Ironclad Cycling

The Cherry Blossom Classic has blown off the branch, and initial reports filing into Maastricht, Holland, at press time have the Ironclad team taking a few licks,  and dishing a few more out – in the form of a stage win and a final GC podium spot, along with some other fine results. A great team effort all the way around!

UPDATED:::::

We have eighty four million pictures for your perusal, and you can find them all right here.

And the end of this stage race signals Trevor Spahr’s upgrade to Cat 2, and The Ace’s upgrade to Cat 3. Congrats to both!

I’m now back from an amazing trip to Holland and Belgium where I was covering the Ardennes Classics, so we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled programming once the jet lag wears off. Last night’ PIR saw Joe and Mark and Dizzy throwing down in the small fields sprinkled with wet and cold. Tonight’s PIR could be heftier in fields….but the weather looks like pure shite again.

The weather was better in Europe by a mile. But it’s very nice to be home!

And the climbs are tough. Especially this little number.

These people are clinically insane.

Hi. It’s Dave. I write all the shit here on this site. I won’t be writing here for a while because I’m in Europe, writing for Pezcyclingnews.com and covering the sights and sounds of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Amstel Gold, and La Fleche Wallone. Full press accreditation has its merits. Please follow along at Pez if you like my idiot brand of writing, or just want to see a fellow Portlander right in the middle of the womb from whence our beloved sport came.

Luckily, I’ll be riding every day, recon’ing all the course routes for the aforementioned races, and hanging out in the thick of it. I’ll also being doing a CycloSportif or two. Fans, bars, racers, the works. So, you won’t find much in the way of OBRA reporting for a bit, sorry about that. We’ll try to keep posting some pictures at least so please check our Flickr site as much as possible. Funny, we’re at almost a half a million views since 2007. Well into the four hundred thousands. Pretty good for us, and the brand.

While our PDX skyline is one to behold, the scenery around here ain’t too bad either.

So, I’ll try to post a wee bit on this site if possible, but mostly I’ll be putting pen to electronic paper at Pez.

Marylynn King got her 2010 season off to a fine start by winning on the dirt at Horning’s Hideout in the women’s Cat 3 race. Well done MK! A tough course was met and handled by the 2nd year rider, winning by passing her nearest competitor in the final meters.

MK47 killing it sometime in 2009

At the Icebreaker Criterium down in Eugene, we had Dizzy, Haywood, and Crawfy all throwing down in the 3′s with the former 2 also taking a spin in the master’s race. A few top tens, and good efforts all around.

And our own Sparticus, Trevor Spahr, took to the north to race in Washington. And, as usual, spent most of the day in the break animating the race. A top ten finish was there for the young man at the end.

Somehow, we have no pictures of any of these fine happenings. You’ll just have to take our word for it.

Best I could come up with. We have two kinds of pain to discuss in today’s post, one variety on the bike, and one variety very much off the bike.

First, the bikey stuff. Kings Valley has once again come and gone and we brought home a slew of top tens with our women’s 3, women’s 4, and men’s 3′s squads. Our men’s 4′s squad was coming off some injury and sickness and we actually had to leave home some riders since a rash of illness has spread through our ranks. Anyhow, top finish goes to Stephanie Croy with 2nd place, nice work Ms. Croy!

flashing the goods

And then, in the evening, a curious little party was held by Team Beer at their new sponsor, Wax On. The idea was to see which man could stand the most hair removal from all applicable areas. We sent our young charge Atlin Sestrich into the fray, to have all his fibrous material harvested by some rather aggressive fastidious women. Encircling the lad like busy jawas, they made sure our sheep was shorn. Atlin, not one to shy away from a challenge, exposed all his naughty bits to the wax and the tape. It obviously hurt, but our boy brought home a podium finish, finishing behind the rather wookie-esque visage of Dave Roth. Well, wookie before the event. Now they’re all dolphins. We have a lot of pictures coming but for now, gaze upon this shot by Jose Sandoval. I think this sums it up. The gallery all smiles, the gladiators in fear for their lives. The jawas hard at work, bringing new meaning to the term “trench warfare”.

What seemed all at once like forever and a blink of an eye, the wait is over and PIR is upon us once again. Good times had by the squad in our “all hands” First Tuesday, where we all ride together. Taking along some seasoned vets and some newbies, we took to the 3/4 field en masse and worked the field, practicing different looks and giving our girls some chances to attack. Ironclad had 3 gals in the field and all spent time off the front. Not on it, off it. No better place to practice stuff than PIR, we should all be thankful we have such a resource so close to home. In the end we took our resident Schatzi, Johannes, and turned him loose on the field. Due to incorrect number placement, he was disallowed his 3 pts for his one Hot Spot win, but the judges saw fit to score him for his final result since he said 25 Hail Candi’s and 15 Our Kenji’s. Absolution attained, he slotted 7th minus even after missing his 3pts. The rest of us smoked cigarettes at the back on the final lap.

Happy to note the good, safe, clean racing last night. Really solid field. Sometimes the 3/4 is a bit wonky, but outside of needing some accessories removed from bikes and perhaps a little chain lube here or there, good times!

Some pictures coming soon, we think.

The witches freshly burned, we’re happy to report absconding away from Salem with only top 10 finishes. Anona and Lana in the women’s 3/4, Mark and Trevor in the 3′s, (with Trevor notching the win, inching within 3 points of the Cat 2 upgrade), and Shaun in the 4′s were the group, all of whom placed solidly in smallish fields in driving rain, wind, and occasional sunshine. Hate to harp on the theme, but a slap and a tickle with the weather. Again.

Great day, thanks for a wonderful race, Salem. And thanks for some pretty rad tots, Boone’s.

A few action shots, and some candids HERE.

laughs, cold, rain, wind, and victory