Since Lester doesn’t believe the stories of crappy weather at past events, we’ve pulled some strings. Hopefully it doesn’t backfire.
artwork courtesy of scott shearer designs
Personalized Weather Forecast for Sea Otter 2010
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Author Archives: xdscott
Sea Otter Classic 2009 Wrap Up
My buddy Scott and I hit the Sea Otter again and this year we had another comrade by the name of Lester join in on the fun. Lester and I drove over from the Capital City on Thursday and Scott headed out from San Jose and was already there with our camp spot lined out. The three of us took a short ride to give Lester a preview of some of the XC course. He raced on Friday mid-afternoon.
Pre-race mellow
The weather was the best I’ve seen in three years of the Classic and while a bit windy, it was otherwise perfect. Scott and I rode to the top of the last climb and shortly after we arrived, Lester came chugging along and we yelled at him a bit and cheered him on. He looked to be in good spirits despite the headwind and mentioned something about beer.
Lester's final climb
almost done...
We jumped back on the bikes hoping to catch him at the finish and get a shot of him crossing the line but we missed him. When we got back to camp, we found this:
Post-race mellow
Lester even made it on to cycling news!
Scott and I raced Saturday and woke that morning to Laguna Seca completely socked in with fog but relatively warm, especially when compared to last year. Shorts and short sleeves. It was a bit brisk riding through the mist but the forecast was for the high 60s. Once at the staging area we learned that the start times were delayed 30 minutes. I even heard one dude whining about how his nutrition and hydration schedule was now going to be off. I hadn’t considered that but then it really started to eat at me.
It was still real soupy when we finally started and I wasn’t off racetrack portion before I couldn’t see through my glasses for all the condensation. I had to peer over the top of them on the fireroad descent to the singletrack. Otherwise, riding through the fog was nice, in a limited sphere of visibility. The day only got better as it burned off and the sun came out. Absolutely cosmic weather-wise.
Lupine powered
Scott and I rolled through the finish line just a few minutes apart, both of us having shaved off decent chunks of time from last year.
We met Lester back in camp, had some celebratory beers and headed down to the expo area for burritos. Among the many sights and events going on was the well-publicized “Golden Bike” that GT was sponsoring. Basically, the best placed amateur from one race gets to race the Golden Bike at the next race and either keep it or lose it to the next guy. At the end of the series, the top dog gets a brand new ride. Among the race perks are your own set of cheerleaders to spur you on. Perhaps to avoid upstaging the bike, they were low key and went somewhat unnoticed.
Golden Girls
However, a 19-mile XC race and a few jumbo bottles of Lagunitas later and Scott was paying a bit more attention.
Goldfinger
Then there was this guy standing in front of the Specialized tent…
The Lung and I
Leading up to the Sea Otter and all weekend long we tried to convince Lester of how bad the weather typically is with overcast, wind, rain, and cold. He wasn’t buying any of it and just kept applying the sunscreen. So, we’ve already punched his ticket for a return next year when the weather most likely will be back to normal.
Sea Otter Classic 2009 Preview
This year’s edition of the Sea Otter Classic kicks off tomorrow. After a couple hours of pretending to work in the morning, Lester and I are headed to the Laguna Seca Raceway. We’ll meet up with my buddy Scott who will already have the campsite staked, overlooking the racetrack and the Sea Otter village.
We’ll pick up our race packets and head out for a short ride on the course to give Lester a look at what’s to come on Friday when he races that afternoon in the Clydesdale category. After that we’ll likely find ourselves at the Crown & Anchor in Monterey. That place has good curry.
For all of you that can’t be there, here’s a look at Lester’s new Clydesdale racing kit. And yes, the feet are SPD compatible.
Lester's Sea Otter Racing Kit
–artwork by s. shearer
We’ll taunt Lester with beers somewhere along the final climb where I’m sure he’ll return the favor on Saturday. Morning. Before 10. Not that that’s too early for beer.
The Man Machine
Rode the Centennial Park area today with Ron P., die Mensch-Maschine. He ran the Ash Canyon 8K trail race Saturday morning, winning his class and taking 7th overall. Then he did Duck Hill a couple times with his dogs the same day. He’d done Duck Hill in the morning before I showed up around 11. Luckily, I had a lot of beers Saturday night with Lester to sorta even things out.
die Mensch-Maschine
We took off from his house and after a few decent climbs and descents on rocky jeep road, we hit some of the various single track in the area. Following a canyon uphill to a big rock cairn, we headed a little further up and found some slightly new stuff being ridden in.
Cairn
Much of it was loose and many of the switchbacks were way too sharp to be rideable but with some work it would be more trail to ride with some decent climbing. The more the better. We rode this new stuff to it’s end point, turned around and descended the way we came and joined some singletrack that eventually took us to the road construction. Crossing the new road bed we followed the standard trail back to the parking lot above the softball fields. The last bit of that trail, the real rocky section, is a blast and we took it at what felt like warp-speed, eyeballs janglin’ and trying to avoid any direct hits on the many shart protrusions. From the parking lot it was back via Arrowhead drive and into a couple cold Celebration Ales.
Dazed and Confused…
Last Saturday, my buddy Scott and I met in Downieville to ride the XC course for the upcoming Classic on July 12th. I got there first and got a map from Yuba Expeditions. The map was just the centerfold from the Downieville Classic newspaper. I looked at it, folded it up, and stuck it in my pocket, the first of many times that day. The area was smoky, but better than it had been from the sounds of it and certainly not as bad as Carson City earlier in the week. It was plenty warm though, in the high-80s, by the time we got back to Sierra City where the XC course begins. We launched around 11:45 with full hydration packs, 2 bottles each, gels, bars, and spare tubes.
The climb to Packer Saddle started out nice enough but after a couple miles, it got steep and loose and definitely grabbed your attention. In the full sun and heat of mid day, it really gets your attention.
About five miles in, the road flattened out and we had a couple miles of easily pedaling before another short climb to the start of “Sunrise Trail”, a fun, fast section of twisty single track. We rode this to somewhere along where the Butcher Ranch section starts and then headed up a fire road to the beginning of what’s known as the Baby Heads. This section, a very rocky jeep road descent, keeps you on your toes. It’s notorious for crashes and flats and with the exception of one minor digger when I unclipped and still went down, overall it went OK.
The baby heads section segues into the Pauley Creek trail which was another fun section and a bit of a reprieve after the boulder hopping bedlam. Multiple smaller creek crossings were more than welcome cool downs from the day’s heat.
Pauley Creek itself was a nice wide splash over smooth free-stone and a good opportunity to get off the bikes and soak our heads. This would’ve been as fine a place as any to spend the remainder of the day drinking beer. Provided we had beer and not another 12 or so miles to Downieville.
Not long after this, things sorta went south from a navigation standpoint. Numerous times throughout the ride we stopped to consult the map at various intersections and up to this point, we’d made all the right choices. We came to a fork in the trail, a trail going up and a trail going down. Thirty yards down the low side, the trail split again. None of this quite seemed to jive with the map and our semi-confused state. Long story short, instead of taking the 3rd Divide trail, famous for it’s “Star Wars like speeds, magic carpet tread, bermed corners and lofty airs” we took the 2nd Divide, equally famous (in our book) for some extra suffering in the name of more up than down and enough hairy, rocky, hike-a-bike sections to convince us that this couldn’t be the race course anymore. That, and the Sleestaks.
The 2nd Divide eventually meets up with the Lavezzola Road and a mostly downhill run into Downieville. Somewhere along the way, we must’ve also missed the 1st Divide trail but we got 30 miles in nevertheless and were plenty cooked for it too. We capped the day off with some Boulder Brewing’s Hazed and Infused, purchased at the market across from the parking lot. A perfect end in more ways than one.
Sea Otter 2008
The weekend of April 18th, my buddy Scott (from Lumpy Gravy) and I converged at the Sea Otter Classic at the Laguna Seca Raceway. We were registered for the XC mountain bike race in the Sport class. I arrived late Thursday afternoon to our campsite, in the parking area overlooking the bottom of the racetrack corkscrew and the Sea Otter village in the distance. Scott and I shuffled down to the registration tents and picked up our race packets and took a quick cruise through the village and the first of many stops at the Cytomax tent to load up on free gels, Muscle Milks, regular Cytomax and all the other stuff they make and give away by the ton. We brought backpacks.
Our race day was Saturday so our plan was to pre-ride the course on Friday (I’d never been on it) and then take in some of the other races and check out the circus of vendors and check out all the cool bikes and components. Pretty much everything under the sun bike related is there and there’s lots to drool over. First things first, we headed into Monterey to get dinner and QC the numerous British style pubs downtown. Starting at the Crown & Anchor, the Cutty Sarks curry was top notch and with a few pints of Scotland’s own Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA, the combo was a notable one. From there we made a few quick stops before winding up at the Britannia Arms and its lively crowd, well-populated with Sea Otter participants. We’re happy to report that all of the various taps we sampled passed with flying colors.
Friday morning dawned and we greeted the day refreshed and excited and happy to be alive, confident that our pre-pre-ride preparation could not have been better designed or executed. Wanting to get an early start, we took off at about 1 p.m. to begin the ride, which went well. The race course is fun with some great single track through the trees, a decent bit of climbing (a lot of it in the last few miles) and some nice scenery. It’s not a very technical ride for the most part with the exception of a fairly steep and very sandy descent that kept you on your toes but that was fun as well, provided the traffic was light. Overall, a cool ride.
The wind arrived early Friday evening. And lasted all night. And got stronger and stronger. We hit the hay early since we had an 8 a.m. start time. The tent flapped like it was at Camp IV on Everest and the easy up canopy, anchored to both our vehicles and the chainlink fence sounded they would take flight at any minute.
Contrapuntal to the tent noise, were the little plastic bags, sheathing the leveling jacks (to prevent scratching I’m sure) on our neighbor’s RV, flapping at a frequency an order of magnitude higher than our shelter. Immersed in this fugue, neither of us got much sleep.
The wind was still there Saturday morning as well as overcast and quite chilly. I was glad for the extra layers I brought. Fortunately, much of the course was sheltered from the wind, which was nice.
The final few miles, the ones with all the climbing, were not sheltered, which wasn’t nice. Maybe it was the head- and crosswinds (and tired legs), but at times I felt like I was riding on something drawn by M.C. Escher and even losing elevation required going uphill.
When someone yelled “that’s the last climb”, I was happy to hear it. I found out later that Scott, who loves wind, especially on climbs, was smiling the whole time.
The last little bit of the singletrack to the finish line was fun and fast and lined with enough spectators yelling and cheering that it makes one feel fast, even when sprinting for 83rd place.
Even with the wind and cold and dead legs toward the end, it was all worth it. Every bit of it. Especially after that first taste of beer.
Sunday? Clear, sunny. And calm.
Monday…
