The Cherry Has Blossomed

Beautiful and deadly. This race was kinda like most predators in the natural world: sleek, efficient, indiscriminate, and effective. By the end of three days of racing, most had that feeling of having time warped into the future, and what it will be like to be in an old folk’s home. Most were alone, confused, soiled, and craving visitors for attention or, most of all, contact. Most just wanted to be touched by anything other than a bike seat.

At the end of the day, it was all about hurt. Well, hurt, the last days of some dude named Jesus, a fucked up crazy alpaca, lovely times in The Dalles, a bunch of miles, wind, and an incredible team ethic. You can see a shit ton of pictures here. If you do use our pictures,  please credit ironcladcycling.com. If you wish to leave comments, leave your name, or they won’t be posted.

Your cast for this production was M3: Sanders, Harwood, Willis, and Voytilla. For M4 it was Boeger, Aldersebaes, Meisel, Carver, Spahr, Leineweber, Barker, Gerow, and Q. For the W4 we had Clark, Willig, Pedersen, McCarthy, and Cass.

The team didn’t leave empty handed, as we nagged a few 2nd place finishes on stages (McCarthy in  the crit, Carver on Stage 4) and a whole slew of top tens. We thought we had a win for a second, but it turns out the official’s timing equipment was misbehaving badly on the time trial. They then told the rider in question about their error in front of the group before the start of stage four. An incredible showing of poor form on their part, but that’s another matter entirely.

At the end of the race we had three fine top tens in GC with Carver, Pedersen, and McCarthy all doing enough to stay at the business end of the results. But these results were due to the efforts of the erstwhile teammates doing the spadework when they could, where they could. All in all it was an incredible team effort of epic proportions against the typical shenanigans of stage racing to put up some very fine admirable results.

Carver enjoys podium time for his 2nd place on the race’s Queen Stage

While a team effort, each rider goes through their own kind of hell at some point in these affairs. Everyone has their highs, and everyone has their lows, but together as one cohesive fighting unit we had a hell of a time and delivered when it mattered most.

Congrats to all the winners.

ponies in the stable

So despite a few errors here and there, many thanks to the promoters for their efforts and providing a difficult and stunningly beautiful race for us hacks to go murderize ourselves on.

in a word, gorgeous

We hope this race is on the calendar next year!