One of the advantages of flying so much is that I get to accumulate quite a few airmiles over the year and I decided to use some of them and upgraded on my flight from London to San Francisco. What a joy that was. It makes the whole flying experience so much more bearable when you have edible food, that you can eat with proper cutlery with space to actually move your arms well enough to feed yourself and a seat that turns into a flat bed. It was luxury !!
However I still arrived at Sea Otter feeling pretty tired after the last couple of weeks of travel. Not only did my body have some sleep deprivation it also had to adjust from a hot humid 30 degrees, to a freezing windy 10 degrees ! For the first 3 days we were there it was freezing and so windy it made riding back from the race venue one night quite a challenge just to stay on my side of the road ! Thankfully the weather only got better and we were basking in hot sun by the weekend.

Sea Otter is as much a festival as a race, as the downhill course has been the same terrible track for years ! Another weekend of pedalling and jumps, just this time it felt easy as it was half the length of South Africa ! It