Ironclad Cycling

Road cycling is fun. Cross racing is more fun. Sometimes, with all the bike things going on, even the everyday rider needs to find a distraction or two along the way. Some maybe read in hotels or during rest days. Others may take up triathalons or something else physical to keep the juices flowing. Maybe a little pick up soccer. Knitting. Wine Tasting. Or, in the case of Ironclad Cat 3 and 2009 Rider of the Year Jeff Harwood, a mariachi band.

Jeff’s the new singer in the Crystaleros, a progressive math-rock Mariachi band. They’re like a cross of Jose Feliciano and King Crimson. With a bit of MC Frontalot just for nerdocore kicks.

Here he is on their first I-5 tour. We wish him well on his new venture.

Jeff Harwood on vocals

Ah, excellence. Nothing like spending a Sunday trying to contract Giardia or imitating crap-flinging monkeys. Since folks had their mouths open so much, we decided to put something in them that would make it worth their while, or at least equal a race-earned discount for some tasty fries or something.

those fries just went from $5 to $4

After Saturday’s good bye soiree for Eva, most of us were under the new mantra of  “Hair of the Dog, Eye of the Tiger” for Sunday’s race. Earlier Saturday a bunch of us went down to contest the Battlecreek race as well, with good results and many laughs.

Saturday night accrued more laughter exponentially, whilst fungal infections decimated some. The fine performers at the Acropolis were happy to see us as we practiced with great alacrity giving away one dollar bills. As an aside, thanks for the winks, Sporty.

But Saturday and Sunday’s race saw more successful completions of Beer Hand Downs – the legend and lore of which are now cemented in the annals of cross history and only gaining strength.

smiling children and adults – photo J. Sandoval

At least Sunday saw the return of mud to the Crusade, and none too soon. Lots of splats were heard around the course as rider after rider experienced unplanned dismounts. We had a large crew on hand, and those who were able raced their bikes while those who were impaired or perhaps maintaining a previously existing impairment continued….well,…being impaired. Ah, shit. Good times, boys. Dizzy, Ryan, Willis, Josh, MK47, Atlin, Monnig, Harwood, Gerow, Boeger, and Joe all took to the action.

Check out all our pictures here.

So now we all know what’s next, the festive Halloween weekend action in lovely Astoria, Oregon. That’s where they filmed Kindergarten Cop, by the way. Until then we’ll most likely stay in the hive and charge up the batteries. The next two weekends will be full tilt, Spock.

You must be vigilant against the Chamsqautch. What exactly is a Chamsquatch, you ask? You already know, just not by name.

The Chamsqautch is the sort of person who finishes their race (cross, road, whatever) and takes the time to go put a t-shirt on and regular shoes, but opts to keep his/her dirty cycling shorts on for hours after the race. That’s just wrong on a lot of levels, even if chamois time is training time.

So please, stop the Chamsqautch.

And welcome the return Words That Do Not Exist In Cycling -  But Should.

Post Turbulence or, how on earth could they be smiling?

I almost died on an aircraft last week, trying to land in Houston in a lightning and wind storm. I’d rather be back in that aircraft, stapling my sack to my forehead than ride the Sherwood course again.

We used to have prostates, and now, thanks to severe undercarriage assault, we all have diamonds where those used to be. Tough day in Ye Oulde Forest, yessiree Bob.Despite the whiny overtone let me restate we all believe that a bad day on the bike  beats a good day at work, hands down. Speaking of Hand Downs….er something….

We brought a slew of us in our Mango Suits (credit: AHTBM) , boys and girls, crappy beer, shitty food, a lazy dog, and our raggedy old tent. We’re sorry if we ruined your day. If you got stuck behind some of us after we had mentally checked out of the race, we’re sorry. However, we stay in it out of duty because the crowd is rapt awaiting the new craze to befall them, the hand down:

slightly warmed against hard earned back fat

The run ups almost killed us all too, especially the poorest of us folk on singlespeeds. Hats off to those who could flow over that stuff. By the way the ground felt, one could thought that the grounds of that particular equestrian center were at one time used for artillery barrages or perhaps a minefield testing ground. Potholes in the ground, everywhere. Maybe even craters?

Anna Clark posted 5th and David Monnig an impressive 2nd on the  day for the team’s best results. Other results are coming soon, thanks to the diligence and awesomeness of the OBRA officials charged with herding us cats.

Elation? Exasperation?

And so the Crusades go forth, with 3 in the rearview, and the biggest and baddest yet to come….

Last Date was last night, many thanks to the Gentle Lovers for an innovative and fun race series. Our team showed up and threw dowwwwwn once again. Willis and Sestrich top ten in the B’s, Travis Bickle making his debut as our first bonafide A rider got a top 15, Barker did well in the C’s, Lana was good in the Women B race, Gerow and Brody kicked ass in the SS….it’s just some amazing stuff. Great race series, great support from us for it.

And tonight be the Wolfpack. Feel saucy? Show up at the Thurman St. Market at 6pm with lights, warmth, and a fender if you got one. Bring a bag.

And tomorrow night the esteemed Joe Parkin comes to town to speak at the manifest. Joe (for those who don’t know) is one of the first American’s to ever take on the hardscrabble life of bike racing in Belgium. He wrote the great book “Dog In A Hat”  and hell, he thinks he’s half Vlaams as a result of his time there. So come here him speak.

Oregon Manifest Bike Union : 539 NW 10th at Hoyt : 7 p.m.

Read Joe’s stuff here: www.6yearsinaraincape.com

Then Saturday and Sunday sees some good stuff. A small clandestine Ironclad duo will attend Chris King’s Gourmet Century ride, and then all of us will descend on Sherwood like a pack of rabid wolves. Good time, good times. We think we’ll surrender.

Rockford’s finest!

We announced the new cross phenomenon of the Hand Down a while back, and after seeing some less invasive juice Hand Downs at the Blind Date races, beer Hand Downs have taken place in Northern California. Read the report HERE.

The CDC has issued a Hand Down warning for Idaho, Wyoming, Southern California, Utah, and parts of Washington. Be advised, you WANT to catch this. It’s good for you.

By germographic documentation, we see many Hand Downs coming for the Sherwood race this Sunday, since alkeehaul is allowed.

Some call in pukeorange. Some call it Satan’s Baby Gravy, others just call it gross, and some call it awesome. Either way we donned whatever the hell it is and took to Rainier high school with a vengeance.

First to mention though, is Travis scoring us a fine win in the Cross Cup, defending Oregon’s honor, and calling Washington’s a cheap tart.

Bickle, FTW

But for Sunday it was the usual pile of us heading up to scale that bitch of a hill, and do our damndest. Trevor earned his upgrade to the A’s after a fine win in the B race, along with Monnig who placed 4th, and also got his upgrade papers. Last door on the left, gentlemen, it’s the one marked “ass kickings”. What else did you think the A stood for? Atlin used his climbing skills well to crack the top 15, and Drew Willis slipped in the top 20 as well. 4 in the top 20 in the B race, nice work lads. Mark Koller and Bryan Voytilla kicked in as well.

In singe speeds we had the usual suspects of Boeger and Gerow and they done good along with Herr Weber. Our chicks racing were Ginny, Lana, and Marylynn, and they done good too, pa. In the C’s was Barker and in the Clydes Joe, who earned a point finishing in the top 20 again. Nice work lads and ladies! We of course have a ton of pictures to gawk at HERE.

Gerow, singlespeeding….

Our weekly cross skills clinic, which also doubles as arrest aversion clinic, break your stuff clinic, and packmule climbing clinic, took place last night. A suds laden pod of Ironclad, including some newbies, took to the climes of the Wolfpack. We ascended, made a few friends with a nice couple (forget their names) who were out on a little nightime MTB trail poaching ride, killed off some Rainier and gummi bears, then slowly entered the junction to everywhere:

That’s the sort of thing that happens at this “skills clinic” type thing. I guess.

We then headed down the hill in the dead of night, to once again engage in roundy round…..if you can stay upright shoulder-to-shoulder with 3 friends hurtling around in a circle with 4 tall boys in you, you most likely won’t fall down in a cross race or a crit when you get bumped.

The story of the night is the “winner” and Champeen of this week’s wolfpack, Lana Pressey, who came equipped with custom wolf sex spoke cards. Yes, I said wolf sex spoke cards. Needless to say the field wilted in the face of this unadulterated awesomeness, and she took the jersey with ease.

podium boys….

Dong work for Yuda! I’ll be the hyena, you’ll see…..

Until next week!

Damn, woman. How come we’re the only ones putting out? When you gonna give it up to us?

We sent a bevy of orangemen (and a woman) on blind dates last night in the hopes that we’d get a little. Ol Bickle gave us the best result with a 2nd place, and the rest of us just spent money and got ridiculed. But, being the hapless dipshits we are, it all seemed about right. Maybe next week we’ll finally get laid.

No images of note were taken, so we leave you – like us – cuckhold.

You’re seeing it all over. As Cross kicks into high gear, most of us are having fun, despite result or preparedness perhaps not being what we’d like. But some cross riders are getting awful serious and in turn awful snarky. We saw some unjustified blabbering about this rider crashing out that rider blah blah from CC#1 on the chat board. It’s Cross. You’re supposed to fall down and get rammed into by other riders and through all of it you’re supposed to smile. If we were derbying, all contact is expected. If racing, no one wants to purposely wreck into anyone. And now, along with that line of thinking (or lack thereof) the insurance scenes of the world have made it so beer hand ups are illegal! So, as the gene pools of CX series get cross pollenated with so many different agendas, we’re seeing some paradigm shifting taking place.

Squirrel in Iowa knows that his is how it is supposed to be…

Along with All Hail the Black Market and a few other less-than-reputable sorts and sites, Ironclad Cycling is helping to  bring you the latest spanner in the works. A new impenetrable trend in Cyclocross – as it ever so slowly yet deliberately sees it’s big series nationwide jumping the shark – the Hand Down. Beer hand ups being outlawed is like removing crucial DNA from the helix of cross.

Where alcohol hand ups are ending up as illegal in several CX series throughout the land, and can result in being DQ’d, we’ve reverse engineered it to whereby the racer loads up beer at the start line and distributes it to lucky spectators around the course. The Hand Down. Talk about a win/win, eh? The rider gets to lighten their load, and the spectators get tasty (if perhaps mildly agitated) frothy beverages. And hey, if it falls out of the rider’s pocket and another rider picks it up on course, it’s more of a “pick up” than a “hand up”, no? Finders keepers, losers thirsty.

Aloha, Mr. Hand…..
I mean, if you’re out there, and we’re out there, doesn’t that make it our time? And if it is our time and we’re out there racing and having a blast (as 90% of us are) then shouldn’t we just keep pedaling and smiling, and skipping the snark and vitriol? It’s only cyclocross, and no one is getting paid, and no one is going to sit on Trebon’s wheel, and falling down, possibly breaking some equipment, and suffering mechanicals that will seriously affect your finishing place are part of the game.

What are you people, on dope?