The Sea Otter Classic cycling festival is famous for drawing large crowds, industry members showing off their new wares, great racing and usually inclement weather. Well this year all were true except for the bad weather. Sea Otter attendees were treated by record high temperatures and beautiful sunshine. So everyone packed away their rain gear and put on their shorts and sun block and the Sea Otter was ON!
The GT Bicycles MTB racing team members Mick Hannah, Marc Beaumont and Kevin Aiello had just returned from the UCI World Cup in South Africa so they were trying to shake off a little jet lag. They met up with teammates Eric Carter, Tyler McCaul and Andrew Cho to catch up on their travel stories and settle in for a great weekend of racing.
One of the favorite events for spectators is the Pro Dual Slalom with its fast paced side-by-side action and great view of the whole course. All of the racers staged up for qualifying and with over 100 entrants only the fastest 32 move on to the finals. GT aces Mick Hannah and Eric Carter gave a tutorial on how to get down the course fast by qualifying 1st and 3rd respectively. They were both running strong in the finals and made it all the way down to the round of eight. In some of the best racing of the day both put in valiant efforts but ironically both were edged out by only .10 of a second. In a tremendous show of respect after his elimination, the crowd gave the 39 year-old Eric