Feet in the mud at Sea Otter

Every year, Sea Otter in Monterey, California is a real blast.  Thousands of riders from all over the country converge on the Laguna Seca Raceway for about 4 days of racing and marketing.  But every year it seems to rain at least once, turning the infield of the racetrack (where the marketplace is) into a mud pit full of expensive bikes.  And this year was even worse.

It's taken me two years to realize that the circuit race on the raceway is not for me.  Bombing through the "corkscrew" at 55mph is not the best venue for a guy who really hates sketchy descents (although I nabbed a 6th place there as a Cat 4).  But I skipped it this year so that I could be fresh for the 70-mile RR on Saturday.

The RR course is great.  Closed roads, mostly decent pavement, and good support.  About 100 of us lined up at the start inside the raceway, where we prominaded out of the raceway through a narrow fence and proceeded to bomb down the finishing climb to the race loop.  The loop itself is about 8 mi of rolling roads with one pretty serious climb.  The finish of the race loops back up toward the raceway up a 2k long hill that's probably about 8%.
We did 8 laps.

Because it's Sea Otter, the pace was fast and there were quite a few breaks and attacks.  A few guys stayed away for a lap or two, but we always managed to bring them back with minimal effort.  Each time up the climb was a bit of a nightmare, but it was a good way to whittle down the field a bit.

And then the rain started.  Just a sprinkle at first to make the roads nice and treacherous (especially on the 180-degree turn with all the road paint).  But then it started to RAIN.  This happened on the climb when we had about 2 laps to go.  I mean, RAIN.  I'm guessing that this is the same time that they were cancelling the women's pro race back at the Raceway.  Stinging rain, no visability, and no brakes going down the twisty descents.  It was terrifying.  And very cold.  I only had on a base layer and arm warmers (and my old Quad hat), so I started shivering so bad that I was in danger of losing control (hey Drew, remember Sunapee?).  

After awhile the rain settled down into a steady stream and I realized that there probably only 40 of us left in the race.  The finish of the race features a long twisty downhill followed by the leg-breaking climb to the finish.  Because of the slipperyness of the roads, I cowered at the back going downhill.  And then the climb started.  I picked my way through the exploding bodies and still had the legs to drill it for the last 500 meters (which seemed to take about 20 minutes).  I finished 15th, which felt pretty good at the time (but I've been kicking myself all week for not going harder at the bottom).  But, most importantly, I didn't crash in the mayhem.

Afterwards, I rode the 2+ miles back to my car, soaking wet and freezing.  I got in the car, got dry and ran the heater for about 30 minutes.  I also put on all the clothes that I brought.

After warming up a bit, I went over to the marketplace area for the first time.  It was still raining pretty hard, so everything was really muddy (which was a real blast for the 15yo kids riding wheelies on mountain bikes through dense crowds of people).  Each year, road bikes are getting further and further marginalized and the wet conditions didn't make me so interested in checking out cool stuff.  However, I gotta say that Storck's 9.9lb bike was pretty obscene.  Yep, 9.9lbs ($16k pricetag).

The Clifbar tent is always my favorite - I just sat and gorged myself on the freebies.  After an hour or so of noodling around and trying to make deals ("I'll give you $10 for all of that"), the sun started to come out, so I went over to watch a bit of the pro men's circuit race (which had been delayed for 2 hours or something).  I'd just like to point out that the guy who won the pro race (Daniel Ramsey) is a great guy who often comes out for our local group rides.  I was pretty stoked to see him win.    

Each year I say it: I'm not sure I'll go back next year.