It's about 3:30 a.m. and some dude you just met a couple of days ago on Craig's List is shaking you awake. Crawling out of your thin, damp sleeping bag in the dark, you knock over a mug of watery, long-cold cocoa left over from earlier in the evening. The dank marine air cuts to the bone. You grimace mightily while pulling on your clothes, which are soaking wet. Your crotch still hurts from the last time, but you agreed to do this so there's nothing to do but bite the bullet and take your pull.

A bonus scene from the recently released interactive Brokeback Mountain DVD? Nah, it's just a glimpse into what about 600 lost and tortured souls will be experiencing this weekend during the 24 Hours of Laguna Seca. Part of the 24 Hours of Adrenaline nationwide series of 24-hour endurance cycling events, the 24 Hours of Laguna Seca mountain bike endurance relay race runs this weekend on the Fort Ord trails surrounding the Laguna Seca racetrack outside Monterey from 10:00 a.m. Saturday to 10 a.m. Sunday. Twenty-four hour events typically run from noon to noon, but the start time for this race was moved up in deference to Mama Hallmark's retail guilt trip.

In endurance racing, teams of racers complete laps on a circuit course. The team with the most amount of completed laps wins. In addition to the teams, many racers choose to solo, or ride the entire race by themselves. Yeah, that sounds like fun.

Cheeseball mountain bike clock from Bar-Decorations.com. Sorry.

The mud is barely dry on the bikes but already racers and spectators alike are looking forward to next year's Sea Otter Classic (April 12-15, 2007). The acknowledged kick-off to the road and MTB racing seasons in the United States and the self-avowed largest bicycle festival in the United States, this year's Sea Otter once again lived up to its billing as "A Celebration of Cycling."

The weather was sketchy, alternating between partly cloudy and pleasant to drearily drizzly, but there was almost nothing that could dampen the collective spirit of cycling that prevailed across the sprawling grounds of the Laguna Seca racetrack and the surrounding Fort Ord trail network this past weekend.

Treated to pleasant conditions on Thursday that helped dry out some of the mountain bike trails and the makeshift hillside parking lots, a small knot of diehard industry geeks and cycling freaks cruised the festival village checking out the latest in cycling innovations and chatting with old friends. The Otter is truly an industry rendezvous, with gear vendors and manufacturers coming from around the country to enthusiastically get the word out about their products. It's also a chance for smaller local businesses like Dirty Dog (customized disc brake rotors) Fringe, and Nor-Cal (uber-hip apparel) to get the word out to the entire cycling community about their products.

The big news at this year's Sea Otter Classic, besides the weather, is the new MTB cross-country course. The new course is generating a lot of buzz, and those that have ridden it give it good reviews, saying that it's now more of a power course with more technical climbing, and more opportunity for passing and fluidity among the field. "There's nothing too technical, but a couple of very, very sandy descents are sure to create havoc and excitement." Now that's what we're talking about!