Race Report: 2024 Sea Otter Classic Gravel Race
Race: Sea Otter Classic Gravel Race
Date: 4/20/24
AVRT racers: Grant Miller (Pro/Elite), Andrew Ernst (Age group)
Top Result: Grant 10th, Andrew 16th/1st AG
Course: Two laps of a punchy parkour featuring mostly fast rolling gravel with a few technical pinch points. The main technical feature is a 2.5 minute segment called 3 sisters which features huge rollers where you climb and descend 10% pitches. The rest of the course is mostly fast-rolling doubletrack gravel interspersed with a few road sections.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11225772456
Nutrition: Two big bottles filled with 120g of carbs, two 150mg Caffiene SIS gels
This year the Sea Otter Classic featured a real gravel race. In past years the race was the same as the mountain bike course but only for one lap. While some people would say that’s their idea of fun, going through a bunch of sandy, bumpy singletrack on a gravel bike just makes me wish I was on a mountain bike. The course this year was updated to a fast-rolling and punchy course where you’re either climbing, descending, or drilling it on the flats. We did 2 laps which rounded out to about 46 miles of racing.
I was two weeks out of taking a week off and other than a quick recon after the road race, I hadn’t touched my gravel bike since doing a 150 mile ride in March. My bottom bracket was in subpar condition and I was still running 38mm pathfinders. To summarize - I didn’t have high expectations for the race. When I got to the start line alongside pros and lifetime GP contenders, I could already see I was probably running the smallest and least knobby tires which was not a good sign.
The start was really early (7:50am) and while my legs could pedal, my brain was not quite ready for the intensity. We started on the Laguna Seca raceway and immediately started drilling it up the raceway climb. I could’ve fought more for position, but tried to slot in around 10th wheel to get a nice draft on the upcoming descent. I knew it would get strung out turning onto the dirt but didn’t think the race would blow apart. On the descent, one of the pros went to the front and drilled it. We averaged 30mph and hit 42 at one point as we flew down the gravel descent.
I quickly found myself spinning out from my 42/10 and watched the field slowly pull a few seconds ahead. I had ridden the course two days earler with my 46t chainring and struggled to make it up some of the steeper pitches, so I’d switched down. It turns out that this probably hurt my race since now I couldn’t even keep up on the fast bits.
We immediately turned into the only technical bit of the course on 3 sisters and while I could still see the leaders, I just didn’t have the confidence to rip this section of the course. In total I lost about 20s to Rob Britton and maybe 10s to the next group, but that was all it took when the race was full throttle. As we came out onto the road I quickly caught and joined a chase group but we never saw the leaders again. For the rest of the lap I worked with two other guys before dropping one. Heading into the final climb I started upping the pace and popped the other guy. Now I just had to do the next hour by myself and hopefully catch someone.
The rest of the race went by pretty quickly. I just tried to keep pedaling as hard as I could the whole time and try to ride cleanly through the corners. Unfortunately, I lost so much time to the groups up the road on the first lap that I never caught anyone. Since the course had a lot of rolling and fast sections, I was just slower than a group rotating.
At the end I rolled in for 10th place. I was really happy with the effort, it just would’ve been nice to race with someone on the second lap. I averaged 19mph for 2.5 hours on a course with almost 6,000 feet of elevation and I still finished minutes behind the leaders. That just shows you how fast the pros are. If I had to do it again, I’d probably go with a) a finely tuned drivetrain and b) wider ties with a bit more traction to help with clearing loose gravel corners at 30+ mph.