Sea Otter Classic

Round 2 of the team’s annual Sea Otter trip went down, without too many hiccups, this past week! Trinity Bikes Cycling sent 4 athletes down to Monterey, CA for the epic cycling event – Bob, Brian, Sean, Shane (me) and along for fantastic support and heckling was Sam!

Sean & Shane loading the car - 4:20am.

Sean doing a weird stretch as Bob
mows down his croissant.

The trip started in the very early dark of morning, 4:00am to be exact. With some good razzing of each other to get up and going, we had the cars totally loaded down and were headed south on Hwy 97 in about 30 minutes, probably close to a record, especially with me being onboard. Haha. The trip down to Klamath Falls was nice and mellow, thankfully we only had to deal with some light rain, no slippery roads like last year. With these long road trips, they are much more bearable when you have small destinations on the way to the big one. Our first was Green Blade Bakery in Klamath Falls. They have so many choices, you end up spending more time trying to decide than actually eating it!

Shane in Klamath Falls.

Chock full of baked goodness and high blood sugar, we continued on our journey. As we got closer to Weed, CA, the rain began to let off and we were catching glimpses of the wonderful weather to come, aka – SUN!! The pace quickened once we caught I-5 in Weed and the warmth began to emerge even quicker! During one of our many bathroom stops, bladder issues could be assumed if one didn’t know of a cyclist’s obsession with hydration, everyone began to realize that the choice of pants were not a good idea – this led to a quick parking lot wardrobe change and a couple funny looks.

Bike tool stop in Winters, CA that
even had a tire pump!

Our second main stop was in the nice little town of Winters, CA. It is a really cool city on the edge of wine country and absolutely beautiful as well. Our normal haunt was Cody’s which had amazing sandwiches, but to our dismay, it had been replaced with a restaurant providing some odd grub at way to high of prices for our thin (bikes are expensive!) wallets. Walking around in a hungry, disappointed daze, we happened to see a large group of cyclists down the road, getting ready to embark on an afternoon ride in the sun. We headed over to the meeting spot where we found a great coffee/café/bistro called Steady Eddies Coffee House. Thankful for the find, we ordered up some reasonably priced meals and sat down for a nice meal in the warmth.

Bob & Sean in line ordering some lunch.

Now, I keep stressing warmth and sunshine, and will continue doing this through the rest of this entry because oh man, it felt amazing!! I wouldn’t be over zealous to say we probably had seen two or three days here in Central Oregon where the temps got into the low 60’s. We were head over heels in love with being warm in shorts and t-shirts!


Now back to our adventure. After leaving from Winters, there were no planned stops for the final portion of the drive to Monterey, aside from a few gas and bathroom stops. As we were cruising along I-680 just north of Morgan Hill, Brian, Sean and Bob pulled up alongside us frantically waving and pointing at the top of the car. I immediately pulled over and got out to see one of the most scary things a cyclist on a road trip could see.....a bike that had somehow come out of the bike rack on the roof of the car. Yeah, it was horrid. Bob's beautiful new Marin Team CXR was out of the fork mount and resting against another bike, only holding onto the roof due to the rear tire strap and our huge tool bag up in the roof basket. I swear my hands were shaking as I worked to get the bike racks all situated - being the driver, I felt responsible for an oversight in properly lining up the racks. After some comforting 'It's ok dude' from the guys, my stomach settled down and we were back on our way to Monterey.

Bob and Sam at the top of the decent that ate
Sean and Shane both, last year.

Shane and Sam with Bob off
in the distance on the first climb.

After a long day on the road, we arrived at the Laguna Seca/Mazda Speedway with 10 minutes to spare before the first day of packet pick-up closed. We ran down to finalize our registrations and pick up our race numbers. Once all the formalities were taken care of we headed back to the cars for some in-car/in-portapotty changing into the checkered kits for a light spin out on the race course.

Sean showing he his king of the rock!

Our temporary home for the trip.

Since we were riding in the evening, we still had to rock long sleeves and leg warmers, but the sunshine offset any lingering thoughts of still riding during the winter. During the ride, the long 14 hours of sitting in a car were spun out of our legs and big smiles were plastered onto our faces as the reality of having a nice weeklong vacation ahead of us began to set in. 







Post-ride, we loaded into the cars and headed over to our home base for the week, the Del Monte Pines Hotel. Dinner, showers and an early bedtime ensued as we passed out after a nice long day.


Day two was the planned day to take in as much of the expansive Sea Otter Expo as possible. Our first priority though, was to fix Bob's torn tire. Unfortunately, the day before we left some cords inside the tire ended up breaking so the tire had a super funky wobble in it. All of us were a bit nervous after figuring this out 600 miles away from the fantastic support of Eric and the Trinity Bikes shop. Luckily, we also have phenomenal remote support from our rockstar Continental rep Eli. A quick phone call to him created two opportunities to have the issue resolved in time for Bob to race the next day. Our first option was to talk to the guys down at the Conti booth, so we immediately headed down to the expo where Brett and Slaven hooked it up with a brand new tire to replace Bob's damaged tire. With our small hurdle completely cleared, it was time to oogle and ahhhh over all the fun bike goodies. Over the course of the day, we realized how incredibly well supported we are with our sponsors, but we are missing one area....skincare/sun protection. Haha. There were some of us that were smarter with sunscreen and others (me) that weren't. By the end of the day there was some scorched skin.

Matt Slaven with Bob and his newly replaced tire!

We got some more riding in out on the course, this time getting to enjoy the fantastically wonderful sun. It was tough to limit the rides to only an hour, I personally could've gone till the sun set, it was absolutely perfect - warm temps, beautiful scenery and a completely blue sky.

Beautiful view from the top of one of the hills on course.

For our night before race meal, we headed to Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, located down in Monterey's Cannery Row. This area is just packed with cool little shops right along the bay front. My favorite part would have to be the walkways that link the buildings together across the road.

Shane and Sam under one of the many
overhead walkways.

During dinner, we found that as a collective group, we are pretty darn good at Forrest Gump movie trivia. We were extra excited about this talent considering none of us had seen the movie in several years. That'll change for next year though, we're going to study hard and rock the trivia! Haha.

Bob checking out the menu while Sean hams it up for the camera
at Bubba Shrimp Company.

The next morning, Friday, brought the first day of racing for us. Bob and myself were lined up to race in the early afternoon. A starting time of 1:30ish, makes for a very relaxing race morning aside from pre-race jitters and nerves. The only downside of this later start was the heat. As much as I love racing in the heat (2009 STXC = 103 degrees), we hadn't seen the temp rise into the 60's much here in Central Oregon, let alone 85-90 degrees. That being said, hydration and staying cool would be the trick of the day. We made sure to load up with plenty of Nuun enhanced water beforehand. Lining up at the start line, the nerves thankfully mellowed out and when the gun sounded, business time started. The course winds a bit around the raceway and then heads out into the rolling hills north of the raceway. I gotta say, Sea Otter sure fields some incredibly fast racers. It is a whole other level. Trying to stick with the leaders would have blown me up wicked fast (my HR was holding steady at 196 BPM in the beginning), so I had to settle into a zone that I could hold for the 40 miles and 3+ hours in the sun.

Sam taking care of Shane post race.

The course switches between fast, open doubletrack road, which really allows for things to spread out before funneling you into fun singletrack sections. During the entire race, my goal was to stay consistent as I knew the heat would come into play. This was seriously reinforced as I pushed into the second lap, I began noticing racers laying in the shade of support tents chugging water and one racer was on a stretcher with an IV pumping fluid into him. I was excited though, because I played my cards just right, using feed zone water cups to douse my body and utilizing a much needed spray down at one junction from our own Sean Lewis, to stay cool. Funny side note, on my second lap through, Sean had an extra interesting task to perform for me. It was to snag my car keys that I chucked into the dirt as I rode by. Definitely one of those scary moments, when you are out racing/riding hard and you realize you left your keys in your jersey pocket. Haha. Unfortunately for Bob, his race went a bit tougher. Being so much taller, he has way more surface area for the sun to beat down upon and that took it's toll on him rather quickly. After downing close to six bottles of liquid, to stay hydrated, during the first lap, he decided to play it safe by pulling out of the race and not getting heat stroke. It's extremely tough on one's ego to pull out of a race early but all of us there felt he made the smart decision with not risking the chance of heat exhaustion. I was able to stay consistent through the last lap of the race and left just about everything I had out there on the trail. Crossing the finish line, I was definitely toasted (both energy levels and my skin...it's shedding quite heavily now, one week later). Thank goodness Sam and Brian were waiting for me with a nice bottle of Max Muscle ARM to shoot some calories back into me.


Race evening consisted of everyone heading out into town. Sam and myself took in some food at Linguini's and picked a fight with Bruce Lee, back down at Cannery Row.

Bruce Lee should've known better than to pick a fight with Shane...

Day 3 consisted of a short trip north to Santa Cruz to check out the beach and boardwalk. We definitely stood out with our milky white skin that hadn't seen sun in months contrasting against our fresh cyclist/farmer tans on our arms. Haha. It was fantastic though, to be able to walk on a warm beach and mess around in the water.

Sam enjoying the water as Brian works on tanning his upper thighs,
blinding anyone without sunglasses - gotta love being from Oregon.

Sean was the bravest and ended up actually swimming, keeping
his eyes protected of course, with some Smith glasses.

On our way back to Monterey, we stopped at a really nice produce stand that was stocked with delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, all of which were very inexpensive. We all loaded up and cruised back down to the hotel so Sean could get ready to race the inaugural Sea Otter Cyclocross race.

Loot from the produce stand trip. Every last
strawberry was devoured by trip's end.

As Sean got ready, the rest of us switched modes from 'tourist' to 'crazed cross fans'. Buskirk and I completed the transformation by busting out the cowbells and the newly acquired vuvuzela that Brian found in Portland. Once the race began, our rowdiness exploded and we tried to be the noisiest fans out there, supporting our teammate, Sean.

'Crazed Fan' Brian during Sean's cyclocross race.

Sean powering away on the pavement portion of the cross course.

Sean tore it up in the race, especially considering the Men were grouped into one giant group, that's right, Sean was racing with/against full out pros. He really put out a fantastic effort and was able to race very clean and consistently. His best part was a super huge skid drift that he did coming around a corner. Sadly I missed getting it on film, but I'll attempt to paint a mental picture for you. It was a 90 degree right hand corner, he came flying into it, locked up the rear wheel and slid/drifted perfectly through the corner from the right inside of the corner all the way to the outside of the course (10 feet), brushing his back wheel against the Raleigh Bikes course tape and then gaining traction and putting the power down - all while keeping his feet locked into the pedals. It was EPIC! It got me all kinds of excited when he did that!


He stayed strong throughout the rest of the race and threw down a great performance on the course. We were super impressed with the effort he put out!

Sean flying over the barriers.

That evening was mellow as Brian and Sean channeled their energy towards racing the next day! When morning came around, the weather was polar opposite of the three prior days. The entire area had been socked in with a heavy/wet fog. This was met with mixed emotions, sad that we'd miss the sun, but great for racing as they wouldn't have to worry about the hot conditions endured during Bob's and my race.

Sean and Sam before the CAT 2 race.

For moral support, Sam, Bob and myself set out to the top of the last climb. This climb is a steady 3 mile sufferfest right at the end of the 20 mile course. The climb itself wouldn't be so bad early in the race, but with it being right at the end and seemingly never-ending, it wears away at your mental strength. Bob went down one of the rollers and Sam and I hung out near the middle of another. This allowed for optimal razzing and cheers to get our checkered teammates moving. The cheering was an absolute blast, as always. Sam and I yelled at the top of our lungs as we could hear Bob and the sound of his vuvuzela faintly in the foggy distance.

Bob giving Brian some pre-race instructions in the starting grid.

Everyone that was out racing that came through our section got some hearty cheers from us, but it was our checker clad guys that got the best cheers, with us running right along side them for as long as we could keep up!

With the cooler conditions (and our awesome cheers) the guys threw down some solid performances, both eclipsing their times from the previous year.

Brian grimacing as he pushes towards the top of the hill.

Sean cresting the second to last hill.

The remainder of the trip was spent un-winding and enjoying our last day of vacation before heading back to reality. To really finish the trip properly, we took a different route home via Hwy 1 along the California Coast. This area is absolutely stunning as the highway winds along the exposed cliff line that is relentlessly battered by the ocean waves.

Driving along Hwy 1 in California.

After the Hwy 1 detour, we came across this giant red bridge coming out of San Francisco, not sure what it was, but we decided to check it out. Haha.

Bob, Shane (no clue what he's doing) and Sam
on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Bob, Brian and Sean before embarking
across the Golden Gate Bridge.

California was almost complete, fresh fruits - CHECK!, warm & sunny beaches - CHECK!, Golden Gate Bridge - CHECK!, In-N-Out Burger.....uh oh! Luckily there was one on the outskirts of Mill Valley, so we made sure to stockpile calories for the long drive home with big burgers and fantastically fresh french fries! The rest of the drive back was just that - a long drive home. Not much happened during the drive, so I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Not a bad view - Mt Shasta while getting gas in Weed, CA.

Driving North on Hwy 97 in Southern Oregon.

Looking out over Upper Klamath Lake from Hwy 97.

We got tough and cranked out the remaining drive as quickly as possible so we could set a record and be home before 11pm, which we did! We pulled into the Casa de Glacier driveway right around 10:45pm.


Another fun Sea Otter in the books!!


Next up is Bear Springs just up North near Mt. Hood!


-Shane Johnson