A lot of big names were missing from the 2008 pro men cross-country race, due to the World Cup in Houffalize, Belgium. The race started under sunny skies with Kona’s Ryan Trebon taking an early lead. Late in the first lap, a pack of seven racers, including number one plate Sam Schultz, Ryan Trebon, Chris Sheppard, Carl Decker, Ken Onodera, and Miguel Martinez, swapped spots on the long rolling fire road climb back to the Laguna Seca race track. At the beginning of the second lap, Miguel Martinez broke away and stretched out a huge lead, eventually winning the race by almost three and a half minutes. Sam Schultz ended up taking second, followed fourteen seconds later by Sid Taberlay. Fourth place finisher, Mitchel Peterson, crossed the line a minute and a half later and Federico Ramirez Mendez took fifth a little over 6 minutes after Miguel Martinez crossed the finish line.

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Sunday was beautiful in Monterey, with clear sunny skies. It looked like a great day for cross-country racing. However, some of Saturday’s wind stuck around and left pro racers fighting strong winds and spectators suffering from some serious wind chill. Most people were just happy it wasn’t raining, though. Rain is sort of a Sea Otter tradition – regardless of the weather forecast.

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Unlike Saturday, which was cold with strong gusty winds, Sunday dawned sunny and cool - perfect conditions for the 2008 Sea Otter pro XC race. Here are a few photos from the semi-pros in the morning.

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Most of the time I spend at Sea Otter is working - taking pictures, hiking to photo locations, or on the computer in the media center. But I always make sure to reserve some time for at least a short ride. It breaks up the event for me and allows me to relax a little and enjoy Laguna Seca. And it is a beautiful venue. There’s a huge variety of terrain and although most of the riding is fire road, there is some excellent singletrack, as you can see here.

I took a ride on Friday evening with Steve, from Bionicon and Alan, the Bike magazine Web site manager,. It was crystal clear and the light was wonderful for photos. When they started to drop me, I pulled out the camera and told them we needed to go back for photos (ancient photographer’s trick :D). Then I made them go back and forth on a few of the especially delicious sections of singletrack.

Both of these photos were taken with a Canon PowerShot A640 compact digital camera. I shot them using the camera’s basic auto exposure settings, with some adjustment in Photoshop. If you want to learn some tricks for taking better pictures with your digital camera, read my Digital Camera Tips and Techniques article. There’s a whole page of specific action photo techniques with mountain bike photo samples. Anyone can learn the basic rules and take pictures like these

Luna team member, Georgia Gould, at the beginning of the pro women’s XC race, which she won by over four minutes.

Below, Kiara Bisaro and Katerina Nash battle it out on the second lap. They would finish in second and third place, respectively, in these same positions.

More pro women’s XC race photos (click to enlarge):

Jeremiah Bishop pulls the front of the pack up to the top of the first big climb, at the start of the first of two 20-mile laps. Looking like they’re out for a Sunday ride (they are), Geoff Kabush, leads on the second lap and took the win in the pro men’s XC race, beating Jean Christophe Peraud of the Orbea team by only one-tenth of a second.

More pro men’s cross country photos. Click the thumbnails to see larger photos:

Don’t you love dirt in your teeth? Saturday’s short track racers got a mouthful. Here you see Luna’s Georgia Gold on her way to a gritty 5th place in the pro women’s short track. The men had it even worse because the ladies had already churned the course into goo and it started raining harder. Check out Cody Peterson (below) and his new chocolate milk race uniform.

More pro women’s short track photos:

More pro men’s short track photos:

We now have dozens of race reports and photos from riders like you. Check them out or post your own here:

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=288323

To mix it up, our friends Jeff and Al rode a tandem and cross-dressed for the first time (rode tandem for the first time that is). And they lived to tell the tale

Photos from Aosty @blinkylights.net

Team Velo Bella ladies warming up during Saturday’s downpour.

It wouldn’t really be a proper Sea Otter without the weather playing a part. And it showed up in a big way on Saturday. It rained the hardest I’ve ever seen at Laguna Seca in over ten years of attending all kinds of events. Races and qualifying were postponed, people ran for cover, photographers cowered, and mud happened. It was beautiful.