Here are a couple of race reports:
Richard Nagel races the Cat 4 Elite RR & Circuit Races @ Sea Otter-
“Hello everyone, Sea Otter was great. Thanks Vince
and Brandy for all you did. Thanks for the mechanic work on my new KHS bike
Vince.
Alright,
race recaps time. – The Road Race on Friday was great. 54 mile 5000ft of
climbing kicked my butt. The course was
good to fair. Lots of large potholes on the first half of the course after the
first decent, but it was “Flat tire alley” for a lot of people. Luckily I stayed clear of the left side of
the road through there so no flats for me. The course is much better after that
section. I did well for the first half of the race was in the front of the peloton.
4th lap in, one guy jumped off the front and blew up the rest field including
me! I worked with 4 other guys chasing them down. We would touch the back end of
the group one more time before they pulled away and stayed away. I finished in
2:42:56. I went through 5 bottles of Skratch Labs fluid and three things of
Honeystinger Food.
The
circuit race on Sunday was awesome! The course is a famous race track so it is
always has wonderful road conditions. The race was very fast but I couldn’t
tell you how fast because I forgot to start my Garmin! (No Strava PR’s for me)
I was in the pack and doing well all the way to the last lap. I got dropped half way through the steep
climb.(My legs were feeling the road race from Friday) I tried like hell to make up time descending
the corkscrew. I threw myself into the hard left turn and thought for sure that
I was gonna crash but the bike stayed upright and held the speed (what felt
like 50+mph). I saw the peloton at the
bottom of the 180 degree turn while I was at the top but that would be the
closest I got. I work and finished hard.” -Richard
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| Richard racing the Road Race |
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| Richard climbing the Road Race |
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| Richard working to bridge the gap |
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| Richard mid Circuit Race |
Kurtis Westbrook raced Cat 1 XC on Friday - 40miles, through hot temps and tons of dust-
Sea
Otter Classic Cat 1 XC
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from
this race other then I knew it would be painful because I had never rode 40
miles with 7800 feet of climbing on a mountain bike and have never done that
much climbing in one day. I acquired some intel from my teammates and riding
buddies and the basics of it were that there was a lot of fire road and some
deep sand descents to look out for. My main goal of this race was to finish and
if I was able to finish ahead of some people that would be awesome.
I made the long haul out to Laguna Seca
Raceway Friday morning after a big breakfast; I arrived, set up my tent, and
ate a little something for lunch. The race started at 1:45 and Brandy showed me
the way to the start where I warmed up on the race track. Soon enough the race
was off, my group (which turned out to not be my group because my racing age is
25) started up the race track in one pack and we were all drafting two guys in
front. Once we made the left turn on the dirt things started to spread a little
bit and the pace kicked up also, but I was able to keep up with the front half
of the group. It was a fire road hammer fest until we got to the first steep
rocky climb where almost everyone dismounted and ran up. I had a gel at the
very top and descended down some more fire road until I got to some sweet
twisting sandy single track. I made a few passes here, the whole time I was
pushing the bike pretty hard, some of the turns were really tight making me
want to have smaller wheels but I made it through fairly well.
After the fun stuff I hit more fire road
followed by some sandy single track descending which led into the really sandy
descents that dropped down on some flat double track. I implemented my drafting
skills and rested a bit here and ate a waffle. The race went down a road and
then up a bit where there was a water station, I took some water and downed it.
After the water station the race went on some single trail that went along the
side of a ridge which dropped out on more fire road. There was a long single
track climb followed by a decent and then some more single track climbing which
led out to the last bit of fire road climbing until the second lap. During the
first lap I ate a good amount and drank almost both of my bottles of water.
Luckily Brandy and Richard were at the start of the second lap to hand me off
two more bottles this time with Skratch Labs in them.
I was pretty worn out from the first lap
but knew I could press on, it wasn’t until first single track climb where I
started to cramp. I was able to push through a few more cramps but my pace had
dropped of significantly and I couldn’t see through my glasses very well
because they had become coated with sweat. At this point I knew I was way out
of the podium and was just going to complete my goal of finishing. At the very
last single track climb before the fire road I passed a guy playing some ACDC
which rose my spirits a bit and I made my final push to the finish. I was
exhausted, but in better condition than some people because I seen someone
puking and people lying on the ground. My main concern after finishing was to
find camp and get some food in my body, but this was made difficult because the
volunteers did not know where anything was.
After the race I found out that my
finish time was 3hr 45min and that I had actually beat two people which made me
feel a bit better about my performance. Next year, if I do this race, I would
like to get my time down to around 3 hours and to do this I will need to spend
more time in my road bike saddle on long rides. All in all it was a great
weekend, spent time with my teammates, met some of the sponsors (Kali, Smith Optics, Jamis Bikes, Serfas, ESI Grips Honeystinger, Skratch Labs), checked out a
bunch of cool stuff, got some free stuff, rode a pump track, listened to a band
that was giving away tacos, seen some old friends, and got a great work out.
*Trail narrative may be out of order. It was a long race.” -Kurtis
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| Kurtis before his XC race |
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| Kurtis on the start line |
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| What 40 miles at race pace looks like. |
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