My life on a bike.: Sea Otter 2015

The trip to Sea Otter is always an early start with a 5:30 am roll out time, but this year I had the privilege of driving solo because I decided to race XC on Sunday morning. The drive may have been long (and I had no one to split gas with), but it gave me the freedom to stay at the track and pre-ride XC on Friday and hang out after the race for a bit on Sunday.

I rolled out of HB at 5:30 AM sharp (with the exception of a quick stop at Starbucks) and the rest of the crew left Corona at the same time with the plan of meeting up "whenever someone decided to stop for some food". As I cruised up the 405 I hit the usual LA traffic, a couple of accidents and some construction, so I was sure I was WAY behind Matt and Eric. When the 5 and 210 freeways merged, I was completely shocked to see what looked like Matt's car a few hundred yards in front of me. Funny how things just work out....

Yeah, that was pretty good timing.

We arrived at Sea Otter around noon, I checked in at sign ups, and headed in to the venue to check out the vendors and Fridays action. Of course the first stop was over at the Red Monkey tent to see the HMIC himself.

Red Monkey enters the big leagues with their first booth at Sea Otter. Thanks for the food (and the beer!).

Sea Otter is a unique experience to say the least. Not only are there are a ton of brands showing their latest and greatest product (most of it for sale at the venue too), but there's also racing going on the entire time for all kinds of disciplines and skill levels. As a spectator you get to see a little bit of everything over a couple of days.

I decided to skip the usual road ride up 17 Mile Drive on Friday so I could pre-ride the XC course. The course leaves the speedway and heads out into the hills on a series of fire roads, jeep trails, and access roads before dumping into the first singletrack sections. I knew the start was going to be fast and tough as there wasn't anything to separate the field other than some punchy climbs. The course was probably a 50/50 mix of singletrack and fire road. The fire road climbs on the last 1/3rd of the course were steep which would make the end of the race interesting!

There's some pretty amazing views on the XC course.

There were a lot of singletrack climbs on the XC course.

Saturday morning we did our traditional ride from Monterrey, out highway 68, up Laureles Grade, over to Carmel, and then back to Monterrey through Pebble Beach and 17 Mile Drive. It's a great loop that's just under 45 miles and goes through some amazing scenery. Laureles Grade is always a challenge... Both going up (2 miles averaging 8% grade) and then down. Our crew has had some big blow outs heading down the back side due to wheels getting too hot, so this year everyone decided to take it easy and even make a few stops to let things cool down if necessary. Thankfully, everyone made it down without any issues.

Entering Laureles Grade. Pain was not too far up the road from this sign.

Following the ride and our usual post ride feast at Chipotle, it was back to Laguna Seca for more vendors, Dual Slalom and Cyclocross. Those two events are late in the day on Saturday and always draw big rowdy crowds. The Cyclcross course goes through the middle of the beer garden so there really isn't a more convenient race for our crew to watch.

Mr Sea Otter: Always a gracious host.

After a little pre-race bike prep in the hotel room on Saturday evening, we got the crew together and took over the hotel bar for Supercross. It was great getting to hang out with the TWMX guys and swap some stories while watching the racing.

I was exhausted on Saturday night and went to bed right after SX. After all, Sunday was another early call for RACE DAY.

Check out a quick Go Pro Vid on Vimeo!