You See, There’s Two Kinds Of Phil Collins On This Earth.

Yeah, you read that right. Phil Collins.

As two wheeled sorts, we’re at the inflection point between the two very distinct forms of Phil Collins in the universe. At this time of year, we all deal with both incarnations. There’s the fat Phil Collins, with the expanding gut and continual failure despite the best of intentions:

And then there’s the sort who seeks the rhythm. The pocket. The butthole. The right cadence up Newberry. It’s true. And say what you will about Phil Collins’ crimes against adult contemporary music (and the arguments therein are valid and plentiful), but anyone who speaks ill of the man’s ability to skullfuck a drumset is but of the purest form of clueless assrocket. To wit:

So cheers to us all. To the belly warriors, their paunch hardened like a puppy’s; and to those tapping out the cadence in search of the elusive rhythm, and to those of us who lay in the great inbetween. You ride.

We’re all in the soup now, as it were, deep end or shallow. And soon the cannons of road 2012 shall sound, and to arms we will go, be we groove masters or Lords of the Onion Rings, managers of Cheeseburger garages.

Get Fat Day!

We should allow ourselves at least one (hundred) days to eat a ton and drink an insane amount of tasty hot toddies, right? Sure we should.

Here at Ironclad HQ we’ll be tossing the ol’ pigskin around and employing a fully operational bloody mary bar, then gorging on epic amounts of turkey, ham, and all the fixings. There may or may not be some bicycle riding involved….

We wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving as well!

Levo Third At OBRA CX Champs In The Singlespeeds!

Congrats to Jenn Levo for securing 3rd place in the singlespeed field for the OBRA CX Championship race! Well done Jenn!

And in the birthday department, join us in wishing happy happy’s to our Kira Crawford and Lana Pressey!

Croy Scores 2nd In Final Crusade-a-fest

Congrats to the team for a lighter attended but equally fun Crusade season, special kudos to Stephanie Croy for her 2nd place in the Mst 35+ B race Sunday.

More info later. Tired now.

Remember the Alamo.

Safety First, Always

A great write up by Jonathan Maus of the recent “Skyline Summit” to discuss rider and driver safety on the west hills roads we all love (most of the time) and train on frequently.

Read his write up here.

We’re very proud of our Brianna and Ace for showing up, and for Brianna for sharing her story in front of the panel.

Let’s all use common sense and courtesy out there folks.

Crossing Signals

Another weekend where the powers that be said “be ready for rain” but the forecast held out to be rather wrong, whereby we had nice temps and nicer skies.

No one raced Saturday, but Sharon, Barker, Brody (Brody!), and Travis all went to Barton to take on the gravel pits, all yielding fine finishes. The rest of us worked on our houses, slept off fevers, or recovered from seeing Mastodon and Red Fang the night before.

Halloweenie!

So word came in that the Halloween weekend was a rip roaring time for the Ironclad folks. Renting a house as a headquarters/triage in Bend, our peeps split their time fighting zombies and chodes, riding MTB instead of racing CX, and making car costumes for Sunday’s whiskey race. Lots of excellent photos here.

Sadly, a virus was released among the team, causing flesh eating zombification to take over the house. Just a few escaped. The rest look like this:

they used to be so pretty when they weren’t the undead.

We’ll be all over the map this weekend. Not sure how many you’ll see at what races, but you’re bound to see some. However, if they look anything like the folks in the image above, remember you can only kill them with a head shot.

Bend, Don’t Brake

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.

This One Time, At Team Camp…..

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

Hillsboro Hullaballoo!

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