XC Sport 40-44
Time: 1:45’19″
50th place out of 101

My fourth time at Sea Otter and first time racing sport there.
Got down to Monterey a little after 7AM, driving in some thick fog. It wasn’t that cold but it was foggy and they decided to delay the start by around 30 mins, I guess because of the scarce visibility. That gave me some extra time for warming up.

I usually try not to work on my bike the week of the race, but I had to rebuild my rear wheel, change the chain, brake pads and deraileur cable, pretty much the day before. This made me very nervous on the start line.

The goal this year was to improve last year time and the time at or below 1:45.
As it happened this year already few times I had no goal in terms of placement, but just focusing on improving my time.

Riding in the fog on the racetrack was pretty unreal, in some sections visibility was less than 20 yards. After 8 the sun started to come out. At 8.35 my group started. Pretty big group, I was able to hang mid pack by the time we got off the racetrack.

Sea Otter Classic 2009 from Felton Flyer on Vimeo.

There was a big crash, right before the end of the racetrack section, involving 2-3 riders, just ahead of me, pretty scary, hope everybody was ok.
I got the DH part ok, even if I feel i could go a lot faster there and a got passed several times. The singletrackwas fast and flowy with no traffic, except for the last part. I got a scary ‘oops’, not sure what happened, but I miracousously managed to recover (and the guy right behing me said “good save bro!” – I guess if I crashed he would have too)
The sandy climb after that was slow, for traffic and I wish there were spots to pass.

Down the first sandy beach I crashed once, the sand was really fluffy. After that went up the second single track climb. I still remember how I hated this section (I still do), but had to walk it the firs time in 06. I was passing people this time.

I’m feeling pretty strong on the short climbs and I find myself passing people on those sections.

We hit the paved road section, then thru the feed station and then up the fireroad: this is my benchmark. My time was 3 mins faster than last year, good start.

The second loop (as I call it) was pretty uneventfull, except that I cleared the wall (hitting max HR there) and sunk in a couple of sandpits.

I Was constantly exchanging position with a guy from team Wrong Way: he would passy me on the DH and I would pass him back on the climbs.

Gulped an hammer gel on the paved road section after trail 27/28 and then started to hammer the climbs. I started to feel cramping coming up and had to slow down, or just pace myself at the beginning of the fireroad climbs.

The climb went pretty fast (felt endless in the past years), maybe helped by the lack of head wind. Got to the top and realized I didn’t pre-ride the finish part. Pretty bumpy and crashed on one turn, where I had to keep the left line and went right instead. (I heard a few crashed there).

So all in all a time slightly above the goal, but very good considered the crashes, and more importantly half pack in the Sport class, which has never happened this year. I improved my last year time by 8 minutes!

Still a good 20 min to go to the lead. So maybe in another 3-4 years…