Ironclad Cycling

Mark Crawford won the field sprint for a fine 5th place at the Umpqua criterium this weekend. Well done Mark! Maybe some pictures coming forth if they exist.

In other news, often imitated and never duplicated, our 2010 kits have arrived. Back in Black, baby. Pictures of that very soon indeed.

We raced our bikes at PIR last night, then formed a new band called Utility Pets. Our first album will be called “Release The Falcon”, featuring the buzz-worthy single “Fuck Towel”. Where do we get stupid ideas like this? It usually worsens after the 22nd consecutive day of riding and racing in the rain. Such was the case again last night.

shaun, dave, willis, harwood

We fielded 3 in the 1/2/3 with Willis, Harwood, and Weber, with Willis doing a ton of work and still sprinting in for 7th in the wet. In the 3/4 we had Dave, Shaun, and Ryan going around in circles, setting up Shaun  for a fine 8th place finish, courtesy of a point in a hotspot, and a good gallop at the end. Dave and Ryan spent the race marshaling the herd as best they could, chasing and whatnot.

There’s a pile of photographs from the evening right here.

Afterward, frustrated from being soaked to the bone again, we set about something we do better than racing; which is drinking. The rain came down in buckets, and the beer went down in cans. Which lead to the aforementioned creativity, both musical and structural.

talk about work

And then somehow a bag of silly hats and a bottle of port were loosed on the assembled bike warriors. You know things have sunk to a new low when silly hats make an appearance. Spahrticus looked like Hunter S Thompson in his. The rest of us just looked like asses. Case in point:

a collective message for the rain

Wednesday finds most of the guilty a bit bleary eyed and craving water and salt. Work is a four letter word today.

And we’ve been shitty getting the news out. Computer viruses and busy travel schedules have kept us in the dark a bit lately, sorry about that.

Mt Tabor Circuit race and a PIR were in the offing and we scored a fine top ten in the men’s 3′s at Tabor with Herr Weber slotting in 9th, assisted by the tumbling Gerow and Willis. Good times. Anona rocked the 1/2/3 race and slotted in nicely at 7th. Alana rocked in another top ten in the W4′s with a fine 6th place, too. Conley was the lone Cat 4 dude, enjoying his Tabor race as only crit riders can. We have some pictures here, and more coming asap. UPDATED: NEW PHOTOS ADDED.

anona rolls out at Tabor

In tonight’s PIR, we enjoyed the only rain free night in recent memory to send Dave, Crawfy, and Johannes into the 1/2/3 race, and with Barker (now with 10% more Barker) and Joe into the 4/5 affair. No idea how all finished…but all finished skin and bone intact, so a win of sorts.

Regular updates to resume at once.

Jeffrey Maker’s Mark HaywoodHarwood scored a fine 4th place finish at PIR on Monday, in cold and soaking conditions. Congrats Jeff!

NOW WHAT THE FUCK IS THE DEAL WITH THE FUCKING WEATHER. Tired of this crap already! Let’s get some normal temps at least!

SILVERTON: Willis 3rd in the 3s! Anona and Ace 4th and 5th in the women’s 3′s race – in Ace’s first race post-upgrade! Give those two girls some hills, and look out. Elkhorn should be a good one for the team, as everyone is still maintaining our early season form.

More words and pics later, , etc…Pat Malach got this one of our boy Willis smashing the finish for his fine podium spot.,

Sorry for the sporadic updates once again – real life is kicking ass and taking names and there just hasn’t been a lot of time to post in between all the continued travels….so let’s take a little look back…

Monday PIR saw a few of us out there swinging, but the night was sadly cut short due to a nasty wreck involving a Guinness rider. Our own Ski Patrol hero, Brian Barker, dismounted to assist in stabilizing the lad before the EMT’s could arrive. Good work Brian. The racing was truncated due to the accident, and rightly so. We wish the rider a speedy recovery and initial reports are that he’s doing well, so we’re all encouraged by that. Be safe, folks.

Tuesday we had a slew of riders in a field roughly the size of the population of Ohio in the 1/2/3 race. One of our ace sprinters, Jeff Harwood, managed to get to the top of the rat pile and score a fine 10th place with the help of a few other Ironcladders. Lana Pressey was our lone 3/4 racer, and she showed the boys how to take some pulls.

While some were racing, this site writer has been beating down the highways in search of sales. Of course, mixing in some well timed evening R+R in there as well, such as having a professional face melting by Mastodon in Eugene Monday night.

face melting

The very beginning of a rock show and the very ending of one are the true essence of the experience. I caught the opening number on video and it announces forthright that the universe (well, as far as the Eugene city limits) was about to implode on itself.

Now it’s a business trip in lovely, and somewhat smelly, Indianapolis. The pushmepullyou is once again upon us. Let’s face it, like the picture below, some days you’re the meat, and some days you’re the bread. Some days you pitch, some days you catch. Some days you do both.

In a break of tradition, we skipped road racing entirely this weekend to attend the Chainbreaker MTB race down in Bend. Gerow, The Ace, Lana, MK47, and Trevor Sphar-ticus hit the dirt and the rocks to notch us some fine placings. A top 5, some top 10′s, and a whole lot of fun. Yakima’s Dylan sent along the picture below.

The rest of us spent the weekend doing century rides for Elkhorn prep, or hosting out of state visitors, or fighting off strep. Goooood times. See you soon!

We remembered Eric by sending Harwood into battle in the attempt to score our team its first ever Tiger jersey. Alas, despite best efforts, there was no luck. But Jose of Cthulu was lucky when he nabbed this excellent photo of our boy in action. There’s some chaibreaking going on in Bend, too, and we’ll have reports on that soon!

photo by Jose Sandoval. Brutal!

Happy Cinco de Mayo, peeps.

Busy coupla days around the ol’ office. Firstly, we have had the unwelcome resurgence of winter battering down on us for the last few days, which made the Mon/Tue PIR combo no bueno.  Monday‘s affair was as windy as could be with a near gale force headwind on the finishing straight. We had Dave and Dave in the mix, and both were forced off road to do some early May cyclocross in the last lap, ruining what was a good set up for the final gallop. In the 4/5 we had Conley and Joe, with Conley coming home with the team’s best finish of 8th. In the ladies affair we had Lana duking it out for about half the race before making the smart call to not beat her head against the wind anymore. Face it, chicks are the smarter sex.

Tuesday had Anona, Ace, Dave, Dave, Lana, and Deann in the 3/4 mix while Willis was the lone 1/2/3, this time under less wind than the day before, but instead torrential cold rain. Wonderful. The whistle went off, and PV’s BRat took his holiday right quick and no matter how hard the chase by how many riders  there was no bringing him back. A solo break for 15 laps. All the primes and the finish. Alone.

There’s a bunch more  pics here, from us, but mostly from the estimable Dave Roth.

A new galaxy was discovered on Dave’s ass. Here is a hubble image of it as it was a nebula.

star wars

The weather was really bad, but these two couldn’t have cared less, under the awning of the new OBRA hot dog cart and betting window. Who knew blackboards would make their way to PIR? “I’ll take a Chicago style, hold the celery salt, and I’d like to put $2 on the 1305 horse to win in the 3/4.”

all smiles, no miles

After and during the race the old man got a bit hot. Sorry ’bout that folks. So homeward we went to get some warm/dry on and drink beers and eat Keebler elf cookies. Beer and cookies make everything better. Then we began our nightly rodent pile, whereby we huddle together for warmth and solace.

a good start

Vanessa Cass took to the race at hand in Eugene Roubaix and did some hard turns at the front, even though she was solo and without teammates near the end of the race. She still hung on for a fine 3rd place to round out the ladies podium. Well done, Charlie!

Mark Koller was our lone gun in the 4′s and had a good pack finish, and Crawfy was our lone gun in the 3′s with (we think, unofficially) a top ten finish or thereabouts.