MBOSC at the Sea Otter Classic 2010

Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz (MBOSC) was really busy at the Sea Otter Classic this year. I think it was the biggest year yet for us. The weather was the best I have ever experienced in the 13 years of attending the Sea Otter. Lots of fun was had by all of those who attended. How can you not have fun when in an immersive environment surrounded by shiny bikes, pro events and 20,000 of your closest friends?

The success of this organization is a testament to the volunteers and officers who make it happen. No one draws a salary and there are very little benefits to this type of work. At the end of the day it's people like you and I who want to improve mountain biking in Santa Cruz. We do it because of the passion for the sport and we love to ride in Santa Cruz County. There are a lot of people to thank and one concern about a note like this is that someone will be left behind.

MBOSC provided all the volunteer course marshals for the Dual Slalom races and they went off really smoothly. This is a testament to the organization of Megan Zemney who did an amazing job of co-ordinating the volunteers for the DS and the booth. Megan really stepped it up this year to lead many initiatives. She is an effective leader and really took ownership of many tasks and drove them to completion. Not only that but she managed to practice and race downhill and took 4th in her category! That's a podium folks! Thank you Megan for your passion and energy and driving MBOSC in a really fun direction. She also needed some downtime and went off the grid last weekend in Yosemite.

There were so many volunteers on the DS course who really stepped up and represented MBOSC in a very professional and courteous manner. There are too many to name but I would like to give a big shout out and thank you the guys who worked multiple shifts and on the long day on Sunday. This included Dwight Follien, Alan Strahsburg, Kevin Brouwers, Dan Abernethy, Rich Henthorn, Bob Walden, Buff and James Bradley. I would like to especially thank Tracy Cotten for all the shifts on the swaile and stepping up to lead the crew on Sunday when we wanted to give him the day off. That Sunday shift was pretty brutal and went 2.5 hours overtime. We'll make it up to you guys!

The raffle for the Titus El Guapo was held on the last day of the Otter and we successfully met our goals. We raised over $5500 - which is more than enough to pay for the SDSF parking lot project and managed to implement electronic memberships during the process. We are really happy to say that we signed up and/or renewed 27 memberships during this campaign. Thank you all for your generous support!

The raffle couldn't have been executed without the help of some very key people. First of all, Sebastien Praly developed the online payment system and web pages. Things were a little tense when PayPal shut us down for a while and we had to work out some bugs but he managed to get it back on track. Michelle Lamelin did all the posters and graphics and worked closely with Rick Graves at Cluch Couriers for doing all the printing. We highly recommend using Clutch Couriers services for fast, effective printing at a reasonable price.

Eve Davidson did a stellar job of doing the back office work of member, raffle fulfillment and accounting. She is the reason that MBOSC continues to run so smoothly and effectively and she ensures that the organization is compliant and efficient. I don't thank her enough for all that she does and she has managed to put up with my bike advocacy "hobby" for all these years.

There are so many who helped with the raffle in so many ways. Steven Gemelos, Bob Walden, Jo Rathbun and Daryl Breuninger for their work in promoting and supporting the raffle. I would also like to thank our shop partners Lars Thompsen at Trail Head Cyclery in San Jose and Wade Hall and Matt Potter at The Spokesman Bicycles for selling tickets and hosting the El Guapo for all to see. Thanks to Michele Lamelin, Alan Strahsburg, Josh Moore, Jo Mutch, Daniel Abernethy, Marty Abaurrea and especially the man in the top hat Steve Cooper ("Cooper"!) for driving ticket sales during the Sea Otter. It was phenomenal and impressive how much raffle tickets we sold in the last 2 days of the Sea Otter.

A very special thanks to Jason, Jeff and Mike at Titus Bikes who believe in what we are doing and support our goals. We really appreciate your partnership and look forward to the next event where we can work together.

Camping at the Sea Otter was a blast and it was great to get to know our fellow mountain bikers. Initially MBOSC bought 3 campsites and offered free spots to members and volunteers. Camping was pretty sparse this year so we managed to spread out (take over?) 2 additional sites. We must have had at least 35-40 members and affiliates of MBOSC camping with us. I think we have firmly cemented the reputation of Santa Cruz mountain bikers as ones who have the most fun at the Sea Otter campsites. It was quite a party. Firewalking, bonfires, and propane fireballs. Beer and fire probably don't mix but there was never any concerns about safety. Needless to say the cops seem to think that we had the funnest campsites because they kept visiting us... at least charges weren't laid and no one got hurt.

We would like to thank Charlie Meehan, Jason the brewmaster the crew at Seabright Brewery for making sure that at the end of a hard day at work we had enough delicious IPA to make things right again. Charlie has been a loyal supporter of MBOSC over the year and we really appreciate his patronage. The fuel of bike advocacy is great beer and Seabright Brewery delivers the goods.

Finally, there were numerous people who dropped by the booth to say hello, buy raffle tickets and have renewed your membership over the past month. The MBOSC officers and volunteers appreciate your expression of support and we thank you, thank you, thank you! Together we have accomplished a lot of great things to improve mountain biking in this County. We are starting to get some momentum and it's building into something big. There are so many people who are passionate about mountain biking in Santa Cruz and MBOSC represents a small fraction of those enthusiasts. Imagine what we can accomplish if we represented all the mountain bikers who enjoy Santa Cruz County? Tell your friends about us! Encourage them to get informed on the issues. There is so much to grow and there is so much potential. Collectively we can turn Santa Cruz County in a world class mountain bike playground.

Thank you all for making MBOSC a stronger club! Whew! I'm glad that's over. I can't wait until next year.

--Mark

President, MBOSC

Titus El Guapo Raffle at the Sea Otter Classic

The raffle for the Titus El Guapo was held on the last day of the Sea Otter. It was a very successful campaign. We managed to raise about $5500 with raffle sales and we also used this bike raffle as a motivation to do online memberships - which is something we have been wanting to do for a few of years.

We had an amusing way of conducting the raffle at the MBOSC Sea Otter booth. Cooper was a great barker/host who really drew the crowd in and pumped them up. I gave a pitch for MBOSC, thanked the audience, Sea Otter and Titus and mentioned why we are raising funds. Then I held my blindfolded 7 year old daughter upside down in the raffle bin. She shuffled the tickets and the crowd told her when to pick the winner. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind about the randomness of the drawing.

The winner was Mark Woodhead - a Santa Cruz local and one of the founding members of MBOSC. Mark is no longer active with MBOSC leadership but he does lead the weekly ride. Winning the bike was good karma for him and he has promised to be more active in the future. I wasn't surprised that a good friend won the bike (since a lot of my good friends bought multiple raffle tickets) but I'm pretty impressed at how many tickets we sold at the Sea Otter. Titus has a great reputation and a strong enthusiast base. Many bought tickets to support MBOSC and the cause. But many out of towners bought tickets because they love Titus and wanted to win the El Guapo.

Thank you all for participating. We raised about enough money to fully fund the SDSF parking lot environmental mitigation project. We're golden. All mountain bikers of Santa Cruz County and the visitors to Soquel Demo State Forest are winners!

Get to know the "El Guapo": An MBOSC membership drive

Folks have been requesting electronic memberships for many years and we have finally delivered. We are proud to introduce a method for doing online memberships using PayPal at: http://mbosc.org/join.html. In celebration of online memberships we have a special offer until April 17th.

Titus has graciously donated an El Guapo all mountain bike (in orange) to MBOSC to help promote memberships and fund raising. This fine machine is worth about $4,700 and is is a great machine for navigating the trails of SDSF.

You have a chance to get to know the El Guapo better and take it home if you are the lucky ticket holder in a drawing. You can sign up for memberships online and make a donation to be part of the El Guapo drawing. For every $5 over the basic annual membership of $25 you can get a ticket for the drawing. If you are already a member (or don't want to be a member) then you can buy tickets for the drawing at $5 each. We will draw the wining ticket at the MBOSC/MORCA booth 239 at the Sea Otter expo on Sun April 18th at 1 pm. Full rules and conditions are at http://mbosc.org/join.html.

If you want to be part of the El Guapo drawing but don't want to do electronic payment then you can purchase tickets for the drawing at The Spokesman Bicycles in downtown Santa Cruz or at Trail Head Cyclery in San Jose. You can check out the orange MBOSC El Guapo currently on display at The Spokesman Bicycles in downtown Santa Cruz. It will be moved to Trail Head Cyclery in San Jose later this week.

All membership funds and donations help with our costs for events, operations and we donate to organizations and projects which support the expansion of mountain biking in Santa Cruz County.

Recently, your donations have been put to great use. In the past 6 months we have donated $3,500 to Wilder Ranch State Park to update their back country trail head sign. We have been involved in the design of this sign and it should be completed in May. We have also written a check for $2,000 as a down payment for the environmental mitigation project for the SDSF parking lot. The initial survey and work assessment and estimate has been submitted and the parking lot project should be completed in Sept/Oct.

Thanks for your support of expanding mountain biking in Santa Cruz county!

Rain is forecast for the week of May 1-4, 2008

... because they just announced that these are the date for the Sea Otter in 2008. I remember that they moved the festival from March to April because rain and crappy weather was pretty much guaranteed in March. An April Otter didn't fair too well either.

I thought that it would be dry this year because the general lack of rain this season made the chances of rain unlikely. As most of us know it rained really hard on Sea Otter Saturday.

If we really want to address the pending drought then we could just hold a Sea Otter every month.

Late Sea Otter report

Yea I know the Otter was last week but I've been busy... First of all, here are the pix.

I had a fun filled Sea Otter this year. Camping, schmoozing, working the booth and volunteering for the dual slalom course on Thursday and Friday (but not Saturday!). Surprisingly, this is the first year in 8 that I have not raced or even entertained the idea of racing. I guess those days are over for now.

The booth was a lot of fun and was a great vehicle to build awareness about MBoSC/MORCA/ROMP/VO-cal and issues in Santa Cruz County. We had a great view of the DS course and the kids in the air. It was a great place to call home base.

During the heavy rains, a river was running through the booth and we were pinned down under the EZ-up without beer. Fortunately, someone bartered a big Fox raincoat (a popular item during the rain) for some beer that I would retrieve. I ducted taped the bottom of the coat to construct a makeshift set of chaps. Not only was I waterproof but I looked like something that rode out of a German industrial fetish movie. I rode my bike and bob trailer up to camp in comfort to get beer for everyone!

The beer was a huge hit (thanks, Charlie!). I shared it with volunteers, TWW campers, fellow advocates, bike industry types and people interested in our booth. Beer wise, the Dirt Rag and IMBA booths were well taken care of. Local frame builder Craig Calfee of Calfee Design was in the booth beside IMBA and I set him up some of Seabright's Oatmeal Stout. We had a conversation about local issues and he gave me some great contacts. His carbon bikes are gorgeous works of art and he was showing his new bamboo and hemp hard tail mountain bike. What a novel idea! If you get lost in the woods then you can eat and smoke your frame until you get rescued.

Thanks to Peter and the MORCA folks. You supplied the EZ-up, table, table cloth and chairs and most of the personnel. We only brought the beer - the fuel of mountain bike advocacy. A big thanks to Charlie Meehan of Seabright Brewery for all the great beer. There are a lot more riders in Northern California who are aware Blur, Oatmeal Stout and the ubiquitous "Kenny". I'd also like to thank Daryl and Rich for doing booth duty and all of the Dual Slalom volunteers. Thanks to all for helping out.

So many good memories. The IMBA summit, kids in the air, long legged chix, late night scotch, corrupting young minds with South Park on the video iPod, Buell's fire dance, meeting and getting to know old and new friends at camp Wrong Way and the summit...

Whew, I'm glad it's over. I can't wait until next year...

Monterey Bay Area Advocacy Booth at the Sea Otter

Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz (MBOSC)and Monterey Off Road Cycling Association (MORCA) will be sharing a booth at the Sea Otter this year.

We would love to invite you to visit our booth and hang out during the Expo. Our booth is #106 near the Schoolyard dot on the Expo map.

This location is really sweet. The view from the booth is perfect for watching the dual slalom, flow show, jump contest, the main stage and race finishes.

Come out meet people in MBOSC and MORCA and learn about our organizations, the events and new riding opportunities that we have been working on.

Even better, come out and volunteer at the Sea Otter. We need volunteer course marshals for the dual slalom and the cross country races. We would also like people to help staff the booth. Contact me if you are interested in volunteering and I'll put you in touch with the right people.

To sweeten the pot, Charlie Meehan from Seabright Brewery has graciously offered a few cases of delectable Seabright beer that we will make available to volunteers on Saturday at our booth (thanks Charlie!). Come volunteer and experience the delectable flavors of Seabright's well crafted beers. Beer and bikes! What fun!

See you at the Otter!

Volunteer Course Marshals Needed for Dual Slalom at 2007 Sea Otter Classic

Hello Race Fans!

Once again, the Sea Otter folks are looking for course marshals for races to be held April 12-14. Team Wrong Way and MBOSC has again agreed to organize volunteers for the Dual Slalom, and possibly other events depending on how many of you donate your time. The DS schedule is:

• Thurs, Apr 12: 8am-3pm
• Fri, Apr 13: 7:30am-Noon
• Sat, Apr 14: 8:30am-4pm

The first priority is to fill the Dual Slalom roles. Half-day requests (morning/afternoon) will be accommodated, if possible, with the morning shift getting the food bag.

We can also supply volunteers for the Downhill event: Fri, 7:30am-6pm

As well as the all-new Super D event: Thurs, 8am-4pm

Volunteers receive an event t-shirt, lunch (higher quality promised this year), festival pass for the entire weekend, and the warm fuzzy feeling that you are contributing to an exciting and important event on the domestic and international racing calendars. Volunteers do NOT
receive a free race entry this year, sorry.

If you are interested in volunteering this year, please respond and include the days/times you can commit, shirt size, and sandwich preference (turkey/ham/roast-beef/veggie). If you are flexible with events and/or times, please indicate that as well. I'll send updates to you every so often to let you know what I have you down for, and to relay more details as they become known to me.

The SOC has added more events this year, and spread-out amateur events a little. Check out their web site www.seaotterclassic.com for details, but I know they have added SuperD, BMX, and Adventure racing. The village area has also been reorganized to offer a better experience for everyone. Seems like they're really trying to make the event interesting and fun for more people.

Hope to see you all out there!

Best Regards,

Rich Henthorn
rhen_tww@yahoo.com