Training Camp II

4 hours of pure beauty on the way to Pendleton, with great weather and good friends. Kinda worked over right now, so we’ll send more words later. Must gorge now. Check out some really rad photos from today’s ride (and the whole weekend) right HERE.

Training Camp

And…..we’re off.

Training Camp 2010 is underway and we’re all up in it now. Rain, wind, cold, all the good stuff you need for a cycling team camp. Who needs warmer climes? Phooey. We’re eating road paste and huddling together for warmth. Gaining strength, killing the weak.

And you know what? The Phoenix herself is here and on her bike and lookee, here she is on the front pulling us around.

Bananas, Keg Stands, And, This One Time, At Team Camp….

The mighty Banana Belt is upon us once again. Early weather forecasts look to foretell what we’ve come to expect for this series. Probably wet and kinda cold. Hopefully we can avoid the race-canceling snows of last year, as seen here.

We’ll be splitting the squad this weekend, with those of us who are going well right now racing the Banana Belt series, so look for us in the mens and womens 4, and mens and womens 3, and the rest of us will be off to a secret location to attend the Ironclad Training Camp, a mixture of speaking in tongues, snake handling, bomb making, and bike riding. There may or may not be some beer intake there, but you know we’re so incredibly serious about our racing, we’ll be weighing our MGD 64. Or not. We expect the bomb making to end up something like this, with adoring chicks and all:

Chicks go for the bomb diggity

For all of you racing, we wish you good luck. For all of you east of the Cascades, we also wish you good luck and advise you to stay off the roads and to double lock your booze.

Armstrong, Spahr, Take On The Clock – Updated!

Alana Armstrong made her 2010 debut, and joined Trevor Spahr out in lovely Vancouver, WA, to take on 14 miles against the clock. Times, pictures, and some hearty family recipes forthcoming.::::

UPDATED:

Results posted, and Trevor Spahr scored 2nd in the 3’s (thanks go to Harwood for loaning the funky warp drive engine and the silly helmet), and Alana Armstrong slotting in 10th at the end of the day in the women’s 4’s. Two top tens – we’ll take ‘em. Great day, great race, thanks to BBC for putting it on!

Recipe:

Willis’ Down Home Tart: (no, not the kind the boys hang around)

1. Unwrap Tart

2. Place Tart in Toaster

3. Depress Toasting Mechanism, cook to taste

4. Party

Ironclad Wins at Sublime Sublimity!

NEWSFLASH:

Anna “The Ace” Christiansen won the Cat 4 women’s race for Sublime Sublimity, in her 2nd bike race ever, with teammate Stephanie Croy 5th!!! Trevor Spahr took 5th in the Men’s 3’s stacked field and both fine finishes were due to some sacrificing riding from teammates Lana Pressey, Johannes Weber, Brian Gerow, and Andrew Willis! There are some pics of the day right here. Anona Whitley took to the Women’s 1/2/3 all by her lonesome and had a solid finish too! Solid rides all around, we’re off to a great start as a team. Congrats to anyone and everyone of you looney bastards that took on this course. Any one who finished this race – you’re f’ing crazy, be happy knowing that.

Here’s the Ace, two-for-two in her first year racing.

if you look closely in the shades, you can kinda see Travis Bickle….

Scratch The Pad, Miss The Boat

Hello, 2010 road season, it’s nice to meet you! Pie? Why sure, we’d love some.

Many thanks to the fine folks at Pacific Power/Blue Sky for putting on another edition of the dessert race, it was a good’un. Ironclad sent down some boys and girls to take a swing, and we came up good, scratching the pad with our first win of the season in the first race of the season. Our new transplant from Minnesota, Anna Grace Christiansen, having never pinned on a number in any kind of bike race, took to the 4’s race with Lana Pressey and Stephanie Croy, and got the W with a fine solo effort towards the end of the race. Of course, no victory comes without teamwork of some sort, and Pressey and Croy slayed themselves to set up the winning move. Pat Malach of Oregon Cycling Action caught the moment wonderfully in this picture.

Steph, Lana, and The Ace celebrate the teamwork

Another new Ironclad rider, Anona Whitley, took to the women’s 3’s all by her lonesome and hung tough in a tough field to have a solid chase pack finish – after sorting out the 1,2,3 and masters, we find her in 10th. A great first race for OBRA for the transplant.

nice shot, kid

For the 3’s lads, a bit of snake biting occurred. If we had a race report to tell, we’d tell it, but due to an early race start by the promoters, our boys missed the boat. And the race. Um, oops. The good news is refunds all around and a good training ride, the bad news is our boys had come ready and drove down from Portland, and didn’t get a chance to mix it up with a fine field of 3’s, as did another few riders from other teams. Oh well, shit happens, everybody makes mistakes and as long as our entries are refunded, you just have to chalk it up as an honest promoter error.

all dressed up and nowhere to go……

Pie, Anyone?

Season kicks off really soon, doesn’t it?

Not so far away, in a town pretty close actually, in just a few days, an epic battle for control of the galaxy will begin. Empires and Rebellions will clash once again in mighty bicycle combat to determine two wheeled supremacy. If I could make this shit scroll into a backdrop of twinkling stars, I would. But since I can’t, I’ll just link this while you think about the dawn of a brand new season.

We’ll send a few folks down to kick the tires and have a little peek at the engine. Let’s all hope for dry weather. And please, no Warrant jokes.

Right. Into. The. Fan.

Sometimes life just has you walking into buzzsaws. Or, in a more cycling oriented vernacular – a headwind.

Yesterday’s training ride saw about 20 brave souls point their bikes for Multnomah Falls, but between PDX and said falls, laid a few miles covered in a blanket of stiff headwind.

4 hours later, everyone was worked over and the skies began to darken.

And that about tops off the tune ups, as Cherry Pie looms next week to kick off the season. We’ll see you at the races.

Chicks Know How To Party

The Ironcladies threw down last night. Still waiting for my Saturday paper to read the Police Blotter to find how who got arrested for what. The gang was all there save for The Ace and the fair Eva.

We’d throw a dude’s party, but it would just end up at the A-Crop with an astronomical bar tab, and we don’t really need an actual “party’ designated for that to happen.

They look pretty, but don’t be fooled. These girls are lethal.

New Riders, New Sponsors!

We’re proud to announce we’ve rounded out our rider roster and our sponsor roster for 2010 with some new faces and new products!

Our men’s team has been closed after the 09 acquisitions of Shaun Conley, Ryan Van Dusen, and Mark Koller, but in keeping with our commitment to women’s cycling in Oregon, we’re proud to announce the arrival of Anona Whitley and Anna Grace Christiansen to our ranks. Remember those names. You’ll see a lot of them this year. Anona joins us as our sole Cat 3 rider (for now) and Anna Grace is  brand new to the sport but has the legs to move her up the ranks quickly. We welcome these two, as we just got better, again.

Also we’ve finished our sponsor roll out by bringing on board the estimable Dr. Will Bar as a boost to our nutrition lineup, and Corsa Concepts as a boost to our wheels! Ironclad will be using both of these fine sponsor’s products in the coming year.

Check out Dr Will HERE.

Corsa Concepts HERE.