World’s Biggest Bicycle Festival Returns To Green Hills Outside Monterey, Calif.; Sea Otter Classic Is Bicycle Woodstock Of Races, Exhibitors, Culture
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAGUNA SECA, California — I’ve arrived in bicycle heaven.
The Sea Otter Classic has lots of bicycle race competitions, but what drives this Woodstock of Bicycling is the collective love for moving atop two wheels, or even three.
The weather is glorious today at the car race track that gets converted into a mecca of bike culture and bicycle industry exhibitors on the green hills between Monterey and the ocean to the west and Salinas and the valley farms to the east.
The Life Time Sea Otter Classic traces its roots to 1991 and attracts more than 9,000 athletes and 74,000 attendees.
With the bicycle industry’s trade show, Interbike, biting the dust in Las Vegas of all places, The Otter has become the biggest bicycle bash for bike, component and accessory manufacturers to show their products and schmooze with every day bicycle folk.
The bicycle biz is a tough one. Labor of love? Oh, yes.
The big names like Giant and Sram are here and even young ones like a guy selling a special razor for dudes who shave their legs before bike rides. He launched BOLT Skin+Shave at last year’s Sea Otter. It’s like the massive CES show in Las Vegas in that the exhibitors range from well-known brands to newbie entrepreneurs.
This story is sponsored by Las Vegas Cyclery
As I bicycled around the exhibitor ground where businesses were setting up displays, I met some of the companies’ marketing people who have dropped emails into my laptop.
In a country where too many people riding bicycles are killed and maimed, here at Sea Otter it’s s safe haven for pedalers.
And nobody steals bikes here even though people leave their bikes unlocked all over the place.
I personally adore just biking right into the media center and leaving my Surly Pugsley along a wall.
Steve and Laura Toll sell their ISM bicycle seat and they’re first-timers at Sea Otter. Steve Toll checked out Sea Otter a year ago and decided to go in for 2025 at the event.
The Tolls’ ISM seat is among more than 1,000 brands that hope to tap into the attendees who park for free on the grassy, sloping land next to the Laguna Seca complex. Here’s one of their ISM saddles:
