Life Time Grand Prix Series - Sea Otter Classic

It's the first race of a series of six of the Life Time Grand Prix 2022. Three of them are raced with drop bars on gravel bikes and three are raced on flatbar full suspension mountainbikes. The races are well spread though the season, so it gives us riders the time to adapt to the bikes we race on. The series are big, it's prestigious and there is a lot of money to earn. I applied for a ticket and it happened to be that I am the only European allowed to enter the series. No pressure, right?

It is going to be an insane year of traveling for me to race those series. At a quick glance in November it all seemed reasonable, but on the front eve of these series I started to doubt my choices. Something that is not unfamiliar to me before big events. I am always considering life choices when, for example, my alarm is set for 4 am on raceday and I can’t sleep the night before. But here I had to leave my family at home for a week and it wasn’t going to be the only transatlantic trip of this year. Five more to follow. What was I getting into?

But Sea Otter in Monterey proved to be a soft landing for me. I lived in this area in 2016 and had time to visit old friends, do the Giro Tuesday ride and visit the Specialized HQ before the event. I had breakfast in my favorite bar in Santa Cruz and the people at Aptos Street BBQ still recognized this skinny cyclist as one of their regulars back in the days. The first days were a giant trip down memory lane.

Once we entered the race venue on Thursday I was overwhelmed. I knew this venue was recognized as one of North America’s main cycling events, but I hadn’t been able to visit it before due to World Tour obligations. A great venue in nature at the Laguna Seca Raceway and an exposition, that would be the main attraction of this week. All bike brands where there and the many races from lower to top level were a nice distraction from all the bike stuff displayed. I counted three pump tracks for kids to play on and had to think immediately of my kids, who could have ripped here all day.

Here I was, Friday night, the night before raceday, drinking a can of IPA in front of my camper and laughing. I had to pinch myself hard. Tomorrow is raceday Laurens, but all my nerves before raceday were gone. I think it had to do with the fact, that it was a mountainbike race. I just had to do my best and my “all I can do is good” mentality took over. But the friends I saw all day long and the support from my sponsors at the expo were a big part too. I went to bed late and slept like a baby. That has been different before.

Saturday morning the racer inside me was back in race mode and although I rolled up to the start half an hour before, I found myself in the middle of the pack at the start line. The mountainbike starts are really something else. Not the mellow gravel start was expecting. I saw people warming up on rollers and nervous riders. The start was crazy fast and this was not my game and I entered the single track halfway the pack. While sprinting to the single track, I had to dodge some early race crashes. My adrenaline raised sky high and I tried to follow wheels in fast downhills. I managed to stay in a good group for a while, before I suddenly felt my rear rim hitting rock. It hasn’t been like that before, so I needed to dismount and check my bike. The tire was slowly leaking and I did hit it with co2 before continuing. I was dropped out of my group and it took a while before regaining the focus you need to rip all that single track.

I still had to pump co2 twice in order to finish the race. But I finished with a smile on my face. The 3 hrs 15 at full speed and full focus had raised my “be happy hormons” big time and I couldn’t wait to start the podcast with Mr Gravel Colin Strickland afterwards to talk some gravel bullshit.  (listen here)

Some beers and laughter further, we started the engine of our Storyteller Sprinter and headed six hours south on highway 101 to visit my friend Renger van der Zande at the Indycar weekend in Laguna beach. While steering on that highway still buzzing from race weekend, I came to a conclusion. My choice to race Life Time this year was awesome and I can’t wait to live more adventures along the way. Next stop? Unbound Gravel, we’re entering my game.

All photo credits of this article, including the cover photo go to Randy Higashi

Do you want to know more about the numbers, the digits and the watts? Jim van den Berg from Join.cc analyses the outcome of Laurens’ powermeter and gives his conclusions in The Power Debrief.