ahead is not an easy one. There will be some tough days ahead, and we’ll face them all together. As one.

Sm’updates

The office has called for an emergency landing as there is actually smoke coming from the cockpit….we’re not sure what it is. Looking around at presstime, I see half the team huddled rodent style in a mass nap in Dave’s cubicle, Gerow is tinkering with what looks like an explosive, Ryan is slathering a slab of ribs in bbq sauce (I guess we know what the Tuesday lunch will be), Lana is luring babies into the crock pot, and there’s some of us in the basement doing god knows what. Anyhow….

Sunday saw a light showing of Ironclad roll down to the Salem-Fairview circuit race, and all three of us got top tens. Crawfy scored 5th after the 3’s animated the race and dropped him off in a good spot for the finishing sprint, and Lana and Travis scored 9th and 8th respectively riding solo in their fields. Good work!

Monday PIR/ST saw Gerow and MK47 throwing punches in the dirt, while Deann Krill was the lone lady on the pavement, taking 5th place all by her lonesome. Last night also saw cheering in the stands redefined…there’s some video of it somewhere and boy howdy is it funny. We’ll dig for it.

Not sure what tonight will bring, but there will certainly be a bunch of us at Tabor on Wednesday!

And lastly, let us remember fondly:

Michael who? Stop celebrating pedophiles! RIP Farrah!

On the medical front we’re plugging along. More on those situations soon….

Ryan Smith Wins Swan Island!

An awesome day all around for all squads today, lead by Ryan Smith’s win in the men’s 3 race, showing a clear pair of wheels to the field after the the team softened up all the contenders with repeated attacks. Several top 5’s, top 10’s, and a win highlight the day.

We suppose it’s been a long time coming, as we’ve been busily taking bites of shit sandwiches life has handed us lately: a near death head injury, some cancer fighting, the loss of Farrah Fawcett,….I digress. Finally, yesterday, we got one to go our way. The Ironclad Cat 3 team owned the Swan Island crit from start to finish and delivered Ryan Smith to the line with near surgical precision for a great and timely win! Blind team devotion came from Sanders, Monnig, Willis, Crawfy, Dezellum, Harwood, and Voytilla.

Our men’s 4 team had a slightly rougher go, navigating around the emptying clown car of a peloton. Crashes abounded, sprinter Travis Bickle,….er,…..Trevor Spahr took 9th, aided by Greg Hudson.

Our women’s team raced a smart one, playing for a sprint but warily watching for any breaks or splits. Clark, Cass, King, Krill, and Pressey took to the ring and managed a fine 4th (Krill) and 6th (Pressey).  The ladies played their cards as best they could in the big field of Norman Babcock Series contenders and a top 5 and a top 10 are pretty ok by us!

Pat Malach, as usual has the better wordage here, and here’s are a pic he took for us and sent our way of the winning lads missing Bryan Voytilla:

Ryan wins! Crawfy celebrates!

Dave sits in for Voytilla, missing from the photo. Team work!

Both photos: Pat Malach, Oregoncyclingaction.com

Portrait of Solidarity

The pink bar tape is the message

And while in all for one, one for all mode, we managed to hand out a few ass kickings as well, most notably Johannes Weber’s 2nd place in the 4’s, Anna Clark’s 6th in the W4’s, and David Monnigasaurus’ 5th in the 3’s! No DFL’s and hard efforts by the rest of the squad. Nice work, lads and lassies.

The Elk Is Dead

Firstly, let it be said that without the crack support team of Eva, Tricia, and Deann, we’d all be dead now and that’s a fact. Those three were on the spot with all food, drink, cold post-race towels, and everything else, so a mighty team-wide thanks to them for their excellent job and long hours!

For the racer sorts, it was another slog. Lots of out of staters bringing their A game made for some tough competition along with the usual OBRA suspects throwing haymakers out there. The weather was suspect at all times, especially the last day. The billed epic 103 mile ride with 8 thousand feet of climb was not to be as by 6am on Sunday morning, there was snow on Dooley mountain and a temp of a frosty 35 degrees. The officials made the right call to cut the race significantly and we did roughly 20 miles - 10 out, 10 up the backside of Dooley for a mountain top finish. Had the race gone on as billed, there’s be a lot of other dead people on the roadside right now, so kudos to the officials for making the right call. Sure, there was some post and pre-race bitching going on by some folks (”I can’t see my rival’s number because they’re wearing a coat!” or “I want my century!”) but that’s all malarkey. It was the right call.

The rest of the race went on as billed, and we black and yellow sorts did ok for ourselves. Our men’s teams put up some admirable results in the 3’s and the 4/5 with Robbie “The” Carver taking top honors for the team placing 6th overall in GC. For the ladies, we placed 3 in the top ten overall, with Anna Clark slotting in best placed at 5th! All riders involved were Beth Chase, Vanessa Cass, Erin Willig, Anna Clark, Lana Pressey (3rd in the crit stage! Awesome!), Robbie Carver, Dave Aldersebaes, Joe Leineweber, Brandon Arends, Johannes Weber, the Vetting Koller, Ryan Smith, Andrew Willis, and Jeff Harwood. A big crew, wouldn’t you say? In fact we think we brought one of the larger bunches to the race.We also had the support crew of Tricia Hedahl, Eva Van Duesen, and Deann Krill, with supplemental support and comic relief delivered by one Gregory Sanders.

All the riders had some ups and downs as are wont to happen in these sorts of things, but when all was said and done it was a very special weekend. Most of it was documented, and some of it is fit for public viewing and you can see all those images right here.

Many thanks to Ernie Young, all the OBRA officials, all the volunteers who handed out water or marshalled the course, and a HUGE thanks to wonderful Baker City and its fine inhabitants. What a great race.

If you ever see this outside your hotel room, run.

And So It Goes…..

We’re all in this together…..

Elkhorn Stage One

The team had a good showing today in stage one of the Elkhorn Classic. Best placed among us are Anna Clark in 6th in the W4, and Robbie Carver 5th, so we have two ponies in the GC hunt for the overall.

Everyone remained upright, ate well, and we’re all ready for tommorow’s TT and criterium before the death monster stage on Sunday. Wish us luck. More later. Tons of pics uploaded soon too. Sleep now in the fire.

Taking The Elk By The Horns

A rather large and somewhat surly gaggle of Ironclad has nestled into the heart of Baker City to fester in preparation for the mighty Elkhorn Classic stage race. You ever get that feeling? Like there’s something out there, and whatever it is, it ain’t human. We’re all gonna die. What fools are we. It’d be so much easier to stay home and cut the grass, take naps, that sort of thing, but we idiots have pressed eastward to for an event that will feel akin to pummeling ourselves in the balls for three days. Last year most of us wanted to staple our sacks to our foreheads and somehow we’ve returned.

We have a women’s team for the 4’s and two men’s teams, racing 3’s and 4’s. The squad got out today for a quick spin in the foothills of the Blue Mountains’ incredible beauty.

purdy, ain’t it?

So it all starts tomorrow. Wish us luck. We’ll try to check in  while we’re not in traction or being resucitated. We’ll be scrawling “K2″ on our arms in Sharpie for Kira and Kristin, both recovering from their respective medicals.

Home Sweet Home

Kmac will be released from hospital on Thursday, we’ve been informed. Clint called to give us the good news yesterday and we all did a little happy dance and you should, too. She’ll still be recovering for a good long time but she’s making great strides and how awesome will her own bed, food, dog etc, be? Poor girl’s been in one hospital or another since June 2nd. Long time.

We had a little PIR action last night with Crawfy and Dizzy in the 1/2/3 and Travis Bickle and the Colonel and Das Joe in the 3/4. Good times had by all. And young Atlin Sestrich made his return to racing in the 4/5 field, his first race back since, well, his first race, Piece of Cake, where a crash injured him and kept him out of racing for a bit. Good on you, young lad, to come back. Lesser men would have walked away from the sport.

Tonight a wee bit o’ Tabor, while others will be boarding the first tranports bound for the Elkhorn system.

It is also with a certain degree of sadness we bid a fond farewell to our dear Brody Boeger, who is once again leaving us for rock star life. Last summer he was on tour with Tom Waits, this year he got the nod to go be the guitar tech on Tracy Chapman’s tour, starting in Ireland this weekend. All that training down the tubes as the old boy will be gone for about 3 months. We wish him well.

Who’s got a Fast Car?