Last weekend was my first ever Sea Otter Classic, and as Im sure you can imagine, I was unbelievably excited to race against some of the Worlds best mountain bike racers.
Team mate, Pua Mata and I made the trip up to Monterey on the Wednesday before our first race (Friday). Before I knew it, we were rolling into the world famous Laguna Seca raceway, a race track that I've heard of since I was two bricks and a stone high. I'd watched races of my now teammate, Ben Bostrom, when he raced World Superbikes on the Ducati team. It was a truly spine tingling feeling as we rolled into the pit area.
The immense size of this event was flabbergasting! Venders were crowded by people trying to see the latest and greatest products that were on display by the various bike manufactures, eyewear and clothing companies. It was awesome to bump into long time friend, former manager and fellow South African, Max Cluer, in amidst the hustle and bustle that is the Sea Otter Classic. I also got to meet up with Burry for a few minutes after his long haul direct from Europe.
Over the course of the next couple of days, I got some preriding in on the 20mile, single loop XCO track, then Friday rolled around, Short Track race day. The short track course was, well, short... around 650-700m long, with on short kicker climb, and NO room for overtaking. Oh, and man was it super bumpy!! Never mind that, I was fairly confident as we lined up. I had a second row start and the inside line to the first corner. Off the start I had good positioning, but as we approached the first, off camber corner, the rider to my inside cut down onto the main line viciously, causing my to unclip and stumble onto the first climb. I dismounted an ran up the short kick, but had lost a great deal of time on the leaders. From there I went as hard as possible for more then half the race, but once I realized I was out of contention I eased up and held my position to the end, not risking anymore aggressive passes.
Saturday was the Pro Mens XCO race. A single loop of 20miles, with 3500ft of climbing. With a field of some of the world's best xc riders, such as Burry Stander, Todd Wells, Geoff Kabush, Sid Taberlay, Sam Schultz, JHK to name but a few, the racing was gonna be fast and furious! Positioning onto the dirt was going to be very crucial after completing the long tarmac start loop.Fortunately I hit the dirt in 3rd, right on the wheel of Sid and Burry. The pace soon got hot, leaving the main group of riders shattered and strung. I was lucky to be sitting in the lead group of around 15 or so. We sped into a climb, appropriately named "The Wall", the group became extremely strung out with a couple of riders getting a gap over us. Max Plaxton, Geoff, Sam, Sid, Burry and Todd were now slightly off the front. I was now in the second group of 6 or so riders along with JHK, Derek Zandstra and Spencer Paxston. Disaster then struck. In amongst the thick dust, few miles down the road, a rock flew up from the front of the pack and smashed into my front disc brake, bending it pretty badly. At first I thought it had merely hit a spoke or two, but soon it seemed as though I could barely hang onto the group. I stopped to loosen the actual caliper in order to give me a little less resistance until I could get to the tech zone, around 4 miles away. But even with the loose caliper, the brake was rubbing terribly and I began loosing positions FAST! When I finally rolled into the tech. zone I think I was very nearly in last place. Johnny Muller helped change my wheel and I was off. For the final half of the race I buried myself deep into the pain cave, but just couldn't bring myself back into the race, ending up in a lowly 49th.
I learned some valuable lessons at Sea Otter, although not a great weekend on my side, I feel I didn't come away from the race entirely empty handed. Definitely hard lessons learned.
Until next time
B
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