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Muddy Sea Otter |
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Written by Adam Craig
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Saturday, 15 April 2006 |
Anyone who’s raced bikes for a while has been to the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey, CA every year for as long as they’ve taken themselves and their sponsors seriously. It’s a great event on all fronts, racing, crowd turnout, weather, and general enthusiasm for riding bikes around really fast. I’ve gotta admit though, after seven years for me and at least ten for Carl, we were itching for some aspect of the event to change and spice things up for the veterans. When we started hearing rumors in Curacao of the record moisture for the month of march and early april in Cali, we started getting excited for a proper slugfest at the Otter.
It seemed like heinous weather would make the racing more interesting for everyone involved. It was a tough call though, we wanted nasty racing condtions, but most of the sea otter magic is the crowd size and energy, so raceday sunshine to bring out the masses would be nice. For such a tall order, we pretty much got just what we asked for. Sunny skies and soggy ground.
The Sea Otter Classic has always been a time based three or four day stage race, with the lowest cumulative time taking the overall W. This year the organizers went to an Omnium format, with riders collecting points for their finishes in each of the four stages, Super XC, Time Trial, Short Track and Cross Country. I don’t really know what this means, never had time over the week to read the rules and see how it applied to our struggling… The first application came in the Super Cross Country, an hour (by that they mean 1:20…) timed circuit race that took place partly on the Laguna Seca racetrack and partly on a grassy (by that I mean quagmire) hillside infield. Always looking for creative equipment to race on, I had my roommate bring down my Cyclocross bike and fired that up for the race. Since Carl was wise enough not to Preride the course, he was at my mercy for tire selection advice on the mountain bike. For some reason I recommended the 1.6” Michelin Semi Slicks we had used in the dust last year. For some reason he took my word for it and spent the entire race pedaling three revolutions for every foot of forward motion. Oops… I forgot to race at the start and went into the quagmire in the last third of the field. This was actually more entertaining than frustrating as I got to watch lots of people falling in the mud in various fashions. I used the cross bike to pass on the road and rail through the mud, eventually making it up to 23rd place. Carl used his slicks and cross country running background to slide into 40th. I guess we brought this upon ourselves.
Next up was the Time Trial. It took about four minutes. That’s too short for this kid. Barry Wicks crashed across the finish line in front of me and still beat me. Carl put knobbies on his bike and therefore beat Barry. Ralph Naef of Switzerland proved that he’s the man out of the blocks and won in 3:47. I totally beat women’s winner Mary Mcconnelaug but at least 15sec with my 4:07…
Saturday brought us the Short Track, which was on an even shorter track than usual due to the impressive sogginess of the hillside playing host to the event. We once again elected not to preride and get totally hosed before the race. We had our shiny bikes to think about, and Frank was already over bike washing for the weekend. Instead we watched a hiliarous epic battle in Heat One between Ryan Trebron and Walker Ferguson, crashing and running their way around the course, pointing out the bad spots to us with their faces. Walker took it in grand style. These observations led us to break out the secret weapons, the vintage 1.75” Michelin Wildgrippers, the best tire in the universe in these types of conditions, and probably an unfair advantage. Our heat got under way with a huge crowd and sunny skies, not that the sun was drying anything out in the least. After I passed three guys in the first turn, thanks to the Miche’s, I thought it could be a fun day. Carl came to the same realization as he pedaled effortlessly past guys with their heads in the mud. I settled into the teens somewhere and watched a group form off the front, noting where they were bogging down and running. These observations allowed me to figure out a clever route around the course that made staying on the bike possible and pretty darn quick. The lead group wasn’t going anywhere so I started reeling them in using said clever routes. With three laps to go I was amongst the leaders, who hadn’t changed their struggling ways. My routes were still working so I set about passing Brentjens, then Hermida, then it was only Jean-Christophe Peraud. I got him on the fast (for me and Carl) downhill right and got a gap immediately. He brought it back on the pavement before stacking impressively in front of me in a mud bog. Face muddy for sure… I kept it clean and charged (slogged) across the line first, which according to my trivia expert is the first time a Gringo has won a stage at the Sea Otter, ever. Carl cruised across in the teens with a big smile and we laughed about the general hilarity of the situation..
Sunday’s XC definitely wasn’t going to be all fun and games. There were far too many steep climbs on the new course for that… The first five minutes were quite amusing, 100+ mountain bikers in the 44x11 on a racetrack is a recipe for some serious wheel rubbing, spoke/derailleur smashing complemented by a bunch of guys who take themselves way too seriously yelling at each other, capped off by a local hero givin’ ‘er off the front, only to miss a turn and end up way off the back… Once we turned off the racetrack things settled into normal. Me somewhere around the lead group and Carl just off that as we coasted casually down the singletrack, wondering how much poision oak we’d have on Monday (turns out we’d have a lot…). I gradually had early season fitness reality set in, sagging off the lead group, then sagging off the chase group to finish lap one in no-mans land. I thought I was seeing flashes of white and blue in the woods behind me and figured I could hang out with Carl and try to ride fast. Somehow I got myself together and regained the chase group splinters, setting up a sprint with promising Youngster Sam Schultz, he didn’t want to sprint, as I’d drug him in for the last 15min, but I insisted, we both need the practice. It was a good time and I totally got him for 14th place and a couple UCI points. Decker rolled in with a smile soon after, he had used a very clever mud bog circumnavigation technique to pass a group of guys and end up 18th. Solid XC for us considering how junky the winter weather and therefore training has been in OR…
A couple notes:
The Giant Industry Cup Team laid the stank down in the XC Sunday morning, with new team director Jon Stierwalt winning the event and Andrew and Jake taking third and fourth on the day. Not sure how we fared in the team standings but the XC, and therefore, proper bragging rights, was well dominated.
Sea Otter this year was prototype pretty much everything time for me, which is always interesting and educational. I was on Shimano’s 2007 XTR group, handmade protos that definitely work better than the old stuff, which is pretty amazing. It’s lighter too. Fox set me up on their 2007 F80X suspension fork (in pearl white) which has a pretty amazing damper and, therefore, feel on the dirt. The fork was complemented by an ’07 model Float RP23 rear shock, new propedal options that balanced perfectly with the Anthem and the fork. Last but definitely not least was a Version 3 prototype Anthem Composite frame, we figured we’d hang all the other cool stuff on something black and shiny. It was the right thing to do. The composite properties apply spectacularly well to our flagship race bike, making it feel even more disgustingly responsive to any input. After a couple days riding this rig on the trails here in Bend I’m pretty amazed at how well the whole thing works. It’s a good time.
Thanks for reading, hope all is well with ya’ll.
Adam and Carl’s weather predicting Giant team. |
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