The NSMB Pre-Otter

Sea Otter is like the Interbike for the summer season: companies announce new product that may be weeks or years away, and pro riders compete in events that couldn’t happen anywhere else. This week, the entire NSMB crew has made their way down to Monterey, CA to join the fun. In the name of frugality, convenience, and fun, Seb, Morgan, and Matt road tripped from Vancouver. The following photos document said trip. Welcome to the NSMB Pre-Otter. Stay tuned over the next couple days for further reports from the most inland of ocean otters.

  An uneventful sunrise over northern Washington made for a relaxed start; we began our pilgrimage at 4 am in North Van.

  Taking a wrong turn on the I-5 turned out in our favour, as the lanes were plugged even before 8 am.

  Seb Kemp recently vowed to wear his new Icebreaker socks all week to test the company’s lofty claims. Here he exhibits his valiant first day, with the socks all up in the dash of the Taco and his Poler Napsack either adding or subtracting style points depending on who’s counting.

  Morgan’s way into the road trip. Sure, let’s log 1700 km in a day. Bonus unintentional loop of Portland? Sure!

  Climbing out of Oregon proved to be low-vis and rainy as hell. Remember that part in Days of Thunder with the smoke and the fear? Passing trucks was like that all day today.

  Rogue River is a town in Oregon where the only fast food in town comes from the Chevron station and, according to the full serve attendant, has a 50% chance of giving you heartburn. We passed.

  Matt Dennison was coming down with a cold after doing too many media interviews about his viral Canucks vid… he spent all day sleeping and dreaming of having a real beard one day.

  This is the kind of place where you wonder what the riding is like. I Ultramontaned the shit out of this photo.

  Travelling through the mountains gets you thinking about your own place in this here world…

  Like being tiny in comparison to this huge cone near Mt. Shasta.

  We spent the day reading and discussing articles in magazines from other industries. Getting inspiration from these industries, forming a more balanced viewpoint – and hopefully one not so insular.

  You don’t always have to agree with what people are saying; if those points of disagreement provoke thought and discussion, all the better. Case in point: hipster branding.

  We played leapfrog with these dudes and their yellow carbon Santa Cruz collection all the way through Oregon and northern California… and then we think they took a wrong turn. How much fuel is collectively burnt by this migration, as we know many others making the pilgrimage?

  The lands flatten out towards Sacramento but there are still views to be had.

  And Matt continued to sleep off the day – that is, until we were able to tune in a 75% ear-piercing static and 25% barely audible Kings version of the hockey game. The shitty signal magically became clear just in time for us to hear the Canucks’ third goal. Matt’s 15 minutes of fame just got 4 days longer.

So the bottom line here is we ended up talking about the state of mountain biking and where the industry is. Why are we driving down a boring highway when it’s beautiful in Vancouver? Well, here are some answers – but they’re not the real answers.

1. No hot tub at home.
2. No town named Weed.
3. No Mt. Shasta.
4. No hot tub. Oh wait. Already said that.
5. No Sea Otter
6. Cheap beer. $12 for 12 PBRs. Flavour Country.
7. Real mexican food.
8. Californication
9. The prospect of riding our bar bikes on Laguna Seca.
10. Tom Ritchey’s moustache.
11. This one goes to eleven.

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Yes, we know it does sound odd that we’d drive 1700 km to be introspective, but the reality is we’re part of this system and an event like Sea Otter is a great place to ask these questions. Are you into it? We promise anything but radio silence.