The Sea Otter Classic happened two weeks ago. It was probably the best yet. Instead of it being cold and wet (like 3 years ago) or cold and windy (like the last 2 years), it was warm and only a little windy. I took a train up to Salinas on Wednesday and Kelly Damschen (she had the wedding I shot last year) picked me up and gave me a ride to Laguna Seca where I would be camping for the next few days.

As usual, I didn't race it. It's the only race I just go to shoot. I'm usually running around shooting and practicing to race, so it's a nice change of pace. Over the end of the week and the weekend, I shot pro downhill and slalom practice, then finals. Friday night, we went to see the Follow Me premier. It blew my mind. A lot of the zip line shots were really long and had awesome camera movements when changing direction. One of my friend's found me in a video, Coastal Crew Ep. 5 walking up the slalom course to shoot.

Here's the full gallery: 10.04.18 - Sea Otter Classic

I got back home to Santa Barbara two weeks ago and still have PWDS -post whistler depression syndrome and probably will until I go back.

I rode almost every day, shot most days and partied every night. I covered WomenzWorx, the Zero Ceiling Slideshow and the Saint Deep Summer Photo Challenge slideshow for Ridemonkey.com. Halfway through the week, David and I met up with Jeff Schmuck from Ridemonkey for the first of a series of nights going out 'Schmuck style' and then somehow making my way up the ski slope to my hotel way up on Blackcomb at 3am. I shot other events for myself, getting creative and in hopes of getting other shots from the week used. The slideshows inspired me to get creative and try different things. After I rode with some friends for two hours monday, I met David at his truck in the parking lot... It was time to leave whistler. I threw my bike in the bed and we were off, back to Bellingham. I had two days in Bellingham before I would take the train home out of Seattle. We did XC rides both days. It was probably my 4th ride on my finally built up trailbike. On the last day, we rode at Chuckanut where we rode to Cedar lake (left).

I got home Friday and had a local race that weekend at the SG Dirt Club. I wanted to race slalom Saturday, but there was no way I could with the pile of photos to go through, video to capture, etc. I made it to the race Sunday morning with 2 hours of sleep, a cup of coffee and a 5 Hour Energy for the downhill race. My cat 2 class actually had 7 people. My 3 runs were all clean except for when my rear wheel swapped left before a corner on run 2. I was surprised when I heard I got first because I wasn't feeling really fast. Maybe a week at whistler did that? Maybe it was knowing the course so well? Probably both. Class started the next day. Unfortunately, I started feeling a cold coming on at 4am, before the race... so I didn't go to the first class.

Currently, i'm in Spreckles, CA. I'm finally getting over the cold. I'm up here at Brian and Kelly's new house to get some photos of them, ride, work on the pump track and hang out. Next week, i'm shooting their wedding.

my crankworx articles

• WomenzWorx
• Saint Deep Summer Photo Challenge Slideshow
• Zero Ceiling Slideshow

galleries

• 09.07.22-19 - Bellingham
• 09.08 - Pacific Northwest - natural
• 09.08 - Pacific Northwest - unnatural

Photos are up! I was waiting for the results to go up so I could keyword them better, with names... but they still aren't up. I was told sunday night, but it's now Tuesday and they have pages and pages of XC results up, but still no DH or DS results. Here's the gallery: http://gallery.pbmedia.us/p707011988.

Here's the Sea Otter photo thread on ridemonkey, http://www.ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=217366. So far, there are photos from Pro DH practice this morning. Today, i'll add some from the premier last night and Pro slalom today.