The Sea Otter Classic

If you can do it on a bicycle, it's happening at the Sea Otter! You can't beat Carmel/Monterey as a destination for the event. I borrowed the pics above from their website. You can click on the logo if you want to check the site out.

We attended this event last year, as spectators. This year, I wanted to come back and do the cross country race. I did not pre-register for the race, I was going to make a game day decision. Laura and I got a late start after fixing the sewer hose issue (see yesterday's post). We finally got out there at about 2:30pm. There was a lot of action going on, but the rain was approaching fast.

Here is a look at the course conditions on Friday afternoon. This is the short track Cross Country event and will be a part of the 20 mile Cross Country, I was going to do, on Sunday.

Needless to say, I'm NOT spending $50 bucks to race in this type of conditions. A lot of the riders were having to replace drive trains (chains, chain rings, rear cassette and derailleurs, around $200 +) having just spent $500 on the coach, I think I'll pass! The weather report for Sunday is 70% chance of rain and thunderstorms. (it's central CA in the spring, they might as well call for 100%).

I was over at the mountain cross course watching practice runs. Standing right next to me was Eric Carter, world champion mountain cross racer. He was searching for cleans lines through the course. I chatted with him for a quick minute. The course was just getting destroyed by the rain and amateur events. The Pros' were getting ready to do their qualifying runs. The pro finals are on Sunday. To put this into perspective, if you are a NASCAR fan, this would be the equivalent of talking track conditions with Jeff Gordon (or insert your favorite racer) just before he got in his car for a qualifying lap!


By about 4pm, the rain started coming down, we haven't even been over to the festival side of things, yet. We decided to head out and taste some wines while we still had the time. We hit Heller Estate and Talbott. Ross, our pourer at Talbott, pointed us to a killer cheese store in downtown Carmel. We stopped over there, before heading home for the evening. We picked up some great aged Gouda with, get this, white and black truffles in it! We also got some Pleasant Ridge Reserve, Humboldt Fog and some salami. Wine and cheese for dinner, yum!

The weather is supposed to start out nice for Saturday. We will probably return to the Sea Otter and do the festival side of things on Saturday. I'm definitely not doing the race!

-Rich-