Ironclad Cycling

A short and somewhat disheartening update from the cancer front: Kira has been readmitted to the hospital after learning her port (removed from her arm) has actually left her with a blood clot and a subsequent blood infection. So, she’s back in hospital at least until Saturday and she’s r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-really high on pain meds. So, we have some reason for jealousy, no doubt, but now a new port will be installed, this time most likely in her chest so she can continue taking on board the caustic chemo liquids.

A couple of us got to see her the other day and while it was great to see her, it was rough to see her with a 103 degree fever caused from the blood infection. We have some rad pictures of her in the hospital though, as she is – in typical Kira fashion – f’ing all kinds of s— up. We’ll post them once we smuggle them out. So while they sort all this new B.S. out, her 2nd round of chemo will be temporarily on hold. The 1st round kicked the shit out of her, but she’s rallied before, and she’ll rally again. Makes you think Churchill speech type stuff, doesn’t it? Cancer is the nazi army, and Kira will fight them on the beaches.

For now, let us gaze upon the healthy Kira, pictured here just a few months ago in full flight. Her faithful Veloforma waits patiently in the stable for its owner to get well and once again break the legs off the OBRA women’s peloton.

Hang in there Your Grace, we’re all with you

Meanwhile, the kids are rallying big bucks in the fight for cancer research. There’s a certain fraudulent egomaniac cyclist out there who can’t hold a candle to some organized kids.

Next, they’re going to medically weaponize their lemonade, and it will become a new form of less destructive chemo. Yesterday began the fundraising efforts in earnest. If this doesn’t jerk a few tears out of you, you had best check your pulse.

who’s thirsty?

Ever race in an oven? Ever have a prime worth $5 for every degree above 100?

David Monnig brought another fish in to the boat with a fine win in Tuesday’s PIR 3/4 race, which was contested in 106 degree heat at the start. The field was light and Ironclad brought the majority of the riders to the show, and after repeated softening blows, Monnig went clear. Luciano had decided on the miss-and-out strategy, and places 1-5 were to be decided on lap 5 of 10. It was fun. We enjoyed the numbers advantage and lead out Ryan Smith for second in the initial scrum to the line with 5 to go.

Did we mention the heat? I mean HEAT. A good bunch of the field hung it up after the Lap 5 deciding sprint, and for good reason – Mitchem got us all cold showers via a garden hose at the infield. That made the whole night bearable. Thanks Jeff!

Hopefully next week regular temps will come back so we can get a larger field. Kudos to ANYONE AND EVERYONE that showed up tonight. Man…..that’s one that will be in one of those “remember when” conversations at the bar come December.

The estimable and erstwhile Pat Malach of Oregon Cycling Action caught the images of the eve:

Monnig wins solo, bitten by the Victory Contagion that has made its way through our ranks

And then, leave it to a bunch of knobs like us to take full advantage of a dorky photo op.

if there were a Portland Men’s Cycling calendar, these dudes would NOT be in it

Robbie “The” Carver demolished the 4/5 field at the OUCH time trial up Larch Mountain, and with the win finally was awarded the upgrade he had been petitioning for. Nice work Robbie! The winning time was 1:01:16, and was good enough for 4th on the day in the combined standings. Robbie is now a 3, thank you, OBRA gods.

Also placing nicely were David Monnig in the 3′s, Johannes Weber in the 4′s, and Anna Clark and Vanessa Cass in the W4′s, all getting top tens or fives.

A pretty good day all around, no doubt. The winning streak continues! It’s contagious.

We’re checking for pics……thanks for stopping by.

Good luck to anyone taking on the PIR or ST in these triple digit temps.

Meanwhile, other people went out to the coast,  to ride in 60′s and 70′s, and chase some birds right at the waterline of the pacific ocean.

trying for seagull stew

You win some, you lose some, it’s all the same to me.

Rock and roll ain’t dead. Rock Racing might be close, if they don’t learn to stop driving like assholes or littering like bigger assholes.

Team O has revived the midsummer night crit for three wednesdays this summer, and thanks to them for doing so!

We sent a bunch of scrappy bastards to take on the 4/5 and the 1/2/3 with good results all around. Bickle 4th and Barker 4th as well. Helping out were Voytilla, Crawfy, Willis, Hudson, and Q.

Lana and Dave were on their way until the big blue truck gave up the ghost. Sad, but true.

We’ll see you there next week!

We have no pictures.

Travis wins in Bend, Lana wins in Vancouver, and now Jeff Harwood adds a fine win at Tuesday’s PIR in the 3/4 race!

In the 1/2/3 we put Willis and Bickle into the meatgrinder, as a sacrificial offering to the higer categories.

In the 3/4 we had Jeff Harwood, Johannes Weber, Lana Pressey, and Ryan Smith duking it out. Smith played lead out juggernaut, Weber absconded with his german ass into the break of the night, and Pressey launched a solo break for 3/4 of a lap, too. Harwood used the leadout teamwork to perfection to rack up 21 points to take the top spot on the night over a fairly large field.

We have no pictures, sorry.

Good work, team!

Another year, another Vancouver Courthouse Crit presented by North River Racing…..and finally we won one of the damn things. 3 years ago this was the 1st real big race for our team to show up at en masse and it’s sort of become a staple of our yearly schedule. You kinda gotta go to this one, racing or not.

So we had a hearty showing and posted up at our usual spot about 150m from the finish line with our tent and chairs and accoutrements. And then we put a few bodies in the races too! And of course we took a lot of photos which you can see here.

Story of the day no doubt is Lana Pressey’s fine win in the W4 race, pipping some hard charging riders right at the line, due to her excellent position out of the last corner – well done Lana! And we had Kmac on hand to watch too, so that was some good inspiration. Erin Willig and Deann Krill put the spadework in to set Lana up, who waited in the 1st 3 or 4 wheels and let her teammates do the work. Erin had a tumble about half way through but she valiantly got up, covered the road rash, took her free lap and then pulled like a stubborn mule for two laps after reentering the race. Now that is some gutsy riding!

Lana kisses Kmac to celebrate her win! Deann, Erin, and Vanessa all think it’s a good thing.

For the men’s 4′s we had Dave, Robbie, Johannes, Joe, and Hudson all duking it out and we had a good on that front, sadly no podium finishes there. It was a win since no one crashed or got hurt, though! Dave’s knee was inspected by the Vancouver Bomb Squad and it was deemed it would not detonate in the race, so on he went. Everyone did well and we represented on the front a couple of times.

In the 3′s we had another great showing with David Monnigasaurus making the break of the day (6 riders) and then sticking the sprint to take 3rd and get the team its second podium of the day. Travis Bickle left his cab and tried to bridge to add firepower but his attempy fell just short. Behind, the lads of Dizzy (also crashed and reentered!) Harwood, Willis, Gerow and Voytilla all sold a fair amount of hot dogs with so many cards being played up front. A great day!

Monnig celebrates 3rd place. The 2nd place finisher is actually invisible.

The day was made a bit sweeter seeing Earthquaker take the women’s 1/2/3 race, too. Nice work, Tina! And thanks to Lisa R for donating her 3rd place pizza to our hungry tent. And super thanks to North River Racing for yet another stellar edition of the race. Mother Nature gets a nod as well for such fine temps…..’twas a beaut!

Hope you got a chance to say goodbye to the Murderhorn yesterday. It were a good time, fer sure. We showed up with a fair amount of riders as usual and the whole mess is documented right here. Lots of pics to go look at, and our entire sick bay emptied itself and showed up as the new up-armored Kristin showed up with her new titanium bits, and Kira herself made an appearance before starting chemo on Friday and kicking the ever loving shit out of cancer. The rest of us went around in circles to see what’s what. Our German did well scoring 3rd on the night in the scrum for the line, and also this means he finished probably best out of any of us in any category for the series. Congrats Johannes!

Let’s see, what else…..hmmmm…..

The Rapha Gentlemen’s ride has been announced and we’re once again in. Should be grand!

Now let’s talk Tour style turkey for a minute, if you don’t mind. There are lots of affronts to the senses out there. We’ve been subjected to some really rotten crap lately. People supporting M. Jackson, for one. That’s disgusting, as Katt says. Other terrible assaults include the Jonas Brothers playing on the same stage as Stevie Wonder – certainly the 1st horseman. And from the cycling world, we’ve been continually assaulted with the horror of white cycling shorts (good god, fdj, please stop, it hurts…..) but on the tube now is something even worse than white shorts: brown shorts, brought to you by the yellow jersey keeping AG2R Mondial squad. Yuck. Brown shorts and brown helmets, just when you think it couldn’t get any worse. I often wonder why Euro cool gets some nods here stateside, because most Euro cool stuff induces vomiting over here.

Anyway, we’ll see you at the Courthouse on Sunday. Time to get hitched!

A good pile of Ironclad jumped in the 3/4 race and had a helluva night. There was some absolutely great racing in the field and we put our boy Bickle in a good spot for what might be a top 3 finish. Not sure of any results at presstime, but we’re thinking we’re close.

No photos here, but we bet Pat has some.

A great night for all!

Where does the time go? Is the road season really on its last legs? We guess so. 5 or 6 weeks of pavement type action before we start mainlining cheap beer and falling over in the mud.

But for now, it’s still silly pants and restricted diets, and that means road racing! The team recently sent a large cadre down to the High Desert Omnium and came away with a “stage” win in the men’s 3 crit – way to go Travis Bickle! We also got a 2nd place with Deann Krill in the crit as well. At the end of the whole thing, we had a lot of overall top tens and we had a lot of riders with points. And we had Dave, who after 21 days off the bike with a knee injury, absolutely kicked everyone’s ass in the Lanterne Rouge competition. DFL (along with flats, broken spokes, etc)

There was the birth of a superhero, Alderwood, the death of lots of bottles of wine and Deschutes beer, some tasty beef nuggets, and a few very nice rental houses. And we cannot forget Kira has a rad new haircut!

At the end of the day we had Travis Bickle best placed with a 4th overall in the 3′s. The boy’s on a bit of form, no doubt. We had a few top tens, and a couple of DFL’s as well, but as usual no DNF’s!. We certainly wouldn’t want to have an imbalance in our squad now, would we? Friend Of Ironclad Sallyanne took a wee tumble in the TT and thankfully is ok, and she got some really rad hot pink bandaging to boot. Heal up quick, kiddo.

So now we turn our attention to the MMA of cycling – criteriums, and we have a few cards to play in this discipline so we’ll be sharpening the blades in preparation for the month of August.

Mark’s personal message for cancer