Sea Otter 2012!

The race season has officially started for me! I got home from work on Wednesday and packed my bike and suitcase before finally stumbling into bed at 2am. My alarm woke me up three hours later for my 6:30 flight. I jumped in my van and headed to the airport. I got to the parking lot without a lot of time to spare and while stepping out of the van, I dropped my phone on the ground shattering the scree! This was not a great way to start the weekend, but planes don't wait.  I loaded all of my stuff onto the shuttle bus and sat down. looking at the clock, I noticed I might miss my flight. As soon as the bus started to leave, another car pulled into the lot. We had to stop and wait for them to load. Once we started moving again, another car pulled into the lot. We had to wait for them. We started moving again and ANOTHER car pulled into the lot. After the last family loaded on the bus, we made our way to the terminal. I ran with my bike box and suitcase to the ticket counter. The lady told me I had to be there 35 minutes before my flight. I was there 33 minutes prior to departure. Somehow I missed a flight that hadn't left yet. I'm not sure how that works, but she managed to get me on the next flight two hours later. I entertained myself at the airport for a few hours before flying down to San Jose.

Flying over San Francisco en route to San Jose. Note the Golden Gate Bridge peeking through the clouds.

After landing in San Jose, I met up with Charlie Sponsel. We went to pick up our rental car. In order to keep costs down, I rented the smallest economy car I could rent. We started trying to load the bike boxes into the car before the Enterprise rental lady started laughing. She was really cool and upgraded us to an Optimus Prime minivan at no charge! We got a 4 day mini van rental for $72! As soon as I turned the key, Charlie handed me directions to the nearest In-n-Out burger. A few double double's later and we were heading south to Laguna Seca raceway for the 22nd annual Sea Otter Classic.

Breakfast of champions!

Thursday was really low key. We arrived at the pits and after saying "hello" to everyone, rode over to the Dual Slalom track for a course preview. The course was the same as last year, but neither Charlie or I had ever raced Slalom at Sea Otter. The course looked really fun, but we would have to wait until Saturday to ride it. Our bikes needed some love, so we dropped them off at Shimano for some maintenance and went to walk the DH course. Nothing had changed there either, so we went back to the hotel and out to dinner with the Diamondback crew before calling it an early night and getting some much needed rest.

Looking over the venue.

Looking up the Dual Slalom course.

This bloke was around. It's always good to see the big Kiwi, even if he does talk funny and runs his brakes backwards.

Friday started early with an 8am DH practice. Charlie and I snagged a few runs on the course, which was awesome! It was my first time riding a DH bike since I broke my hand and I couldn't have had a bigger smile on my face. I was really having fun on all of the jumps and just enjoying riding bikes. I felt a little out of shape, but I was happy that my hand seemed to be holding up just fine. 

Fox Racing had this Baja truck on display. I poked around for a while...

Charlie was a little blown away at the size of the shocks.

Just for a size comparison.

I've seen airplanes with less switches and gauges. It still had power windows and power locks though!

Friday afternoon was spent talking to all of our sponsors. We had some great meetings and I'm really excited for some of the projects we'll be working on in the future. All of the companies had their 2012-2013 product on display and we had a chance to see numerous old friends. I had such a good time riding in the morning, that we decided to go try and grab some DH photos that evening with some better light.

Kevmo, Charlie, and I hiked the DH course and had a little photo shoot on some of the features in the golden light. The shots were cool and we knew we needed to do this again. I knew I had to race slalom the next day, but I didn't care,  I was having too much fun on my DH bike! I was having so much fun, that I skipped the premier of the Strength in Numbers movie to keep shooting photos. We both rode until it was dark and didn't regret missing the movie at all.

Video still of team Diamondback ripping it up!

Video still of me at the lower step up.

Saturday was slalom day! I grabbed my Dreamliner and headed over to the slalom course with Charlie. The course was a lot harder than it looked at first. It had a lot of tricky things that didn't line up quite right. I actually started to get in my own head. I felt like I was riding horribly and felt really slow. It wasn't until after practice that I remembered that, 1.) I'm not a slalom specialist. 2.) I've been sitting on the couch injured for the last 2 months, 3.) These are the best riders in the world.and 4.) This is the first time I've ridden this course. Both of my qualifying runs had mistakes in the them which cost me a lot of time and I knew I didn't qualify. It wasn't the end of the world though and I still had fun and can't wait to go back next year.

From VitalMTB's dual slalom bikes slideshow.

I also was able to finally meet Kyle from Chris King. Chris King is a component company that makes some of the most amazing hubs in the world. Since we are running Chris King hubs, Kyle introduced us to one of the companies they recommend for rims, Enve Composites. Being an Engineer, I drool over well made carbon fiber. Enve makes some of the nicest, lightest, and stiffest wheels on the market. Joe from Enve was great and let me demo a carbon DH wheelset! I've never been more excited to install anything on my bike. I was so excited to go ride that I figured I would just go do another photo shoot during DH practice that night just to try them out.

My bike > Your bike.

I managed to get a hold of Justin Olsen and we went back to the same location to shoot a few more photos while Kevmo grabbed some video. While riding, I ran into Kevin Littlefield and he joined Charlie and me. We shot the hip and the step up again and both Justin and Kevmo grabbed some AMAZING shots. There are a few that hopefully will be used for some ads, so you'll have to wait to see the good ones!

Kevmo capturing Justin shooting photos of me!

Sunday was the big show. I grabbed my bike and headed up for practice. My first run was with Steve Smith, and was great to ride with someone that I know is fast. It helped showing me where to maintain my speed and where I could go even faster. The next run I did was following Bryn Atkinson. Bryn is also crazy fast and did really well in the DH last year. I got to the bottom and felt great and was excited for my race run. I met up with Charlie and headed up to the hill.

I got into the gate, and as soon as the final beep sounded, I took off sprinting! I came out of the gate sprinting as hard as I could. I hopped over the first little step down, and went to take another pedal stroke before the first right hand corner and before I knew it, I was upside down in the air. I started sprinting too early and between my bike being compressed and the hill side being a little off camber, I had hit the ground with my pedal and tomahawked off into the bushes.  I sat up instantly and did a quick check to make sure nothing was broken. My helmet was smashed up, but it did its job. I rode down the course and got on the shuttle truck. On the way up to the top, I started feeling really woozy. I went and sat down in the pits. I felt like crap for most of the day being pretty concussed, but after some food and water and a few hours, I started feeling a lot better. If I can find any photos or video of the crash, I'll post it up. There were a bunch of people watching, so hopefully someone has a shot of it.

My helmet after the crash. Luckily Kali was around and I was able to get another one. Thanks guys, this thing saved my brain for sure!

This is the inside of a Kali helmet. the conical dense foam helps distribute the impact over a larger area, allowing the helmet to be lighter.

A cross sectional view of the foam in the helmet.

After hitting my head like that, and having a really early flight, Charlie and I decided to skip the big after party and head up to San Jose for the night. Charlie had a bunch of homework to catch up on, and I was lucky enough to spend some time with some family. My cousin Christy got married on Saturday about an hour away, and a bunch of my family was still in the area. I drove up and had dinner with then and capped off a great weekend. I hadn't seen them in years and I had a great night catching up with them. I've got another cousin who just got engaged, and hopefully I can make it out for her wedding as I really want to see my family more often. I had a great time and I'm so glad I was able to see them!

I have an amazing extended family. Thank you guys so much for the night!

I flew home this morning and still need to unpack and get ready for next weekend. The ProGRT at Port Angeles is starting on Thursday! I can't wait to race on Washington soil, and I've got a number 1 plate to defend as well! More updates soon!

Mt Rainier, a few minutes before landing at SeaTac. It's always good to be home.

 -KT