Sea Otter 2010 Shout Out

For me, the big part of a big bike festival like the Sea Otter Classic is meeting old friends and making new ones.

In no particular order:

Martha Van Inwegen, who keeps the world clean and happy with her Action Wipes.

Martha & I

Martha handed her Action Wipes out from Cyclological‘s booth, where I met sales manager Kevin.

I tweeted my arrival at the Sea Otter media center when the guy sitting next to me said, “Oh, hi Cyclelicious. I just saw your tweet!” This was mountain bike photographer Patrick Branch, who does interesting things with pole mounted cameras and remote controls.

Chip of SOAR Communications and Rich of Interbike.

Chip and Rich

I didn’t actually meet him and missed his Saturday night BBQ, but a special thank you to Jan Valencia who confirmed that it’s indeed possible to bike to Laguna Seca via Hwy 68 from Salinas, CA.

My buddy “bikes gone wild” of Marin County, who introduced me at Sea Otter to custom titanium builder Dan Nelson of San Francisco. Dan was a 220 pound alcoholic when he was invited to go on a bike ride. He immediately fell in love with it, and today he has a cyclist’s build. Dan was already a welder when his girlfriend signed him up for a titanium bike building class at UBI. He’s has a a fascinating story and his bikes are super sweet to ride.

Rod Judd (whom I kept calling Todd) of the International Mountain Bicycling Association and Mark Davidson, president of the Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz.

Rod Judd & Mark Davidson

At every bike show I attend with Tyler of Bike Rumor, we always seem to miss each other. At least we talked on a phone a little bit this time around during the show.

Hello to Mia from Momentum Magazine, the ultra buff Anthony of Ride SFO, and Gwen. Gwen organizes the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition fashion show that takes place the evening of Thursday, May 13. I betcha didn’t know that Gwen has amazing singletrack skills!

Sea Otter.

Howdy to Light & Motion chief light bulb Dan Emerson of Monterey, CA. I’ll post some interesting stuff they found in a marketing survey regarding what bike commuters want in bicycle lights later this week.

Paraic McGlynn’s business card says “Director of Applied Cycling Science” for Serotta Sports. He’s the guy bringing Catlike helmets to the United States beginning in July.

I always like to give a little link love to Mark of Kinetic Koffee up in Humboldt County, California. He has an interesting new project: He takes the unique artwork from the big coffee bean bags and mounts them, selling them really cheap (like $20 each). It has a certain maker vibe that I like; I don’t see them listed on his website but maybe if you ask nicely he can show you what they look like. He also has “Gearhead Go-Bars” at his booth that are pretty tasty all natural snack bars.

Kristy Morrow is “Sponsorship and Social Media Manager” for Yahoo Cycling Team. She gave me grief about the Google Mail email address on my business card. Shout out also to Patrick McCarty of Yahoo Cycling, who is often confused with his former Discovery Channel teammate Jason McCartney. You can read that story in the Monterey County Herald by James Raia.

Speaking of Raia, he’s the “National Cycling Examiner” for Examiner.com. He’s also the author of Tour De France For Dummies. He lives in Sacramento now and introduced himself to me when he saw the Sacramento Bicycle Kitchen shirt I wore.

It was good to meet Mr Robert Egger, Creative Director of Specialized Bicycles, even if he is still a little mad at me for the spoof I pulled on his employer a couple of years ago.

Robert Egger

6 Comments

  1. I'm bummed our schedules didn't work out to tour the Sea Otter together again this year. I didn't get much of a chance to tour the festival this time around as my family was done by the time I finished my race (and I was done too, truth be told). Next year, for sure!

  2. …always good to actually see & converse w/ you, fritz, rather than just through this electronic medium as fine as it all is !!!…

  3. …whoops…& martha, good to meet you again & thanks for the “action wipes”…definitely needed & used 'em in that hot, dusty environ…work excellently & just kinda “nice” to get cleaned up…

  4. It was great meeting you at the Yahoo! Cycling Team booth. Did you change your email address yet? Don't forget to follow us on our team fan page!

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