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Sea Otter Classic Report |
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Written by Adam Craig
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Thursday, 19 April 2007 |
There are a couple things a bike racer can count on: Death, (contract employee) taxes, and the Sea Otter Classic. Good or bad, it’s an event we’re always going to be at in some capacity or another. In the last couple years on Team Giant we’ve kind of embraced the fact that it’s going to be a busy event, between sponsors in town, new equipment, media opportunities and (don’t forget) racing, there’s a lot going on.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s the biggest event of the year in terms of spectator attendance and general level of enthusiasm. It’s great to see shoulder to shoulder foot and bike traffic at a cycling event for three days in a row. It’s also great to have a chance to catch up with old friends, new sponsors and everyone in between. The racing is pretty entertaining too.
This year’s event kicked off in fresh style with the first ever Sea Otter Super D on Thursday afternoon. Kelli, Carl and I were fired up on the prospect of easing into the weekend with a short, fun race, and hopefully getting to challenge some downhillers, who were allegedly all signed up for the SD. Turns out we didn’t really get to ease into things and not many downhillers showed up. Not surprising on either front… The course was well under ten minutes (turned out it was 6:15 or so) and basically an up-down-flat affair. Carl and I got handily smoked in the “run with your bike in the clumsiest fashion possible” start and set about playing catch-up. Using outside lines and gratuitous pedaling I caught up to the lead duo of the current U23 XC World Champ, Nino Schurterer and some random guy in a blank skinsuit just as we crested the first and only short climb. If I hadn’t known how terrifying it was going to be in about one minute, I would have looked back to see Carl close to the crest but still trapped amongst the heathen. Fortunately, over the course of the next two minutes of bombing 40mph fireroad with blind waterbars and random hidden rain ruts, Deck was able to sort his way through some dudes and not get taken out. If he had the option of looking up for a split second, the sight of some random guy passing his white-sleeved skinsuit clad teammate going about twice as fast would have greeted his scared eyes. I got my doors blown off proper. Random guy used healthy heapings of courage and skill to open a good solid gap on me before the last minute of flat doubletrack. I had to dig deeper than I ever remember digging to reel duder in. My finishline breathing was more labored than it ever had been, ever. It was really hard to high five a dry-heaving Carl Decker after his fourth place effort. We were rich. Real-live prize money coming our way for super D glory. Real-live gas money coming Jurgen Beneke’s way too after his heroic second place effort. For those of you who don’t know Jurgen, he was the World Cup Downhill Champion in 1993, and has been retired since I’ve been on the circuit. To swing by the Sea Otter in the RV with your wife and almost mop the floor with a bunch of current pros is pretty impressive for a contractor from New York. Proud effort from an awesome guy, who happens to have been teammates with our fabulous Soignieur, Elke Brutsaert. Due to Kelli declining my offer to write her own Super D report section, I’m going to transcribe what she says to me from the couch across the room. “It was horrifying.” “Marla, flying through the air next to me.” “I was like ‘sweet, I guess I’ll see you at the bottom’” “But thank god I’m an XC dork so I had the legs to pedal by her before the finish.” “There was some girl I don’t know in the mix too.” Kelli won too, after pedaling really hard to pass a crazy ex-downhiller. Sound familiar? This similar Super D outcome set the weekend.s tone for Kelli and I. Copying each other. This is also how I’m going to condense this report down to about five more sentences, starting right about meow. TT was pretty uninspired for Team Giant. Tired legs from super d working led to below average finishes in a four-minute event, it was an active rest day of sorts… Short Track saw glorious thunderstorms muck things up just perfect for the green meenie mud tires, unfortunately, our legs were still mucked up, 9th for me and just barely pulled for Carl and Kelli. XC day dawned sunny and windy. Unfortunately, Carl double flatted out on the first lap, not his tires, both of his legs were flattened by a cold from the frigid short track… Kelli and I suffered from first lap double flats too, fortunately though, we rallied and started passing people on the second twenty mile lap to finish 10th and 7th, respectively (KE, AC). It was good to finish the weekend feeling strong for a little bit, good morale boost before heading across the pond to Europe for the first world cup in Houffalize this coming weekend. On a serious, and slightly irritated note, there was a lot of grumbling about the inaugural Super D course. A few well-known people in the industry have a vision of what a SD race is supposed to be, perfect singletrack, rolling climbs, rocky bits, this and that. We’d all love that to be reality, unfortunately, and obviously, IT’S NOT. There were a lot of no-shows at the start because people thought the course was too pedally and was too much fireroad. Guess what, on a mountain bike ride, from time to time, you PEDAL and ride FIREROADS. It’s fun. So What. The Otter promoters worked with what terrain they had available and put together a course that had a sprint finish between a retired downhiller and a World Cup XC racer in both the men’s and women’s races. Doesn’t get much more fair than that. Everyone has to realize that super D is what it is, it’s lemans start, it’s individual Time Trial, it’s mass start, it’s singletrack, it’s climbing, it’s doubletrack, it’s jumping, it’s dowhnhilling. It’s friggin mountain biking. It’s fun. That’s why there were hundreds of amateurs at the start waiting to race their faces off for ten minutes or less, whether lycra clad on hardtails or sporting fullfaces and goggles on DH bikes. They were fired up to RACE, not even thinking about writing a letter complaining about the course or staging a protest. Here’s to those guys and gals, as much as I hate to say it, Keepin’ it Real
Thanks for reading. |
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