High In The Desert

Some initial goodness out of Bend – Crawfy and Brianna top 5 crit finishes, Brianna wins the TT to move up to 2nd overall with points. And we know she can climb like a bullet, but the race is short, so we’ll see. Crawfy snared a point in the TT too. The men’s 4/5 team is Atlin, Joe, Barker, and Conley helped in the Crit before retiring to the breweries. All good, more to come.

Tabor Goodness

Sorry a bit late, folks! Tabor this week was another hum dinger and now the summer heat’s arrival is finally affecting some races and boiling some brains. Mmmmm, brains.

Our new recruit Brianna Walle kept up the clean slate of wins at Tabor in her first ever year of bike racing. After a few more crits and close-combat racing to ensure safety, we’re sure the upgrade looms. Tabor is kind of weird like that. Dave Roth got some good pictures. And Vanessa Cass got her best ever finish at Tabor, finishing second making it an Ironclad 1-2. Well done ladies.

Brianna on the attack

In the Senior Men’s race we had Cat 2 racers Drew Willis and Trevor Spahr duking it out with Willis posting up a fine 9th place! Nice job Drew! p.s. – we weren’t blocking.

Atlin Sestrich raced the 5’s, and Mark Koller raced the 4’s and both survived.

In the women’s open we had Anona, The Ace, and the newly upgraded Stephanie Croy throwing punches and finishing 5th, 6th, and 7th. Nice work ladies! Again, Dave Roth got a good pic of Anona and The Ace in action.

This weekend sees some long training rides, some cold beers, some High Desert Omnium action, and of course, we hope, a Dutch win in the World Cup final. Hup Holland!

Was That The Hardest PIR Ever?

Kinda feels like it.

In the 1/2/3, about 157,000 riders DNF”d, but Harwood managed 8th. In the 3/4, it must have looked like a monkey trying to fuck a football for half the race until a suitable break went up the road. Good christ that was tough. Windy, hot, fun. Ace 8th!

Post race Mexican food and a fire took care of every little thing.

Pictures really soon….but here’s one that Pat Malach got fer us last night…nice shootin’, Pat.

all the pigs all lined up

Give ‘Em Hell, Mike!

We wish Mike Murray all the luck today as he goes under the knife for bypass surgery at Providence. Good luck Mike, and good luck Candi.

We look forward to a grumpy post on the OBRA board soon, to let us know you’re ok, old boy.

Good luck, and enjoy the drugs…..if you end up with any leftover, we’ll take ‘em.

You’re in our thoughts and hearts today!

Murderhorn Subdued

Well alrighty then. Murderhorn. Pwned.

Johannes was 7th in the 3’s, Atlin 2nd in the 5’s, and Brianna won the women’s 4 with Steph 2nd or 3rd and Vanessa somewhere top ten (although OBRA has this field’s results completely off at press time, soon to be fixed). Anona and Ace raced with the senior women.  Koller raced the 4’s.

Seemed like a good night to us! Thanks Murderhorn!

Tuesday Quickie

Threw some riders in a race, got some fun results. In the 1/2/3 we had Gerow, Crawfy and Harwood locking horns ending in 34th, 14th, and 12th respectively. Harwood escaped near disaster in the end…..good thing. PIR wrecks are the worst kind.

In the 3/4 we had 6 riders, 4 of whom were women, andafter the initial escape plan was foiled, we still got The Ace in the break of the night and she came home in 7th. We figured we’d do our part in our new campaign “Beautify the Peloton”. Last night was a case in point. Dave and Greg escorted Anna (welcome back, graduate!), The Ace, Lana, and new rider Brianna Walle in the race.

To that end, join us in officially welcoming Brianna to the fold. Her considerable 1st year talents are sure to be cultivated with the rest of our women’s team. She’s off to a great start this year, winning most of her first ever bike races, incuding 3 consecutive Tabors. We’re happy to have her on board and she significantly bolsters our already impressive women’s team. Welcome aboard, Brianna!

introducing Brianna Walle to Ironclad

Afterward, being a bit of a chilly night, we decided on a fire to warm ourselves. And backyard fires usually come with beers, so we enlisted Trevor to haul the booty. Observe.

Monday Night Open Mic

We brought a few logs to the fire last night at PIR, where we saw Conley, Lana and Alana on the road, and Trevor Spahr and lil’ bit Anona Whitley on the dirt side of things, all with really good finishes. Anona 5th in the pro women, Trevor 4th in the Cat 2’s for the dirrrrrty side of things, and Alana 7th, Lana 11th in the women’s open, and Conley 6th all by his lonesome in the 4/5. Seems like the good times and easy living of Elkhorn was years ago. We got some other catching up to do…..let’s look back in the last 10 days worth of fun.

where have all the good times gone?

As we hit the really meaty part of the season, it’s important to pay as much attention to recovery as one does to training. This includes diet and everything….we at Ironclad have adopted a rigorous nutrition program as seen here.

we can help you

Outside of racing, we went on a silly bike ride with cowboys and all kinds of zany shit, courtesy of Team Beer.

yeehaw

And prior to all of this we swiped Luciano to pump some beer and hot dogs into him at a secret undisclosed location. Marley was there too, the official dog of OBRA. After some intense negotiating – “Will you?” “Yes.” – we locked up Luciano to be the voice of our upcoming races in July!

Ironclad Wins Swan Island For 2nd Consecutive Year!

In the men’s 3’s race, we brought home another W – same as last year. A less dominant but equally effective effort was turned in by Dave, Crawfy, Dizzy, and our winner – Jeff Harwood – who scored his first criterium win as a Cat 3! Well done Haywood!

In the Men’s 4/5 we had Koller, Conley, and The Colonel himself duking it out, with the boys sheparding Conley to a fine 4th place finish (we think).

In the women’s 1/2/3 we had Anona Alona…..but she did just fine all by herself and posted a fine result. Unsure of actual placing at presstime.

In the W4 we had Alana, Steph, Vanessa, and Stagaire Brianna taking the fight to the field of 28, and we ended up with Alana in a fine 2nd place when all the points were tallied up! Nice job! Lots of pictures of all the races here.

(l-r) Harwood, Dizzy, Crawfy, Dave

Vanessa, Alana, Steph, Anona – missing, Brianna

special cheering section on this team

Trevor Spahr Wins Thursday Track Race

Trevor done brung us a nice fish winning the Cat 3 Omnium at the Thursday Night Track race at Alpenrose!

Nice work Bickle!

Tabor ness!

Tabor.

Good times.

Cat 2 racer Drew Willis took to his first ever open race since upgrading and got a nice 10th place. The young buckhorn Atlin Sestrich got 3rd in the 5’s, and our women took to the 4’s and the open to score a bunch of nice finishes. Barker rolled in the 4’s along with Killer Koller.  The Carver rocked it in the 3’s. There’s some pictures forthcoming, and there’s new about our races!