The green hills around Monterey were spectacular. I had a hard time keeping my eyes on the trail ahead of me. The Sea Otter Classic reportedly had over 10,000 different racers and tens of thousands of spectators. There were so many races going on at any one time that you could not keep track of it all. While we saw quite a few circuit road races on the Laguna Seca Track, generally we tuned in to the mountain bike racing.
The courses were hilly and fast. The only thing that made the trails technical were deep erosion ruts that could take you down in a heartbeat. Colt predicted that there would be some serious accidents and he was right. JHK had to be airlifted out of his X-C race with broken ribs, bone bruises, and head lacerations. We spoke with him the next day at the airport and he was hurting.
Colt had his best national finishes in both the Elite Juniors Short Track (5th American) and Cross Country. He also got to race many kids from other countries, some of whom we had never seen before. The new Independent Fabrications Ti bike worked flawlessly.
In the Pro races, Bart Brentjens pulled off a surprise win in the Super XC. But Kabush rallied to win both the Time Trial Race and Cross Country. As a result he took the overall G.C. The Short Track was exciting as he went off the front but ran out of gas on the last lap and took third to Trent Lowe and Brenjtjens. In the Cross Country,? Liam Killeen and Geoff blew the rest of the field away....and Geoff took the win in a sprint finish.
The women were equally exciting. Dunlap, coming on form, took the Super XC with Sydor close behind. Sydor would take the time trial and move into the GC lead. Hanusava eked out victory in the Short Tack (this is turning out to be Katarina's specialty. She turns herself inside out to win these events). The long XC race turned out to be a pack of 13 the whole way with Sydor winning by a nose. She also took the GC by less than a minute. |
