Sea Otter Part 1

Ok, Sea Otter was rad. Time to divulge.

You already read about the Crit win on thursday.

Friday was the super D. THis is new kind of mtn racing where you have to negotiate some serious downhill followed mixed with at least two climbs of 1 min or more. Think of this as a best all around dirt rider.

You had to start about 100 yds away from you bike which was placed upside-down on the saddle and bar. You had to have your head on the ground and after the whistle, you sprang to your feat, elbowed the other 100 dudes running next to you on your way to the bike, grab your bike, then do a 180 and run up the hill you just ran down (further running into other people who ran slower than you). This was mass chaos. I grabbed the wrong bike despite my bike being baby blue and the bike I grabbed was black. Oops. Sorted that out and was probably 50th headed up the first power 2 min climb.

Scrubbed past 30 dudes for 20thish place. Next was a very scary downhill. This one dude has his elbows out and I rammed into his left elbow hard as I passed him. He was none too happy and called me a curse word. I persevered. Almost crashed at this moment, but managed to keep it upright.

Climbed another short 75 second climb. ON the back side, we were easily hitting 40 mph. Super fast for a mtn bike! And, just as any spectator would hope, (and just after this picture sequence), goon #3 found a water bar and instead of manualling it, he decided to pedal over it. Well, he pedalled right over the bars and took out rider 4 and 5 (I'm in 6th place in the photo). It was a nasty crash and they were all yelling at each other as I picked my way through the carnage. Hitting the deck at 40 mph sucks no matter what vehicle you are commanding. Ouch.

The next 4 mins were just crazy fast DH at 40 mph. I did all I could to pass the two dudes in front of me, but I was spun out. 3rd in the 30-39 field (no categories) with over 100 dudes. No too shabby.






All photo credits to Jan Smidek. He's using a Cannon SLR (I think) and took a ton of pics. I am the white fork, white helmet, white gloves, black jersey dude.