Fat Bike World Championships: What you need to know
All three Fat Bike Worlds race venues are packed with amazing scenery (click to enlarge).
Editor’s Note: This article is part of the Mtbr Ultimate Guide to winter mountain biking, fat bikes, gear, apparel and trainers. In the first two months of 2016, we are taking a deep dive into all manner of cold weather mountain bike gear, with round-ups and reviews of fat bikes, tires, wheels, apparel, trainers and more. To see all the articles, head over to our Winter Guide Hub Page.
Before delving into the nitty gritty details such as exact location, time and distance, there are some over-arching elements you need to understand about late January’s first annual Borealis Fat Bike World Championships in Crested Butte, Colorado.
No. 1: If you are expecting governing body sanctioning, burdensome rules, and/or a handshake from UCI president Brian Cookson, please don’t come. This event is not for you. Alternatively, if you’re a proponent of irreverent two wheeled fun, like beautiful places, and/or are curious about all the buzz surrounding these big wheeled bikes, get your you know what to the Colorado Rockies, Jan. 27-31, and get ready to party and play.
With a deferential nod to the annual singlespeed world championships (another unabashedly unsanctioned event), Crested Butte’s local chamber of commerce folks decided it was time for a fat bike version of that annual bacchanalia of bikes. The snowbound five-day event will include racing (3 days total), a vendor expo, bike demos, an advocacy summit, music, and lots of beer.
Crested Butte Mountain Resort (in background) will play host to the “hair of the dog” downhill race. Warren Miller will be there to film all the antics (click to enlarge).
We also expect to see copious amounts of crashing, costumes, and general craziness, which will be just fine with the Warren Miller production crew that’s signed up to film a fat bike segment during the final day “hair of the dog” race, a primarily downhill event at the Crested Butte Mountain Resort ski area.
“Nothing is making us a world championship except that fact that we wanted to celebrate all things fat bike and do it in Crested Butte, a place that has been synomanous with great mountain biking as long as there has been mountain biking,” said event director Dave Ochs, who’s also the executive director of the local chamber of commerce and a self-proclaimed cycling nut. “The event will be full-on Crested Butte style, with a focus on the soul of the sport, not a bunch of grumpy rules and racing licenses.”
Ochs went so far as to suggest that staying in line with other unsanctioned “worlds” events, the winners of the main event fat bike races will be “encouraged” to take home more than honor and pride. “They do tattoos at singlespeed worlds, we’re thinking brands for fat bike worlds,” he said, only half joking. “It’s part of the culture around here. This is cowboy country, too, you know.”
Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce executive director Dave Ochs is the area’s Pied Piper of all things fat biking (click to enlarge).
That might be taking things a little too far, though it depends on who actually wins the world’s races, which are slated for Saturday, January 30. But what’s more important than any burning of flesh is the event’s larger mission. Ochs and company are trying to grow the sport both within the Crested Butte community and on a larger global scale.
“From a local perspective, this is a town that relies heavily on tourism and January can be one of the slowest months in terms of lodging sales and overall visitation,” he explained. “Creating new opportunities to attract people is a obviously a good thing. Plus, as anyone who’s done any fat biking knows, when the skiing sucks and the snow is all hard pack, that’s when the fat biking is the best. So this just gives people one more thing to do as part of their winter vacation in the mountains.”
The North Village race course was coming together nicely during a recon ride in mid-January (click to enlarge).
Ochs is also a big dreamer and tops on that list is someday being the first resort town to offer lift serviced fat biking. “We already have an amazing network of downhill trails and lift service in the summer,” he said. “Now imagine riding some of those same lines, but instead it’s hard packed groomed snow with berms and booters. It would be f*#@ing amazing.”
CBMR isn’t ready to draw up that master plan just yet, but they are on board with fatty fun. “We try to fit the needs and desires of all user groups,” said Erica Mueller, the ski area’s director of PR and Innovations. “With Crested Butte being a popular mountain bike destination in the summer, it makes sense for us to continue the trend in the winter by being one of the first areas to offer fat bikers access on the resort.”
And trust us, even without fat bike-specific trails, riding at the ski resort is a blast. The other night we headed out with night lights beaming and rode to the top of CBMR’s Painter Boy chairlift, which runs above one of the mountain’s terrain parks. While not specifically designed for bikes, the small-walled beginner half pipe provided an amazing landscape to rail around on a tester Specialized Fat Boy fat bike. Same goes for the freshly groomed terrain we bombed down afterward.
With the right gear and a little want-to, any day is a great day to ride a bike (click to enlarge).
As one of my riding buddies succinctly put it, “Pinning it straight downhill was a sensation never previously experienced on a bike. Never is dirt so smooth or does the trail drop straight down the fall line.” It was an absolute blast, and according to Strava our max speed was a shade over 40mph — on a fat bike, at night, on snow.
Continue to page 2 for a full rundown of the day-to-day Fat Bike World Championships schedule »
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