the 25th fat tire 40 was nothing short of historic. temps the morning of were more reminiscient of iceman. the warmup left my hands frozen. backed the bike in and managed roughly a 3rd row start. lead out was going fine. buried but only a few seconds back from the lead. before i knew it i heard tyre rub followed by a pileup four guys directly in front of me. i slammed the brakes and was the first one to miss it. luckily no one piled into me from behind. a few second delay and i was off. in that delay no less than 50 people went by me. mike came rockin by and yelled to get on. he pulled me up to rosie's field and i was off in pursuit. the lead was almost out of sight already. i kept the hammer on and rapidly passed the masses. group by group i bridged up. eventually catching a fairly large group. i sat for a bit then asked for some help to catch the next group. chris fisher and i traded pulls with the next group in sight. we eventually caught doug and he threw it down for me for a bit. we traded off for a few miles and dropped the group. eventually i bridged up to the second group w/ the eppens, bjorn, dirk, and ez. i went straight by as i saw a guy caught in no man's land not far up. i bridged up to evan plews. we worked a bit together and then he dropped a bit as we hit OO. we could see the lead group not far up. evan latched on again and we eventually caught the group about 18 miles in. that pack contained jesse, tilly, matter, hall,
stanford, chris p, mikey, t. brown, cole house, tj and a few others. aside from a few attacks, the pace was pretty slow. the cadence picked up a bit rolling up on firetower. that climb never ends. i had to dismount twice on the steepest pitches. a few dropped off the back by the top. i thought i was in good position but upon the crest the group had taken off. travis and matter were bridging up and i couldnt quite catch on. after a few miles the pace slowed a bit, allowing me to get on the train. more cat and mouse games 
and with a few miles to go ian, chris, and mike had caught on again w/ tj having to stop to fix a flat. jesse was at the front just pedalling. we hit the last ski trail section and a few went off the front. i was at the back so you'll have to get that story from jesse. him, brian, and tilford were out there duking it out. i took off in pursuit getting around all but the front three and hall. jesse and matter had gaps and i was sitting on hall. we rounded the last turn and i sprinted for it, passing hall but just short of tilly. fourth was much better than my previous attempts of a dnf and 30th. jesse shocked all but a few in becoming the first singlespeed to win the fat tire. much thanks to gary fisher, bontrager, oakely, twin six, and tbs west for the products and support that i rode to the finish. also, without the support of my superfan girlfriend, meghan, i wouldve ran out of water by firetower. my parents were rockin superfans throughout getting me through OO as fast as i could. thanks to dj as well for hooking up some clif product.
setup:
fisher ferrous 17.5" w/ bonty switchblade fork
bonty xlite stem, bonty race lite big sweep bar, xlite barends, esi grips
bonty xlite wheels (tubeless) w/ dry x tyres--28psi fr & rr
bonty xlite post, xlite mtb saddle
xtr crank, salsa 36t ring, endless 16t cog, egg beater ti pedals
juicy ultimate brakes
with a final run through from the griff on thursday, everything was dialed to perfection and i had absolutely zero issues with any of my equipment. the mtb season is running down with just three races left on my schedule. cross season will soon be upon us and ive got some additional support lined up on that front. stay tuned. pictures courtesy of skinnyski.
first go at cx for the season. jesse and i headed over around noon. checked the threes race. casey, lyle, jason, zack, and sketchyd all ripped it up. warmup. jesse tried to convince me to wear the ls skinsuit, but i couldnt do it on a seventy five degree day. decent start, i filed in. kyle was on the front pushing with brian, tristan, bender, jesse, myself, and mike in toe. tristan threw in a move on lap two gapping us. from there on it was tristan and brian pulling at the front with jesse, kyle, and myself trying to close the gap. i pulled through after about four laps to give jesse a break. we threw in mini surges and finally managed to drop kyle. before i knew it the gap was coming down. with three to go we caught tristan as brian threw in another move. the three of us chased to no avail. on the last lap we went hard, started closing the gap. in the end it was a bit too big with brian winning, jesse second, myself third, tristan fourth, and kyle fifth. my cx technique was laughable. that's what you get when your first cross ride of the year is a race. jesse got to rock the new bob brown. im jealous. mine isnt quite done yet. we raced surprisingly well for having come down with some colds over the past week. one more week til the wors finale. hopefully it doesnt hurt as bad as it did today. thanx to kelly for the handups. pic stolen from lyle.
