Ironclad Cycling

Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but might Piece of Cake be one of OBRA’s best races? We’d say yes, and this is being written by someone who rode most of it alone off the back. A great parcours, with gravel, a few tiny rollers, lots of flat, and today a relentless Mother Nature temper tantrum of the first order. She gave us sun, rain, hail, more sun, more rain, and an insane amount of wind. Insane. Wind. A headwind on one section of the 17 mi. circuit that made you cry for your mother if you stuck your nose in it, or thank your lucky stars if you had a good wheel to sit on and hide behind….

Well done to the Bicycle Attorney crew for a GREAT event, our hats are off to you, thanks for all the effort in bringing us a true gem of the OBRA calendar.

For our squads it was an awesome day. We did have some bad luck in our dear Joel Crouch ending up getting a little chewed up in a tumble, and our 3′s team was challenged today but Harwood, Ben, and Dave finished well. Starting the good news, we notched a fine showing in the women’s 3′s race scoring 1st, 3rd, and 4th with Anna Christiansen, Brianna Walle, and Anona Whitley respectively (support by Michelle Cuhna, Jenn Levo, and Stephanie Croy). Also of note was a sterling performance by an aggressive Greg Sanders to not only destroy the race with an early attack but to hang in there for 4th in the men’s 4′s (support by Shaun Conley). In other good news, Anna Clark and Sharon Sandoval nabbed 2nd and 6th in the lady 4′s too. And round out the warm fuzzies, Drew Willis landed 12th and in the money in the 1/2 race!

Well done all. Another year, and another cake tasting after the race for Ironclad! Bunch of pics here, and more coming so check back if you’d like to see them. Also, Jose Sandoval has his excellent spread of photos that you should really go admire right here.

the ladies line up to take the cake

and the ladies about to devour said cake, the streak continues!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘for fuck’s sake, if I am to die, let me die in a bike race!”

Time for cake, as in Piece of Cake. It’s like the punk song on the OBRA record. Loose, fast, pretty sure it’ll leave a mark, and when it’s all over it’ll be remembered as a hell of a mosh pit.

It’s kind of a mental race, at that mentality could be no better summed up than by the following image.

all fun and games until someone fucks up the children’s picture – even if it’s a child

The details for Piece of Cake are right here.

There was lots of whining on the OBRA board about the gravel sections. We love the gravel idea. If you do not, we know how to solve your problem : don’t go to the race! Problem solved! You stay home and watch this instead, and just get angrier and angrier:

And Sunday brings us the last, and perhaps most rotten, banana. Banana Belt #3 for you folks that think riding lumpy races is fun.

See you at both of them!

Firstly, Leonard Johnson over at Hot Foot Photo has a new Willamette Capitol Cup Crit photo gallery here.

And Oregon Cycling Action has their recap here.

Jose has his photo pool updated here as well.

Primus has Les Claypool, we have our own Colonel. Observe, in its natural habitat, the pain cave:

photo by El Brujo

p.s. – if you want to know the secret to all things funky, be sure to watch that link above to 2:30

Soon. You will know.

Well scratch the pad, the first criterium of 2011 has come and gone. We notched wins in the women’s  3 and 4 fields (though woefully small – where are those Cherry Pie sized pelotons for the women?), a top ten in the men’s 4/5, a fine 2nd place in the men’s 3′s, and a fine 12th in the men’s 1/2. That’s a lot of fine.

The Willamette Capitol Cup Criterium is a GREAT race. Wide open roads, well marshaled, in a great location – a perfect race for March in Oregon, and the organizers really do a nice job with the whole shebang.

Good day, good times.

Jose got some good pictures, and they’re here.

We’re proud to announce our new partnership with Smith Optics for the 2011 season! You’ll see their specs on our faces in the peloton this year, and they’re pretty sharp.

Check out all their amazing styles and offerings at their website: Smith Optics!

We’ve received our first shipments of styles, so look for them at the upcoming races! We stoked to be partnered with Smith Optics!

The  2011 Ironclad Training Camp has come and gone, and our last day brought us the breaking news of Mark Crawford (who stayed behind from camp) nabbing a fine 2nd place in Banana Belt #2 in the Masters race (rad picture HERE), while Drew Willis (who also stayed behind) managed (we think) a top 15 in the 1/2 race, and Joel Crouch scored us 10th in the men’s 3 race – nice work guys!

Also, yesterday, in Marylynn King’s racing debut, she snared us a fine 5th place out at Echo Red to Red! Well done playing in the dirt, MK47!

For us, several long, arduous days in wine country have ended. I mean, when you rack up a century, and you’re in wine country, you should stop and eat and drink with your teammates until the eating and drinking is done. A great time, thanks to all the fine folks at Sweet Cheeks Winery for their hospitality, great wine, and awesome food. As usual, there’s a pile of rather questionable images right here.

post ride wine is where it’s at, who needs recovery drinks?

Ok, that Hungarian shit was all a joke. We’re sure you knew that.

In truth, we’ve begun our training camp this weekend in a secret location. We plan on riding four thousand miles, listening to Van Halen (David Lee Roth era ONLY), and beginning our 101 course work in “Blood transfusions and you: don’t fuck it up”, at the local community college. So far, things are going swimmingly.

the first half of the weekend’s crew on point

The best part is of course our rental house, an amazing geodesic piece of work, nestled in the Peruvian countryside. It’s real beauty. We don’t speak the language, and….oh,….wait, the location was secret. We’re not in Peru, we’re in Bangladesh! No! Iowa! No,……Kansas! You figure it out.

Ridey ride:

two lines, two million watts, good times

And you can bet your bippy we perused THIS AISLE heavily before settling into the rental house.

You should never drink, do nitrous, and gamble with Hungarian businessmen. Or, maybe you should.

After a night of heavy potato vodka drinking and some poorly played cards, The Ironclad Performance Wear cycling team is officially sold (lost) to their new Hungarian Overlords. I sold  all the people and the equipment for a small amount of cash, a big truck, and two chattering Hungarian hotties. I was lucky to escape with my life.  I am sorry to the families of the former Ironclad riders, I have no idea where you can find your sons and daughters now. Circuses are a good place to start. Opium dens after that.

But you can find me southbound on I-5, on my way to Tijuana in this vehicle, with these chicks. Trina and Nadia.

Bye OBRA, that was a fun five years!

that’s not photo-shopped, that’s actually my new Ironclad truck, replete with Hungarian language decals and those are actual Hungarian chicks. Can’t understand a word of it, but who cares!?

Happy day after Banana Belt #1, everybody. We hope everyone had safe races, and we were glad to see the weather choose to cooperate with you all.

For us it was a first – a very light turnout at the Fruit Loop, fielding one rider in the W4′s (Anna Clark), one rider in the W3′s (which became a 1/2/3 and that was Anona Whitley), one rider in the M4′s, (Greg Sanders) and three riders in the 3′s (Dan Penner, Mark Crawford, Dave Dezellum). Usually we descend on this like flies but several commitments for the weekend had us mostly anywhere but the race. Lots and lots of ye oulde Black and Yellow were up on hood, “shredding the gnar” – a phrase I have no understanding the meaning of, but I assume it’s either A.) fun, or B.) illegal.

So far, initial reports have us guessing a 5th for Clark, 5th for Whitley, and pack finishes for the boys. All completely speculative and unofficial. Here’s a picture of Clark at Oregon Cycling Action.

You can navigate from that link to get information as Pat finishes uploading, writing, receiving race reports via carrier pigeon up in his mansion on the hill.

David Mackintosh has a Flickr set you can check out right here as well with a smattering of photos of the day’s events. The link to his set is right here. And here’s a shot of the women’s 4 field in what seems to be a tranquil moment.

photo by David Mackintosh

Onward and upward. Congrats to all the winners. Next week we disappear to a secret training camp high in the mountains where we’ll undergo brain and leg transplants, whiskey transfusions, as well as feats of strength. The nonexistent crowd will be amazed, and the local bartenders await the time to really make some hay.