California Dreamin - part III - Race Day!

This report isnt exactly chronological so if you should spot the (not so) deliberate inconsistencies please chalk it up to artistic license ;-)

anyway, back to the serious business of us finely tuned athletes and meticulous preparation in the lead up to a race. First stop, breakfast. Apparently at the best breakfast place on the West Coast






It was pretty good - in fact I'd have to say only the monsterly deliciousness of the old Coed-Y-Brenin cafe egg on toast comes close to beating this - but as this has strawberries its obviously not a fair fight.








First up, some of them fancy new moving pictures - this time of Britain's new top girl - Rachel Atherton (in more recent news, a couple days ago she made history along with her brothers with the three of them winning 3 of the four events at the Andorra World Cup - talk about natural talent running in the family). Well, click the play button to watch Rachel making the tricky jumps look easy....



..and in the same category - pro women - Fiona (the other pink bike girl) - sorry about the picture - pretty poor eh?

Fiona and Danice were up against the best in the world here and they certainly raised their game - Fiona top 20 (so thats top 20 in the world) and Danice - well in typical rising super-star fashion she nailed 11th place - 11th place in a world class field. She's gonna go far!



When it came to our turn - the over 30 ol' gits that is - Rich and I both had ok runs although it was only our 5th full run of the track and actually finished pretty well





I was 5th and Rich 6th!!

In an attempt to balance out the dual pictures to follow here's a token shot of that other (not quite as) Brit old git - Steve Peat on his way to the podium








I was trying to find out all day when the medal ceremony was - unfortunately I got my answer when they called my name on the PA from the other side of the paddock - I didnt make it but I did pick up my medal - not bad for a Brit eh?















Now I think I mentioned the sunburn - did I? I forget, but the sun and wind combined to burn me to a crisp - despite the sun it felt cold most of the time at the race site - there wasnt a cloud in the sky but this was the required outfit - plus sunglasses of course or even goggles when the wind got up. Anyway, Danice braved the bitter wind to watch us dueling on the dual track. I think she has some pictures but I havent managed to get them from her yet. Although we dont seem short of pic here!










Qualifying was the previous day and I qualified 5th and Rich 6th (sound familiar huh?!!!!)

The following day it was the head to head racing. The format was: race once, record the times and then race again in opposite lanes and combine the times. This meant that even if you lost the first race, you had a chance to pull it back in round 2.

Oh, I saw a nice shiny helmet nice and cheap (this is the shopping capital of the world remember) so got it - a good investment with me racing this year.

Good pic eh? I had to pay for it but worth it I think :)






Here's Jenn smashing the competition in one of her runs












Jenn again













and Rich just in the lead in his first round. He won and went through to round 2.












as did I. Unfortunately thats when we all met faster riders - I had a panicked run and made a few mistakes to loose but 1.2 secs in my first run










Jenn did better













Rich also lost the first round of his next heat













Which brought us to the 2nd run against the same people. Knowing my friends were watching I was determined to put up a good fight and told her - errm, I mean them - that I was going to win or die trying!!

So, when the gate fell I went for it - as hard as I could, sliding round all the corners and pedaling everywhere in between.

And I got to the bottom 0.7 secs ahead - not enough to win on combined time but with a run fast enough to be proud of. In fact it was easily my fastest run of the weekend and I think I proved to myself I can push a lot harder when I want to

Another good pic. Again, paid for but worth it.





Here's one of Rich's runs



Jenn did well - she got 4th in Dual and the second Otter-Bus medal :) nice job Jennifer.












After a hard weekend's racing we bucked the trend of heading out and instead headed into the hot tub - the poor photo is due to my phone not coping well with steam and the lights not working ! It amused us though as I texted the photo to our friends who were on the road somewhere ;)

So. Sea Otter Classic 2008. A big learning curve and a lot of fun. I'd love to come back but realistically I'm not sure if I'll manage it.
Thanks to everyone for a fantastic memorable weekend.

And now on a more sobering note, I'd just like to offer my condolences to the family of Mark Reynolds who was tragically killed while racing the downhill at the Sea Otter. I was only a few people in front of Mark who at least enjoyed his last minutes on this earth going flat out on his bike. You can read the full story here.