Recap by Nathan Riddle

"Racing is dead". A number of years ago when NORBA was failing I remember this phrase going around the bike biz like wild fire. The people saying this had likely never been to the Sea Otter Classic. This event has consistently been one of the biggest racing and bike industry events in North America (if not worldwide) for at least the last 20 years I have attended it. Located at the Laguna Seca raceway near Monterey CA, the Classic has consistenly drawn Professional bike racers of ALL (and I do mean all) disiplines from around the world as well as amateur racers of all ages from all over the United States. It also brings bike enthusiast spectators who come to see the conjoined spectacles of racing, and the bike companies who come to support them as well as show off all the cool new stuff they're bring to market. It is often the place where companies come to debut new goods for the first time to the media. I heard someone say that this year there were about 60,000 attendees each day!

By Richard Belson

Sometimes, being successful in your career has nothing to do with how good you are at your job.

By Rich Bernoulli

During each frame building course, the instructor will also build a frame along with the student’s frames to serve as a demonstration piece for each phase of the frame building process. Sometimes we have demands from other industry partners, most recently Park Tool to display their new T47 thread chasing taps and Shimano to display their new technologies in their booths. Sometimes we build frames for fellow instructors (perks!), or sometimes for our own displays. If UBI or any of our industry partners have no frame needs, the instructor gets to decide what to build. We thought it would be a neat little project to speak to what goes in to deciding what to build, when you have the whole world to choose from. A steel dirt jumper!