Ironclad Cycling

The team descends on Bend in great numbers tonight, replete with a funny team theme for costumes, as well as bank robberies, spreading of disease, and general asshattery.

This author sadly is en route to Philadelphia, so updates might be sparse, but it’s a good idea to keep checking our Flickr page for pictures and updates….

When the dust settles and tests come back, we’ll give you a full update. Until then, rock and roll ain’t noise pollution.

Sorry, no flutes in this story. Just pitchers of margaritas and bloody marys, huge meals, and long days in the saddle. That is what training camp is to Ironclad in a nutshell. That and bonding, laughing, joking, suffering, snoring, farting, and all the rest.

Cyclocross is still in full swing, but while we’re there in limited capacity to have some fun and keep some fitness, our focus is firmly locked on the impending 2012 road season.

Our roster has grown with some key acquisitions on both the men’s and women’s side, and we look to add a few more in the coming months to round out some gaps. We hope to bring our aggressive brand of racing back in 2012 with some new faces, and all the old faces, having lost one single rider from the ’11 roster. Our elite teams are bolstered and ready to take on new challenges. Our lower category teams are bolstered as well and poised to move riders up through the ranks.

We’ve cobbled together our early season schedule, replete with the usual January team rides and a few new ones, and then our Spring camp is set as well. We’ll be in Pendleton in March, poaching some of the awesome cycle Pendleton routes, and hardening up the old threshing machine for the wet racing to come shortly thereafter. Good times. Really good times. Last year we had a dome home in Eugene. The year before we had Eva’s house in Kennewick, WA. The training mimicked the racing to come with the temps and precipitation, and the post-ride activity training also was honed.

Example:

after 250 miles in 2.5 days, some drinks are in order

Well, most of us once again stayed away from the frothing throngs of Cross Crusade Crowdness, but a few brave souls went down to throw a few punches, and throw a few punches they did! Our Jenn Levo and Marylynn King took their single speeds into the geared women’s B field, and notched 8th and 2nd! Ha! Ha!
After Saturday’s single speed excellence at Het Meer, and seeing so many other ladies choosing Single Speeds as their weapon of choice, you gotta figure a women’s SS field is only a matter of time in coming! Sharon Anderson took to the fray in the Master A field as well (also on a single speed, supercomputer Clont points out below).   Chelsea Momany took to the beginner women’s field, and managed a fine result in the top 3rd on her Mountain Bike.  Dave Dezellum was our lone dude in the Mst B race, since it was a few blocks from his house.

Most of us decided a nice road ride was a better idea for a Sunday, lest we get caught up what some may think is a good problem to have, or silly chat board sniping. Eesh, people, let’s chill out. But, I suppose the Crusade is reaping what it has sewn.

Dave and Robin Condon have a nice set of photos here, including this excellent shot of Marylynn, taking time out from her march to 2nd place, to play a little “Sand Superman”.  And of course Pat Malach has his recap here.

photo by Dave and Robin Condon

Them’s the headlines. Marylynn King returned from France to race hard, Jenn Levo managed an impressive 3rd, Vanessa Ditto did her first ever Cross race and did well, and Ace dominated the A’s race on the very flat course – on a single speed.

Barker, Dezellum, Dave, Brianna, and Sharon also raced, with a bunch of other Ironclads riding out to cheer, heckle, and give away singles.  As in dollar bills, yo.

Fun day today, lots and lots of laughs and good company on an EXCELLENT course. Well done, Zone 5 productions! Here’s a bunch of pics for you to look at.

And Will Walle took a bunch of excellent photos, and those are here.

Ace, left, winner A’s. Levo, right, 3rd B’s – both on single speeds

Why that’s Trevor Spahr! Trevorcakes! Spahrticus, that’s who! He’s the only one we’d let your parents meet since he’s so darn polite, and last night he took your daughter on a blind date and brought home 6th in the Singlespeed race in the darkness.

Willis, Cristina, and Lana also went and fumbled around under ill-fitting clothes in back seats of parental-esque sedans. Or some shit. On another note: Go Timbers!

Word comes in from the wire from this weekend’s mud-centric feats of bicycle strength, and the word is good. Large squads went to both Ninkrossi to take on the dreaded “N” climb built into the course, as well as PIR’s Heron Lakes edition.

Tales of woe and pain seem to dominate the Ninkrossi race reports, with mud, elevation, and ouch being the keywords. The 2nd year of this race, but whereas last year was sunny and hot, this year had plenty of goopy mud.

At PIR, a lot of wolves made the sojourn since it was so easily accessible to the Portlanders. Lots of points finishes for our ladies, and our men turned in some great rides as well.

As usual, you can find lots of visual evidence on ye olde Obra chat board for tons of photos, Dave Roth, Jose Sandoval, Pat Malach, – they got the scoop, yo.

But here’s one from Jose Sandoval of Team Cthulu of our Sharon and Levo.

smile sleeping, it’s an art

Your humble author lives on an aircraft these days, and I have nothing but text messages and rambling drunken voicemails to relay the team’s activities lately. By and large we have a few men and women out there plugging away at cyclocross, yielding some good results. We expect more to come.

And though we didn’t make our usual yearly change to a different themed skinsuit (instead opting to keep our rad Wolf motif going) we are happy to tell you that we’ve come up with perhaps the best themed costume idea for the Halloween weekend. Wait ’til you see what we got for you.

As for me….well, I’m kinda like this guy (except pasty “airplane” white, and reeking of beer):

We got a lot to say, but too knackered to talk about it yet. We’ll write some action up soon, but know that Sharon Sandoval and Cristina Mihaescu are fighting the good fight and bringing home some lunkers, as are some others on the team.

More later. Sleep now.

Or something like that, is what Shakespeare meant to say. The Cross Crusade kicked off its insanity horde Sunday routine with the customary 1st race at Alpenrose Dairy, and a few Ironclad went down to contest the matter. We had Penner, Willis, Alana, Barker, Saudan, Dizzy, Mihaescu, Pressey, Levo, and Thompson all heading down to give the ol’ grey mare a run. Or a fall. Or a slip. Or a flat. Some shit, I don’t know.

Most of us couldn’t face up to the hordes, and some of us are still on recharge mode from a super long road season. You’ll see the usual wolf pack soon enough, but until then you just get pictures by Jose of The Fuz to look at, and one of Lana feeling the pain. Hooray to Jose for taking some rad pics. And of course Pat has a pile of evidence as well.

recovered from the Mad Dog 20/20 guzzling of Thursday

Lanabear gets after it

Super small contingent (2) went down to Canby, Dave and Killer. The Colonel showed up on a road ride, bringing Carnitas Burritos for good recovery action.

Great race, awesome course, several thousand less people than tomorrow. Thanks Word-RCB for putting this cool race on!

Good luck Alpenrosers!