2012 Sea Otter Classic

This year Sea Beaver started weeks before the event for me. Working up here at Unreal Cycles became hectic as preparations were being made for the upcoming week of shenanigans. Cleaning bikes and tents, finding parts, building bikes, packing and more packing had the three of us at the shop running around like a bunch of confused squirrels. Everything came together and we managed to make it to Sea Otter with no mechanicals and we didnt forget anything! When we started setting up on Wednesday morning we realized that we were going to be one of the biggest booths there.

After setting up it was time to go register for DS, Ive never raced DS at the otter before and the only other time Ive race DS was at Ranchstyle 2011. The course was alright, but I couldn't quite get my line down on a section of the red course. I qualified for finals on Friday but not by much. I was racing Cat 1 and qualified at the back of the pack. I was mostly stoked on the fact that I actually qualified. Finals cam around and I was up against the #1 qualifier and did my first run on the slower course. I lost both rounds so I didn't move on but I wasn't to disappointed.
Friday night we received some goodies for us to show off in the booth.
Now time for some screwing around and DH. Fabien Cousinie from Hutchinson UnitedRide and Lance Tueller were making an attempt to drift the sidehack in the dirt near our booth ( Check out UnitedRides Sea Otter Video to see the carnage play out. https://www.pinkbike.com/video/254084/)

The Mad Mikey Haderer was putting on a show over at the Camp Of Champions Air Bag in his Mankini.

When we were done rolling around laughing I headed up for DH practice on the 4in bike and quickly decided that this year was going to require some more travel. The course was a lot rougher this year so I broke the Makulu out but not until I threw on some fresh new rubber from Hutchinson bringing the final weight of the bike to 35.5lbs. Needless to say I am very pleased with that. The bike was running good and after some great advice on line choice from Mick Hannah, Jared Hobbs and Dante Harmony I was hitting my lines pretty close to how I wanted them.


By the time my race run came around I had made 15 runs on the DS course and 14 on the DH and in this heat my body was taking a toll. I had a clean run and hit most of my lines but I just didn't have the legs. I came out of it with a 16th out of 31 riders. Alex Cairns took a 14th only 0.4 of a sec ahead of me. On a bike he had never ridden before. Stoked for him!

Once I was done re-hydrating and doing my best not to pass out we started tearing down to go home. We were just about to leave when I received news that my best friend had passed. Unfortunately my Sea Otter didn't end on a great note this year but I did have a good time hanging out with everyone. See you at the next one!


Scott Punt http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scott-Punt-Professional-Downhill-Mountainbike-Racer/104902982943451
Unreal Cycles http://www.facebook.com/UnrealCycles