Sea Otter 2005

Otter Log Day 1, Wednesday

4:45 am- This better be good. It is an insane hour and we are both wide awake driving to the airport.

6:30 am- At check in, we learn that traveling with your precious and beloved bike is not what it has cracked up to be. No matter how tight you pack the bike it will be oversize and overweight. $100 bucks to the airline says so. Lesson learned, ship ground FedEx, it was only $20 and you don’t have to fiddle with the box in elevators and trains to get to your rental car. However, it was entertaining to respond to people commenting on our oversized suitcase that we had to get our ex-boyfriends out here somehow. J

1:00 pm- California time is great. You get an extra three hours to fit in an extra meal! And boy did we eat. San Francisco had clam chowder, sourdough bread, and a Ghirardelli factory hot fudge sundae. Heaven. After singing “Rice-a-Roni” on a trolley car and shopping downtown we headed for the scenic route to Monterey.

6:00 pm- Route 1, as the sun was setting, was a phenomenal sight to see. We watched the coastline change with the hills on your left and the ocean cliffs and beaches on your right. Even spotted a deer in the Redwoods. Afternoon surfers, kite surfers and wind surfers tackling the waves that dreams are made of. This is the Pacific baby!

7:00 pm We both spotted a light house. How cool is that. Then stopped a little further for a beautiful sunset. We’ve been awake for 21 hours. Is my life back home going on without me?

Otter Log Day 2, Thursday

7:00 am- Bike assembly. The grease monkeys came out to play. Thank God Renee knows her way around a wrench.

10:00 am- Registration and on to the trade show for some shopping. The Village was open for business and our credit cards were on fire! Jersey’s on sale. New Flavors for power gels, bars, and drinks. Bike stuff you never knew existed.

3:00 pm- Shut up, get out and ride. It only took us about an hour to figure out where the start was going to be. There are so many events going on and so many people wandering around that it is really not obvious where things begin and end.

4:00 pm- The course is mostly hard pack with a bit of sand on top. There will be some dust on race day! Big open climbs, followed by –minutes- of descent make this place completely different than FLA. It’s weird to not pedal on a race course! Just when you think you’ve been descending forever and your fingers are cramping on the brake levers you hit a climb that makes you forget that free fall. One climb towards the end would have lasted several songs in a spin class! Yes, granny gear was used today! Lots of friendly faces on the course and even a few hundred sheep crossed our path at one point! 2 hours to ride the 19 miles, including some photo opportunities along the way, and chatting with the locals.

Speaking of animals, we have a unique traffic pattern on the highway in front of our hotel. With a marsh in front, and a small pond in back there is a ton of water fowl. Special signs designating “Duck crossing” are for real. We were in a traffic jam waiting for the Canadian geese to cross the road!

Otter Log Day 3 Friday

8:00 am – Snuck into the Renaissance hotel for another free breakfast. Aren’t we stinkers?!

9:00 am- Back to the Village to ask technical questions about shocks and brakes and get more free stuff. You wouldn’t believe the parking space we got. It was front and center for the registration in the VIP area. It was a Costanza moment. “Honey Stinger” guys were cool but couldn’t get any free stuff. Fox Forks still doesn’t answer any questions definitively about Renee’s problems. Chatted with some female Specialized reps, good news- they have snagged a girl from PI that is helping them with chick designs (woo-hooclothing!). Specialized has also figured out how to measure female blood flow for saddle design, which I really didn’t want the details. They plan to advance the technology of their women’s saddles next year. Any volunteers for research? Gave a shout out to Andy Mills (Chopper) of Trek Southeast as he was heading to the start of the MTB 2 mile time trials. Times were around 6-7 minutes of screaming downhill with slick (dry sand) switchbacks. No Trek guys made the podium. We were up close for the road races (90 minutes each). There was a large group of 40 + pros, which the announcer said was unusual but a testament to the enormity of Sea Otter.

10:00 am- Jen is hungry for the third time today and devours a flank steak sandwich with onions and peppers.

10:30 am- Short ride today, we were both feeling the effects of the long climbs from the day before. 10 miles which included “Hurl Hill”, a name that has true meaning.

2:30 pm- Off for the Aquarium. Sharks, jellyfish and sea otters OH MY! Monterey reminds me a bit of Del Mar in Southern Cal. Cute shops, antiques stores and cafes. Cannery row must have been for fish canning I figure. Fish tacos, trailside, at Steinbecks!

5:00 pm- Out to see the famous 17 Mile Drive which goes right through Pebble Beach. It was so windy. I can’t imagine hitting a golf ball there. And the pebbles? They’re BIG. What gorgeous scenery. Those houses! What do these people do for a living?

The drive down Rte. 1 gave me flashbacks of the winding roads in Tennessee (where I curled up and shut my eyes), except this time at the bottom of the 800 foot cliff, there’s the Pacific Ocean. The road is right on the edge.

7:30 pm- Dinner at Nepenthe in Big Sur. The Frank Lloyd Wright inspired lodge was beautiful. Stone steps up to a redwood covered patio with a huge outdoor fire circle. We caught the tip of a gorgeous sunset 808 feet above the ocean. Big Sur feels like you are at the end of the continent. The food was PERFECT and the waitress educated us on the wines available. It didn’t disappoint!

Otter Log Day 4
Saturday
11am- Late breakfast, followed by a short visit to the pool deck for some sun, nail painting and some book reading. After all, this IS a vacation.
1pm- Flat easy spin down the boardwalk around Monterey Bay. Beautiful vistas, seals sunning on the beaches, incredible head and cross winds. The view around each bend in the road was more beautiful than the last! Fortunately we were part of at least four weddings taking place on the cliffs of Monterey Bay. We couldn’t resist stopping in the local bike store. We had to wade through all the stinkin’ tourists renting bikes. Oh yeah, we were tourists too. The mechanics were authentic and a pleasure to chat with. They hooked Renee up with some grease and CO2 cartridges. Jen was hungry again so we ate at the “American Diner” that was staffed exclusively by Mexicans!
5pm- Met the racing team that was in first place in the Pro-Road Race. Giant/HealthNet. They were packing their bikes outside of the hotel room next to us. Rough life, they were heading to the Tour de Georgia!
7pm- Dinner at Café Fina, on the Monterey wharf with a view of the boats and sunset. Renee kept it tame with the homemade ravioli and Jen went with the special followed by the most beloved dessert of all SPUMONI.

Otter Log RACE DAY!
Sunday
6:00am Renee has had every nightmare possible! Like my bike was FedEx’d back to Florida already! Such a worry wart!
7:30am- Arrive at the race venue so we could be first in line at the Shimano tent. Renee had done some safety adjustments on the front derailleur that needed some professional tweaking.
8:45am- We discovered that the race stewards gave us the wrong numbers and we still didn’t have timing chips. So we briskly rode over to registration where we had to get new numbers and affix the chips to our ankles. So much for checking in 3 days early!
10:00am- Renee’s race recap: I haven’t even seen the start! It wasn’t on the pre-ride. At first the competition didn’t look too rough, Oops those were the beginners. The Sport girls all had seriously nice bikes, many with team jerseys. About 75 riders combined age 35-39 and 40-49. We took up 2 lanes of road and I was in the third row back! Uphill start up the road and I make it up to the first half of the riders. Then down to a muddy, rutted downhill- the girl in front of me endos. No problem, up the next set of hills and I figure I’m in 10th. I was screaming down the hills and they were bumpy. Luckily some of the ruts were smoothed out with the 600 riders before me! Hurl Hill ahead and I’ve latched on to a Luna Chick rider. Begged the junior riders to move aside as they hiked, and I made it! I thought I felt tears, it was pretty painful. More flying singletrack. We hit a crazy crevice that everyone’s hiking up and Luna Chick starts announcing “Leaders back”! “Do you really think so?” I ask! Ohmigawd. I felt great, legs and lungs intact. A few more sick climbs. Then the “Long road home” we mentioned is a jeep road that is all up for miles. The guys were going sooo slow. Luna Chick and I work together and it was great. She points out that there is a girl ahead of us that is our competition, more motivation to keep going up! She wants my phone number! Have I been discovered? J Then onto the paved track of Laguna Seca. Screaming pavement, wish I had a computer, but I was well over 30 mph. I am ALL SMILES at this point! It’s been a great ride. I think I’ll let Luna Chick cross the line first, but at 500 yards to go she drops and I see two women ahead. I had more left and came in close to them. Turns out they were probably in another class.
Luna Chick asked a few of the women how they did and several are in their 40s (not my class). I have a good feeling that I may see the podium at Sea Otter! I chatted with a great girl from Washington until the results are posted. SECOND PLACE! Like a beauty pageant, I’m surprised how emotional I got and actually cried tears of joy. I actually did it. All this traveling, training, family and work scheduling was worth it. My time was 1:40, perfect!
10:10am- Jen’s race recap. The start was cold! I was trying to stay moving so I wouldn’t freeze to death, two minutes to start, I had to lose the fleece and get in linefour bikes deep! I have never seen so many people on a start line. I broke slow at first but the start was uphill and I started picking them off. At the top of the hill and on the first decent I was in fourth. Yippee! At the next opening I passed two of the people and I felt like everything was rocking along until I missed a turn. Two girls behind me went the right way. Blasted! It wasn’t until after Hurl Hill and some other climbs that I broke their heart on the short road section. Head down, big ring, I took them both. There was a brief incident where I saw three girls get tagged by the officials for taking a “short cut.’ On one short section, which is impossible to bike and you must hike your bike, I got stuck behind some $%#* girl who couldn’t seem to figure out how to get up it. There were a couple climbs that were so jammed with people that I jumped off my bike in the middle because I could run my bike faster than the people we spinning up. The final miles are long and slow. Seemingly all uphill, I was picking off people in other divisions, caught some of the tail end of the sport class. The finish was strong and I was hoping for a top five place. Well, it was better, I got the Gold. New jersey and everything! I can’t believe it. My first FIRST!

POST RACE: I grab the camera and phone from the car, and search forever for Jen. Can’t find her, so I check for her results. Holy Cow, a first! Lots of hooting and hollering for these girls! Awards took awhile and the winds started to get cold! Kodak moment! Girls around us go on and on about how “big” Sea Otter is! Yippee, Florida girls ROCK!