Ironclad Cycling

Another sunny, warm Sunday. Another Cyclocross race. Gone are the Crusades, but there’s still hay to put up at Kruger’s Farm. Many thanks to the fine folks of Portland Racing for putting on another great event. For most of us, this day was the day the fat lady sang……time to hang ‘em up – it’s been a long, long year.

We brought a smaller squad than in weeks prior, due to fatigue and injury, but we still represented in men’s and women’s fields. We had Kristin McCarthy and Beth Chase in the women’s B race, with Kristin breaking into the top 5 for a fine 4th place. Beth struggled in the peanut buttery mud but still had a good solid finish with all bones intact.

Beth steaks out of the sunshine tendrils

For the men, it was Voytilla, Willis, Brody and Dave, the latter two in the Single Speed, the former in the B’s. The B’s racers had stellar days, bringing points to the hopper with 10th and 11th place. Brody fought well in the single speeds and after chasing John Beer from the gun, managed to pip him at the line. Dave exemplified mediocrity, and did his vaunted Titanic impression, slowly sinking, then violently breaking in half, and then plummeting in his own personal neo-race to the sea floor. Pretty, it wasn’t. But at least he didn’t crash!

Clean up in aisle 9, please

The weather was un-crosslike to say the least. Beautiful warm sunshine slathered us all, and it was pretty damn nice. The fire was roasting, the grills were going, and lots of folks came out to ring the bells and heckle. The race also had a prominent feature: a Rotten Gourd Barrier (henceforth to be referred to as RGB) which was constantly re-fortified by spectators each lap. The RGB managed to cause a few wrecks for the folks that tried to get cute with it. Bunny hopping wasn’t needed, the way to do was a little up/down with the front wheel to crush the first gourd your wheel touched, then just power through it. Either way, the RGB was a nice new twist to an already insane Cross year. Good times.

At the end of the day, the barrier still stood….

The USGP comes to town after the feasting holiday, and we’ll be there in some fashion. We think it’s safe to say the majority of the Ironclad team is done pinning numbers on for 2008, but we’re sure a few won’t be able to escape the siren song of the mud for one last hurrah. And of course the prom looms, too. We all know how good of a time that is.

But, for the most part, it’s “So long, cyclocross.”

Hello children!

Rock some of this shiznit up in your hizzy! There’s a company that talks about being so easy a caveman could do it, but I’m afraid this is the real deal. Easy. Effective. The perfect solution for anyone on the go, or anyone at all, that wants to get fitter, faster!

And the cowshit. And the bullshit. And the bruises. And the new bike parts. And the mileage. And the memories. And the laughs. And the hangovers. Sadly, another Crusade is in the books. Just a few more races laying about, and then it’s time to break, then start the base miles for the assault on the 2009 road season.

Alpenrose seems like it was two years ago in one sense, and only yesterday in another. Many thanks to all the folks who made it happen for the us, the unwashed masses. It was a good one! And of course we have a gazillion pictures of the affair for you to look at HERE.

This morning finds Ironclad HQ in a bit of a daze. No one turned the phones on so all calls are going straight to voicemail. The fax machine is just covered with inbounds. The coffee pot is on, with nothing in it, and someone left the fridge open all night, so everyone’s lunches are ruined. Typical post Crusade behavior and results. But there was cause for celebration! Check it:

Vanessa takes the silver on the day, and wins the overall!

We trundled through the bullshit with 1000 other folks yesterday, and turned in some excellence, that now must be recognized. Anna Clark took a sweet 8th place in the women’s B’s. Erin Willig captured 15th – also quite rad. In the Women’s Beginner Vanessa Cass took 2nd place but the bigger story is she wrapped up the overall win for the entire Crusade, congrats Vanessa! We also had Ginny, Eva (13th in beg. women – nice!), Mk47, and Lana racing, with Beth on hand for support. Stephanie Chase also raced, with yesterday being her last race for Ironclad. She’s moved across over the winter transfer season and will begin anew with the vaunted Veloforma team next year. We wish her the very best, and we thank her for her service for the past two years.

Everyone raced hard and some even brought home mementos of this last go-round of the Crusades…..and we enjoyed some Russian Imperial Stout, courtesy of Matt D’Elia – thanks Matt!

Lana decides to leave DNA evidence at the scene, incriminating us all

For the menfolk it was the usual suspects: Crawfy, Brody, Colonel, Voytilla, Gerow, Josh A., Ryan, Joe, Barker, Willis, Hudson, and Dave. Everyone turned in sterling performances, and some wowed the crowd with pastry Kung Fu:

Cake primes rule, in case you didn’t know

Others saw fit to simply run back and forth over the same puddle of liquid poop.

Barker hops through the goop

And so we let another set of 8 Sundays Of Lunacy fade to black. There is of course the always fun Kruger’s Race this coming Sunday and then the not-as-fun USGP races shortly thereafter at PIR to help ease the pain of the withdrawls, but the grandpappy – the crusades – are done. Chapeau!

We threw down to celebrate our 2008 road season. A keg of stout, a wall of chicken, and a flotilla of cans of swill fueled the affair on a brisk Friday night.

Our gloves have many, many uses

Awards were distributed and a few stories told. Then, an R2 unit learned the meaning of having a bad day.

Rough day, eh R2?

Today we did blood transfusions and made soup. Potato Lentil, to be exact. Lots o’ bread to soak up the evilness. We’ll see you at the final crusade, let the castles fall.

Wow…it’s all been a haze of wheels and foam and airplanes and bars. Oh yeah, and hotels. And bikes. I don’t get it, and I’m fairly sure I don’t want to, so let’s just get a quick sitrep under our belts and we’ll just chew on things until this coming Sunday.

The Mayor of Drunkingham himself, Stevil Kinevil of Swobo was in our midst, and filed a delicious report of his visit to our fair city HERE. I highly suggest you read it! I would not, however, have him as a guest at your house. He steals your Darth Vader shit, and farts loudly.

Our dear MK47 won a bike after besting some dudes in some kind of feat of strength. Results are a bit sketchy. There’s a rad photo of her and her rock hard ass kicking abs right here, and it’s proof positive that someone is using their Cyclo-Club membership. You should check it out!

There’s something about a drum corps at a bicycle race that equally prepares to me to fuck and fight. I can’t explain that one.

Our women’s team is beating some serious ass this Cross Crusade, but since we all look alike when muddy and near death from exertion, we can’t tell one from the other, so we’ll just raise 100 beers to all our fine ladies.

Our men are building bikes that make you go “dayum”. ‘Nuff said. They’re also racing pretty dang well……it’s been quite the crusade so far, hasn’t it? It seems like 100 years since Alpenrose. The wonderment of all that is Cross Crusade can be summed up in this picture:

I think that child represents us all, in entirety. You look like that, I do, he does, she does…everybody does. Wow! It’s Christmas!

Or, just Cross in Oregon. Let it die a peaceful and respectful death this Sunday. Be prepared.

This report filed from downtown Denver, Colorado, hello….

I guess we won the earth (and a bike) but the ladies team lost at Twister. But let’s face it, when chicks play Twister, everybody wins. Otherwise there was mud, a foam monster (devoid of douchey hipsters!) and much carnage and fun at Ye Oulde Raceway.

Numerous late night raucous phone calls to mobile HQ in Denver convey good times had by all. We have more pictures than your mom up at our Flickr site, so click it and lick it, biatch.

Oh yeah, we also had a pretty rad bike in the mix…here’s a taste. This one’s free. The others you’ll have to pay for.

You really gotta tip your cap to that fine machine, don’t you? Wow.

And the fleshpile:

More coming.

If you’re anything like any of us, and that means either traveling non-stop, or just flat out lazy when the winter doldrums set in, then Cyclo-Club is for YOU. We’ve partnered up for the 2009 season and will be using their training programs catered to the busy cyclist who has a real life, a real job, or, just something else that keeps them off the bike. We have a beauty of an offer from them to offer direct to you, so just click through the box below, and get on your way to getting fitter, faster and stronger QUICKLY.

If you say “Nope, I got time, I need some serious workout stuff”, well fret not as Cyclo-Club has all that stuff do. Both kinds of music, son, country AND western.

So, take the free gift and check stuff out. You can thank us later by giving us beer, or simple high fives. No obligation, no nothing….fill in the two fields, jump in, and get yourself fitter and faster the SMART way!

And, we decided to sip the Kool Aid just to see what it felt like. And, it hurt!

Get your own knuckles at the knuckle tattoo gun.

Good times! Well, for most. A lot of our brothers and sisters got walloped but good today at Barton Park, some taking exit via the meatwagon. Some wacky nut job might make a case for this race being a sign of the end times (right, Sarah?) or some may realize that the crows have come to roost finally in Oregon ‘Cross. Yup, hell hath no fury like a ‘Cross season suppressed by good weather for too long. Of course, we have a ton of photos with more coming, so keep clicking HERE to check back and see the images from the greatest monster movie set since Godzilla was big pimpin’.

The early part of the day was muddy, but not that muddy

Mother Nature threw just enough sky piss on the matter to make the whole affair a muddy one. And the course was mostly of the worst material possible for rain and mud: gravel. Some death defying descents and off cambers exacted a heavy toll on the noble knights of the Crusade, coming in the form of torn flesh and broken bone. Yes, the Barton Monster had come to play, and to collect a debt. “You’ve had good weather and good times for too long”, said the Barton Monster, “and now I’m going to kick the ever loving shit out of you.” And so it did. Try as we might, our “human wave” assault proved no better than fodder for the Barton Monster. To all those that are disabled this morning, we offer whiskey and pain killers. From our college days, we know that crushing and snorting your Percocet is a good way to go when the pain is too much. Just sayin’. Small toots, big payoff.

For the Ironclad team, there was a good all around effort! Anna Clark, Erin Willig, and Vanessa Cass turned in top 15’s in their respective fields for the womenfolk, assisted by KMac, MK47, Steph, Eva, and Ginny. For the menfolk we had The Colonel, Dave, Gerow, Brody, Ryan, Crawfy, Voytilla, Tyler, and Willis. Almost everyone got over the line, and for a race like this, we’ll take it.

Brody dodges the karate kicks of this fallen rider

Lo, it was heard emergency rooms made a little cash off of us yesterday. Damn! Even the poobah himself, K-Man, fell victim to the clavicle credit card. Pay up. Poor guy, we wish you well, friend.

Right before the B/SS race, the skies opened up for about ten solid minutes, just to make the affair a little dirtier. We went from Hollywood porn dirty to German porn dirty and the remainder of the schedule had to deal with even sloppier conditions. And to think, while warming up for the Master C race, the sun was actual warm and plentiful. Not for long. Like Pearl Harbor on that fateful morning, the scene went from utopia to carnage in no time flat. Forget kits or numbers, the riders were a monochromatic procession of grimaces and swear words. Good times!

Willis remembers his cozy warm bed, only a few hours prior

The mud seeped into some of our chicks’ brains we think, as evidenced by a healthy trounce-fest with sisters from Team Beer. A mud wrasslin’ extravaganza broke out, much to the delight of the crowd. What’s not to like?

Trips right, zoom 33, slash red, on two

There is a video of the wrasslin’ womenfolk, if you want to see it, CLICK HERE. Watch the race action, then at the end there’s the People’s Elbow, etc. You’ll dig it. You always do.

We’ll see you on Saturday racing on a golf course, and Sunday as well at the good ol’ SSCXWC. Let me just tell you, we have got the bike to beat all bikes for this affair. You just wait. Whatever you got, it ain’t as cool as what we got. Details coming….