Ironclad Cycling

Another round of CAT scans finds our youngster hearing good news and bad news. The bad news is he’s fractured a bone in his sinus area, which frightfully allowed a little air to enter his brain cavity. Now, all obvious “airhead” jokes aside, this can be quite serious and require surgery, but after today’s visit the doctors are confident some rest and his natural youthful resillience will get him over the hump. The bad part is he’s not allowed to train – or even elevate his heart rate – for about a month.

Here’s a pic of hamburger head himself, already on the mend and in better spirits today. Obviously in racing it’s mandatory, but let’s hear it for helmets.

Get well quick, young man.

normally we save this sort of post for Eva…..

Well, almost. We did get some top tens in the 3′s and the women’s 4′s, but no cake on the day no matter how hard we tried. As the day wore on it was windier and windier…..and we all took some lumps. C0ngrats to the winners.

We must at once recognize our fallen teammate, Atlin Sestrich, who – in his first ever road race – got caught behind a crash in the 5′s and played Superman, not realizing the pavement was kryptonite to his face. Our poor new developmental rider ended up in the ER with fairly substantial facial injuries and the usual attendant bodily contusions and scrapes. He’ll be off the bike for a good long while, and please join us in wishing him a speedy recovery. Get well, Atlin! That was a tough break in your first ever road race to go down that hard, especially when it wasn’t your fault, but we hope you come around quickly!

powerlines and sunshine…..and no rain – alert the press!

For our men’s 3 team it was a banner day, being all over the race and riding well to position Crawfy for a solid 5th place finish which earned him – most ironically – some Castelli gloves. Weird! We put two more in the top 20 with Dezellum and Monnig coming up good. Charlie Hustle awards go to Harwood and Willis who cut their own throats out there for the plan, as well as The Colonel, who really buried himself out there. Earlier efforts by Voytilla and Smith helped the cause as well.

The women’s 4 squad saw a lot of action whilst mixed with the masters 40+ field and strengthening winds, but overcame some stiff competition to get McCarthy a fine 7th place finish. In the mix were Clark, Krill, Pressey, King, Pedersen, and Willig.

awaiting the shattered remnants of Flights 666, 1177, and 1227 to arrive in the windstorm

The men’s 4 accidentally tripped the 4 tons of TNT someone had placed in the field with an ill-timed lap 2 attack, and the field blew to bits. Chunks of Cat 4 flotsam and jetsam was all over the road, but Gerow and Boeger cracked the top 20 after spending a lot of time at the front in the initial lap and a half.

Brody and Trevor dragging around a chase group

You can see a pile of pics here .

Great race! Thanks to Presto Velo for the event, and now we’re going to hibernate in our Cryo-Chambers and await the onslaught that is CHERRY BLOSSOM. We’re bringing 19 total riders to this shindig……hope to see you there, too!

Posse of us went out to Woodland today, to pre-ride the course in the pure slop and see what’s what. The course if super hilly, and the finish is on a horrible incline with 3 right hand turns. Be ready, everyone!

great weather, again!

So we’re really looking forward to some cake with all of you. If we’re lucky enough to win one, we’ll share it with you!

The team saw itself fighting the war on two fronts today, always inadvisable from a military standpoint. A pod of mixed numbers, Willis, Trevor, Gerow, Crawfy, and our prospect Johannes took to the last Banana Belt and did pretty well for themselves, with Crawfy bringing the biggest fish into the boat with 10th in the Masters. We are sure we speak for all when we say ‘thankfully the Banana Belt series is behind us’. Shit weather for every race didn’t help and there’s nothing one can do about it, but whatever. Glad they’re gone. Bring on the Cake, and then the Blossom.

it’s incredibly pretty half way up 7 Mile Hill road….actually, the whole course is stunning.

The other half of the lot that chose to ride bicycles came on out to The Dalles to recon the Cherry Blossom’s stage 4, and the fabled 7 mile hill road. The pre-ride idealism quickly faded when talk of being punched in the dick took place. Watch this. For starters, that ride is just gorgeous. For seconds, it was windier than a fan woman after a chili cook off. I mean,…..fuck. Personally I felt like I was in an invisible mosh pit, getting hit indiscriminately from all angles, while tucked in a position normally reserved for going downhill not uphill. We’re not kidding, that was perhaps the stiffest gusts we’ve ever ridden in and we have further video to prove it. I mean, the handlebars shaking and the lateral movement – due to wind, not steering – were simple standard protocol. Upon stopping, and waiting 8 years for Dave’s fat ass, we snapped a pic for you

the vest stands straight as a board in incredible winds…

Brody, Joe, Dave, Anna, Erin, Vanessa, Kristin, Colonel, and Q took on the beast, and got the living shit kicked out of them. At first we saw stage 4  on paper and said “that seems kind of short”. Well, go ride one single loop and be thankful. Tough course, really beautiful too. This entire race will be decided by how windy it is on the last day, and who has the teammates to do the spadework, plain and simple.

Adding to the surreal difficulty of the day, one must also not rule out the crazy bucking alpaca at the top of the climb. Right side of the road. Dark fur, rotund belly, and by his actions, most likely heavily dosed on LSD. The fat bastard paused to have his photo taken, so observe, and be forewarned.

That’s not product in is hair displaying the “forward douchebag”, that’s just wind.

Seemed to be an alpaca themed time with several of the bastards making key appearances during the weekend’s ride.

Anyhow, we’ll see you all at Piece of Cake in a short week. Later!

I guess it’s all in how you define it, isn’t it?

The Ironclad team met and trained long and hard today, amongst porto’s named after teammates as well as pooping alpacas. Or llama’s. We can never tell them apart. Out on Ye Oulde Sauvie’s Island did ye find a pod of Ironclad out putting in miles and practicing lead out supremacy. Or whatever you want to call it.

these were the folks responsible…missing a few who had already departed for the day..

So round and round we went. We sprinted for invisible finish lines mobbed by invisible fans…it was kinda cool. Ever wonder what that was like, well then cock your head to the left and watch this shit.

Tomorrow we’re heading up to The Dalles to go pre-ride the Cherry Blossom’s most vicious bits. We’ll report back tomorrow night.

Hasta, basta.

The anti-racing trifecta came to haunt the team today. Grey and wet laid backdrop to the trio of death: mechanicals, crashes, and flats. We’re also bitten by the forgotten 4th step brother to the aforementioned bugaboos – illness, having to leave some folks behind to nurse some sicknesses at home. The trifecta bug is indiscriminate and mostly cruel, and this day it took a large chunk of flesh out of the black and yellow hide. Such is bike racing, such is life.We pressed on and managed some good results among all the attendant hogwash. Tip of the cap for the day goes to the Men’s 3 team, with only 3 riders participating putting 2 of said 3 in the break of the day. That’s some tough riding.

There was one trip to to Hagg Lake, one big breakaway attempt, one stop at McMenamin’s, one trip to the ER, one crash, one flat, one mechanical, one assload of rain, one heroic effort, and one ton of  bicycle racing goodness for all.

broken glove, no broken bones

We left some skin out there on the road today, along with a few expletives. Much respect to all those who pinned the numbers on today and fought the good fight.

Hey, it may have been raining, but at least this time it wasn’t snow!

Good to see a solid blog revival going on, complete with speaking in tongues, snake handling (or bikes, whatever) and blind, sometimes stupid devotion coming to the fore. Lots more folks are pecking away and this is a good thing. Gives us airport sitters something to read.

During our weekend break, we perused the ‘net to find some. Lots of laughs, for sure.

With the Banana Belt rightfully canceled we set about some skiing up on Mt. Hood, as well as a few other activities, like professional sitting-on-your-ass, and housecleaning. Good times. We had no time for our pre-race rituals and they will have to wait another week for before Oregon Cup action. There were a few hours dedicated to the finer points of Stella Artois as well.

Sort of our our own pre-pre-pre race ritual.

Pre-race rituals, be they conscious or otherwise, are indeed curious things to see. Next to “idiosyncrasy” in the dictionary should be pictures of bike racers. Some pee non stop, some get dressed and undressed ten times or, some listen to heavy metal, others to weaker music, and the weirdest of them all, the curiosity of those who dress before car rides to races. Not sure about you all, but folks around these parts don’t want their bits jammed up in silly clothes one more minute than they have to be. This semi-self flaggelation boggles the mind. On the other hand, some folks are into latex, and hey, that’s cool if that’s your thing. Restraint is a personal issue. Sometimes wearing race clothes before a race is weird, no doubt, but not nearly as weird as those who keep bibs on post race. That’s just plain ludicrous.

There’s one ritual we should all maintain. Just sayin’.  Let us hope another bad wind doesn’t come, a blowin’ down our homes. We wish to contest the next Banana action. Banana Hammock. That has nothing to do with this post, we just wanted to stick a visual in your head. However, who knows if we’ll race. In the time it took to peck out this innane jibberish, it went from sun to rain to snow to hail to snow back to sun again out the window.

Fingers, and bananas, crossed.

Luckily those non climbers among us are celebrating from their barstools. Those that slept in with a tinge of guilt or forgot to move their clocks up are now exonerated. Those who wanted to race are sad. Why? Because Old Man Winter, in his death throes, decided for one last good tantrum and, for the first time in a long time, an OBRA race was called on account of weather.

UPDATED: The Series will continue racing on the 15th as planned, and now adds the 22nd as the rescheduled date for today’s canceled event.

poor lonely bananas

Drew, who even shaved for today’s event, shares his feelings with you

….and came away pretty good!

Solid team efforts all around. Rain for all! Results still trickling in, but at this count it looks like Anna Clark scored 2nd in the women’s 4′s, Brian Gerow 15th in the mens 4′s, and Crawfalini snagged a 4th place flying solo in the masters field. All other Ironclad riders finished with all bones and skin intact, with some on borrowed wheels.

Mostly early races saw us in pouring rain, then afterward, hot tubs! Things could have been worse. While good competition and flat tires bedeviled us, we still did our best and managed some to pull off some alright action. We had riders representing the black and yellow all day; some in the front, some in the middle, and some pleasuring riding well of the back. It’s really the only way to bring a well rounded racing experience to the throngs of racing fans packing the roadsides of Henry Hagg Lake.

Hazel is pretty amazed and just how dirty pops can get.

Greg and Bruce get ready for the race in style. Now if we can just get that dog on a bike…