Sea Otter Classic Recap

Headed out to the SOC Thursday morning by my lonesome self.  I actually enjoy going solo on road trips.  I get to crank the stereo, sing out loud, and stop whenever I want to.  No catering to others needs.  The downside is it can get pretty boring as well when the stretch of road just seems endless and never ending.  One of these days I will make time to stop at one of the many wineries off the 46.  I knew the weekend was going to be a good one with my good friends (Ryan, Sarah, Frank, Brian, Bill, and James) making the trip to the SOC as well.  I arrived in the afternoon and suited up for a mellow pre-ride of the course.  I stopped by the Santa Cruz booth to check out their new rides, the Nickel and the Butcher.  They look pretty sweet and the APP concept sounds good, but the weights of the frames are a little on the heavy side.  I still wouldn't mind having a 6" all-mountain bike for some trail thrashing.  The weather was absolutely perfect for the whole weekend.  Temps in the 60's and 70's with fairly calm winds.  Sea Otter is famous having extreme weather at either end of the spectrum.  Last year temps were in the 80's and 90's, while some years it's just a deluge.  The course had a couple of small changes from last year, but overall...it seemed easier from the last time I rode it.  I remember it being more fun, but the fun appeared to be lacking this year.  To make things more challenging and miserable, the race would have me completing 2 laps of the 19 mile/2600ft course.

This post will be visually disappointing.  I really didn't end up taking many pictures at all.  I'm horrible when it comes to taking pictures.  I was able to meet up with the Shea's after my pre-ride and we caravan'd back to the hotel.  I got all checked in, showered up and we headed out for some really good Sushi at this place called "OH Sushi".  I love good sushi and a tall beer.  It just so happened to be Ryan's birthday as well.  I told the waitress that it was Ryan's birthday and they busted out the most awesome Japanese techno version of happy birthday.  It sounded like something out of an anime theme song.  It was quite hilarious and for some reason Ryan became a RE-tard as shown below.

RY-tarded

It was nice to relax without worrying about waking up at the butt-crack of dawn to go race.  The CAT1 race didn't start until 2pm on Friday which allowed me to get plenty of rest and relaxation before then.  I woke up at a decent hour to go for a light spin downtown Monterey with Ryan and Sarah.  This was the first time I actually got to see the city of Monterey during the day.  Last year, I stayed in the not so pretty town of Salinas.  Monterey is much nicer.  It was another beautiful day and the bay was awesome with the sea lions sun bathing.  After that, we headed to the event since Ryan had a practice/qualifying session for Dual Slalom.  I didn't get a chance to see Ryan on his qualifying run since I had to get to the start of my XC race.

I saw some familiar faces at the start line and it looked like a pretty decent sized field of about 25 or so.  The race started off at a nice warm up pace.  I stayed towards the back of the pace line while on the track.  The pace started to pick up as we approached the turnoff onto the dirt.  I didn't want to be in the back of the pack so I decided to jump up towards the leaders and I managed to squeeze into the top 5 and avoid the bottleneck while turning off the track.  I was having so much fun battling with James Walsh for what I believe was the 4th and 5th position at the time for the first lap.  It was cool pushing each other and trying to work together to catch up to the leaders.  I was feeling strong and felt the flow on the singletracks.  I tried to pull away from James towards the end of the first lap, but that's a tall order.  He's a strong rider.  Before I knew it, James was on my wheel and behind his wheel was Griffith.  They both went by and I grabbed Griffith's wheel just as we passed the 2nd lap interchange.  I didn't exactly know where my feeder was so I slowed up a bit looking for Steve in the crowd of others in the feed zone.  I found Steve and grabbed my 2nd bottle.  Little did I know at this point that my 2 bottle strategy for a 3 hour race would be the demise of me.  A small gap opened up between Griffith and I was able to keep him and James in my sights until after the beach descent.  After that, I lost contact with them and then I really started to feel the effects of fatigue.  My water bottle was almost gone as I approached the aid station.  I passed on any type of offerings and looking back at it now, that was a mistake.  Shortly after that I ran out of fluids.  Dehydration/Cramping decided to join me for the rest of my race.  Halfway through the 2nd lap I start to get passed left and right.  I was completely blown.  I pedaled the rest of the race in survival mode.  I was really looking for some more gears to gear down to, but some jackass built his bike as a 1X9...lol!  I still love the 1X9 setup and I won't change it.  I still would have been going slow even if I had a granny ring.  I was no longer in contention and all I could do was just finish.  As soon as I thought I was near the finish, the organizers decided to add an additional 2 miles of up and down bullshit in the grass.  I was so demoralized at that point, but I pressed on and fought through the cramps.  The 2nd to last turn, my right calf just locked up hard which almost left me wanting to cry.  Finally I reach the end with a crappy time of 3:02.  That placed me 14th out of 20 finishers.  :-(  I was pretty trashed and to my surprise, there was no aid at the finish.  No water, no recovery, no food, no nothing.  I thought that was quite lame since I know I wasn't the only one suffering to finish.  If I was able to maintain my pace of the first lap, I believe I could have made the podium or be close to it.  Another lesson learned.  I do plan to take this experience and redeem myself next year at the Sea Otter.  My poor planning of fluids did me in.  I don't know what I was thinking trying to get away with 2 bottles.  I really didn't want to carry that extra bottle in my jersey.  Typically, I consume 1 bottle per hour.  The upside to all of this was that I was done racing and could enjoy the rest of the weekend!  :-)

My crappy XC photos

I picked up James from the airport that night and we had some good eats at Peppers Mexicali Cafe.  I had swordfish fajitas which was quite tasty.  Definitely going back there again.  The next morning we took some time visiting the exhibist.  James got his rear hub rebuilt at Enduro and it was time to hit the course again.  James was racing the CAT3 race on Sunday.  This was his first time at Sea Otter, so I showed him the course while giving him pointers on certain sections.  After the pre-ride, we all went back to OH Sushi for some more tasty raw fish.

Next morning saw us getting up early.  James' race started at 8am.  As he was racing, I decided to drop my shock off at Rockshox to service the air seal.  I also grabbed an IS front brake adaptor for Ryan as he swapped out forks on his Blur 4X bike the night before.  He was racing in the afternoon.  I watched James finish his race and to my surprise, he wound up winning his age division.  He was stoked!  Not bad for guy who'd been riding for less than a year.  I met up with Ryan and we finished assembling his brake.  He was ready for practice.  We all watched Ryan compete in his first Dual Slalom event and first ever MTB race.  I volunteered to push his bike up the hill after each of his runs.  He was looking good until a crash in the semi's which bumped him out of the finals.  I'm sure he would have made the finals if it wasn't for that crash.  He was able take home 3rd in his finals.  By the time Ryan finished racing, the event was already being torn down.  The Sierra Nevada beer garden was still open.  I had a Brown Ale and it was by far the best tasting Sierra Nevada I've had.  I used to love the Pale Ale years ago, but I think I got burned out on.  I have yet to see this Brown Ale in the stores.  That pretty much ended our weekend at the Sea Otter as we left for the long drive home.

Ryan in the starting gate

James is the winner! (sandbagger! ;-))

Next year I plan to enter in more than just XC.  After watching Dual Slalom, I really want to give it a go next year.  It's time to elevate my skills in different disciplines.  I would also love to give the DH a go, but I would like to have a little bit bigger bike for that.  For now, I'm planning to build a Santa Cruz Jackal DJ bike to hit the pump track and maybe the jumps if I feel brave enough.  The next event is one of my favorites.  The Idyllwild Spring Challenge stage race.  The race consists of three events, XC, Super D, and a Time Trial.  I'm really looking forward to this weekend.