Whether it’s a tricked out bike for a show stand, a special lucky race build, or just the garage geek project, there are some unusual bikes to be spotted at Sea Otter. Here’s a massive gallery for you, with a few mini interviews thrown in.
Dakotah Norton’s Dual Slalom Bike
I didn’t manage to catch the man himself, only teammate Ryan Pinkerton. But here’s his bike.
Gracey Hemstreet’s Hardline Bike
Gracey wasn’t there, but her bike was attracting a lot of attention. It’s great to see her getting the recognition – and also apparently equal pay. Norco said she’s paid the same rate she’d get if she was a guy on the team.
Mystery Bike
Wynn Masters found this bike sitting around the Continental stand and was riding it around. With a steering wheel and coaster brake, it was fairly precarious (yes, I had a go).
Mystery All City
I didn’t spot its owner, but this All City looked like it might have come straight from a UK commute. Full marks for practicality.
Nathan Smith’s Specialized Supercross
A retro bike being raced!
Have you built this up especially for Sea Otter or is this what you ride all the time?
I built this especially for racing dual slalom.
And how is the dual slalom going?
I couldn’t stay off the ground today. I got third place, but I crashed about four times out there today
But you were still third?
Yeah. Yeah, so still in one piece. I made it down the hill, but yeah.
Do you come to Sea Otter every year?
Yeah, I have been coming for a long time. Dual slalom I’ve done over 20. I think I started slalom around ’97.
And you’ve been coming to Sea Otter for all that time?
Since 1993 I’ve been to them all! I’ve only not raced once since 1993, when I had injuries and I was hurt.
Mosaic Small Monsters Special
This matching jersey and bike are in Small Monsters Project colours – a charity addressing the effects of traumatic brain injury. Ben Frederick, founder of the Small Monsters Project, among other things gave us a bit more background.
This is a bike that was painted in collaboration with Mosaic, which is a Colorado-based bike manufacturer. As of this recording, the partnership has not been announced. So you are getting some behind the scenes exclusive! The bike is built off of me and my friends in the industry, so Hunt provided the wheels, Fox provided the fork, my longtime partner Ritchie provided the cockpit and then SRAM provided all the shifty bits and it’s really just the epitome of the coolest bike that we could make.
And obviously it matches your jersey, so tell us about why this colour scheme, what it’s all about?
Yes, so in 2016 I was trying to be a professional cyclist like much young men do, and women. And I had a kind of a freak crash and hit my head and had a traumatic brain injury. And so through that recovery process I found that it was really hard to get the information that I needed, trying to find resources that could help me get better sooner. And so once I was able to finish my recovery, both with the traumatic brain injury and then some following up mental health challenges, I wanted to try to make a difference in the cycling world. And so the monsters that we speak of in the Small Monsters Project, those represent our mental health challenges. So if they’re hidden away, they are big and scary. But if you bring them out into the light, learn to live with them. It makes it much easier to to live with so they become small and easier and not as not as scary.
Well the monsters that I can see here are frankly quite cute!
Yes, yes, and so it’s trying to like take away some of the stigma and you know, I’m of the opinion that your mental health challenges never really go away. But again, you can learn to live with them. The analogy that I use is like, if you have you a crick in your back, and if you were to do your 10 minutes of stretching a day, you live your life as if it’s normal. But if you let that kind of lapse over a few months, it could take you out of doing all the things that you wanna do. And so mental health struggles can be the same way. And so I’m trying to use my platform as a bike racer. I race at the professional level in cyclocross and gravel as just a way to, I don’t know… talk about it. Not enough people in general talk about it and especially in the male sphere of things.
My impression is that the bike world has got a lot better at talking about that sort of thing – about both mental health and traumatic brain injuries?
Yes and it’s something that I’ve been able to kind of see the change as I’ve been trying to talk about it myself. My helmet sponsor, Smith and MIPS, actually sponsored a talk about concussion. And for the longest time, helmet manufacturers were just so afraid to even talk about it. So to have a helmet manufacturer let us talk about it is such a big step. I don’t know, bikes can be such an amazing tool for recovery and adventure and wonderful things. And so we want to try to keep people on the bike and in the community. And so being able to have these conversations really makes a difference.
The website is Small Monsters Project and you can follow me at Benjamfred.
Neuhaus Metalworks
Hand built in California, this Neuhaus Metalworks bike was showing off the new MRP Ribbon fork.
Past and present on the Trek stand.
Past and present on the Pivot stand too – where I was rather chuffed to have Chris Cocalis tell me he reads my Weekly Word. Be more Chris and sign up!
Totally tropical on the DVO stand.
A cargo bike by Specialized that’s not available in the UK.
The Tern Orox is available in the UK, however. We are doing our best to get one to play with. What a beast!
Brage Vestavik’s GT
Talking of beasts, what bike for hurling yourself off cliffs? Crazy brake position – Brage wasn’t around to find out if this was an unboxing error, or how he runs them.
Which Bombers for owning?
Bike Builders of Berkley
This is the product of a university club. One of the members, Blaze Harris, gave me the run down on what this is.
So, this is a downhill-slash-enduro bike. It’s 170mm in the front, 170mm in the back. Completely custom design. We’ve designed everything from scratch. The main part of the project was this linkage. This is a bespoke linkage. I’ve never seen it anywhere else. It’s still fundamentally the same as a lot of other designs. I like to call it a reverse-horst because it’s basically a horse link that’s upside down.
So we’re actually in the shock upwards with this Rocker Link. It’s a high idler, so our pivot point is pretty high up and we’ve got the idler pulley to maintain good anti-rise so we have no pedal kickback. It’s a lot of fun to ride. It’s pretty slack and rides like a downhill bike, but still pretty nimble. We have a 63 degree head tube angle with a 41 offset fork. So it still feels pretty nimble and twitchy, but it’s pretty stable to ride.
It’s made out of chromoly tube, all steel. It’s all welded steel tubing, a mix of like butted tubes and just like straight steel tubes kind of all the whole route. Anything that’s like heavily load bearing is just straight steel tubes and our front frame for weight savings are butted tubes.
We’re all in a club, Bike Builders of Berkeley. We’re an engineering club out of UC Berkeley. So me and my other club member, Justin, who is not here today, designed this bike and built 90% of it. It’s been quite the project. It’s a lot of fun.
Cody Kelley’s Stumpjumper
I caught Cody Kelley at the foot of the Dual Slalom course, soon after he’d been eliminated. He’d already won the Enduro, and would go on to take P1 at the Downhill too.
Cody Kelly, winner of the Enduro, but didn’t quite make it through to finals of, or the winning of, Dual Slalom?
Yeah, no. I was fortunate enough that I won this event last year, but this year it was not on the cards for me. I laid down two good runs with Mitch [Ropelato], but… he laid down two better runs. He just, he bested me so.
That damn Mitch!
Yeah! Battle of the Utah kids.
And did you ride the same bike for both events?
I rode a Stumpjumper for both events, yes. For Enduro I raced it with 29er wheels, and for Slalom today I raced it with 650b wheels.
Okay, and then what about shock settings and tyre settings? What kind of differences did you have there?
We lowered the fork for Slalom. So for Enduro I ran the fork at 150 and today I ran it at 130 for slalom and then overall the bike was just way stiffer today for slalom. Yeah, lots more air in fork and shock.
And are you running inserts in there?
No, no inserts, just Specialized Grid Trail tyres. Yeah, lots of PSI.
Lots? Is that the technical term?
Yeah, just lots. All of it!
And have you got anything on here that’s a prototype you’re testing?
No, not right now. No, everything’s in production we got. I mean just all the TRP parts, brakes, drivetrain. Specialized wheels and tyres. Fox suspension, everything’s stock right now.
And what does the rest of your season look like?
I’m doing a full Big Mountain Enduro calendar, so they have six stops this year, which is rad. That’s one more than they’ve ever had. So yeah, excited for it. We’re going out east here just in a couple of weeks to get the season started on that.
OK, phew… still a few more bike checks and interviews to come in the coming weeks, but that’s about it for Sea Otter stuff for now. Hope you’ve enjoyed it. It’s a great event, well worth taking in if you get the chance.
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