Black Hills Fat Tire Festival and Podium...

I got the green light here at the home front to head out to Rapid City for the 2nd Annual Black Hills Fat Tire Festival May 23-26. Well, you can't turn down an offer from the wife like that! So I headed out to enjoy a few days of riding in the mountains as well as to compete in the XC race.

I drove out on Thursday and pretty much hit the monsoon rains in western South Dakota that continued all night on Thursday and tapered off to mist and light rain on Friday morning. 3+ inches fell in less than 24 hours. Another 2 inches fell Friday night. What a mess and this, according to the locals, was unheard off, record breaking, totally unexpected, blah, blah, blah... . Well, after spending all that money on gas - I wasn't about to give up. Nor were all the other 160+ riders that showed up for the festival.

Group rides went off as planned on Thursday and Friday as the Black Hills were in such need of rain that the water got soaked up pretty quickly. I pre-rode the XC race course on Friday afternoon once the rain had subsided. Organizers said that once past the opening climb fire road section that the singletrack was fine and dandy. I was the first one to pre-ride after the rain and the organizers were right. The opening climb on the fire road was mud pie city. Within the first 200 yards it was a total drivetrain wrecker. My 700 gram Fire XC Pros quickly became 4000 gram monster truck tires. Chainsuck. Clogged chain and the mud was collecting on the seat stays by the tire. Mud everywhere was to be expected. I forged the Sugar 293 on as I was also told Saturday morning's XC race would not be canceled. So I figured I better dial in the course with the mud as it was bound to be just as muddy on Saturday morning. Once I got to the singletrack, things improved. But by then, my drivetrain was beyond operating normally and I had to talk it through the course and use whatever rings and cogs that the drivetrain would allow me to use.

This was one hell of a tough course. It opened with a 4 mile climb. Yes - 4 miles of going up, and up, and up and just when you thought it was steep, there was a flagged out climb near what I thought was the top that I said to myself "you gotta be kiddin' me". I had to walk that section as I don't think it was doable at the end of climbing 4 miles even with a 20T/34T combination. I completed the first lap and came back down to the starting line area where I sank up to my hubs in mud on the fire road. Hmmmm.....it took $6 in quarters at the car wash to recognize my bike again. I headed out in the afternoon to ride Storm Mountain under much better conditions. In fact, I only saw about 2 muddy spots in the 10 miles of trail I rode.

I debated whether or not to do the race after those conditions on a very difficult course, but decided to stick with my plans. So I carbed up and got all my gear ready for the 8 am check-in at the registration table on Saturday morning. While at Starbucks getting a Venti cup of java, another racer told me that the race had been canceled and rescheduled for Sunday morning. Well, that was somewhat good news as my legs and lungs were trying to recover from Friday's efforts during the pre-ride and the Storm Mountain loop.

I hooked up with Tim and Tim from Minnesota at the bagel shop and decided to meet them at Storm Mountain for a loop at 1:30 pm. I needed some higher altitude riding to educate my body on the pain it was about to go through during the race at these heights. We had a great ride and I took the Dos Niner with the Nanoraptors on this ride. It proved to be the perfect ticket for the conditions and I decided to race it on Sunday even though I would miss having a granny ring for those steep, steep sections of the XC course. The Sugar was overkill with the Fire XC Pros for the XC course as it was not littered with roots and big bumps. Just a lot of very narrow, technical singletrack that climbed forever.

Sunday morning I was up at 6 am downing my Grape Nuts, fruit and coffee. The sun was shining and the temps were upper 60's, low 70's - PERFECT!!!

Race day weather had us all smiling in the parking lot...



I warmed up and did a pre-ride of the starting 1/2 mile. It was still muddy, but there were some lines I could take to get through the opening section with my drivetrain still intact. I lined up in the back for the mass start with 50+ racers and really had nothing to lose, so I was pretty relaxed. With an opening climb of 4 miles and plenty of places to pass in the first 1 1/2 miles, I was in no hurry to blow off at the gun.

On the first two fire road sections, I picked my lines and passed about 20 or so. Then there was a big gradual climb in an open meadow that was very deceptive as it didn't look steep, but it never let up. I was drooling and on the edge already and we hadn't even hit the big climb stuff. I passed about three more and settled in behind a guy for the steep climbs. Lots of switchbacks and technical climbing through rocks and narrow (6 - 8 inch wide singletrack). One guy lost his balance after a switchback and rolled down the side of the hill. He seemed okay as we all asked him. Finally, after what seemed like 20 - 25 minutes, we neared the top of the climb and I passed the two riders in front of me that I had followed up the climb. I grabbed a glass of water from one of the volunteers. Whoops! My epiglottis got confused as to whether I was sucking air at that altitude or water. Choke. Cough. I got passed by the two racers I had just passed 200 yards earlier as I got everything back to normal in my throat. They were locals and knew the trail, so I latched on to their wheels for the big descent. Lots of fish-tailing with the Nanoraptors and the guy in the lead of our group of three started to pull away as the rider in front of me was being pretty cautious. There was no where to pass, so I had to stay content. At the bottom of the descent and rounding the starting line, I passed the rider and heard a volunteer tell me I was in 5th place. Cool.

200 yards later 3th and 4th were pulled over to the side. One was fixing a flat, the other was just standing there. When I went by, he hopped back on his back and latched on to my wheel for the 4 mile climb. I was sitting in 3rd and the guy in front of me was now only 20 feet in front of me. I had followed him up on the 1st climb to know I could outclimb him, but he was lightening fast on the descent. The 2nd lap had a different descent that I had not been able to pre-ride, so I was stuck in me vs. the local if it came down to it at that point. The first place rider was out of reach as we saw him way up the hill on the 4 mile climb. So the battle was now for 2nd, 3rd and 4th. About 1/2 way up the 4 mile climb, we opened up a big gap on the guy behind me in 4th place. I was about 20 feet behind and after a switchback, I didn't quite negotiate the Dos Niner over a jagged rock and had to unclip to keep from falling down the cliff. It wasn't easy getting clipped back in and going again, but I probably lost about 10 seconds right there as the guy in front of me opened up a gap. I got going again and left nothing in the tank to finish out the climb. Volunteers at the top directed us to turn for the finishing descent on the trail I hadn't seen. They told me I was in 3rd place and that 2nd place was within reach. It was downhill from here and what a technical and fast downhill it was. This was a 3 mile descent on the Super-D race course. Wow! Was it a gas, but the local guy in front of me had the edge as he knew the course. I did pretty well through it and only lost my line one time which had me pause for a few more seconds.

I finally flew out of the woods and saw the turn for the finish line. It was about a 600 - 700 yard open grass flat sprint to the finish line. He had me by about 200 yards and I mashed it into the big ring, got out of saddle and had at the sprint. Whoops! Way too early for such a sprint effort. He didn't know I was that close behind him, but I shot my wad and had to recover a little bit. I had nothing left in the tank and at the end, had to settle for crossing the line 12 seconds behind him for 3rd place overall, and 1st place in my age category.

So I made the podium!!! Yippie! I got a medal and a nice bottle of wine as my prize. Actually, it was more than a nice bottle of wine. It was a bottle of the 2007 Seyval Blanc from Prairie Berry that got best of show and a double gold medal at the San Francisco International Wine Competition. You can't even buy the stuff it is that rare. So all in all, it was an excellent prize!!!!

Post race:



Finish line area with a grandstand! How cool is that?



The starting line is behind those trees and the opening fire road climb went up through the side hill of those rocks.



Post race, I took a demo loop on the Gary Fisher HiFi Pro 29"er. The usual demo vans and gear from Specialized, Trek, Fisher, Giant, Kona, etc... were there...



I grabbed some lunch and decided to do one of the group rides on Sunday afternoon. There were shuttle vans with our tour guides that left the HQ every 1/2 hour that took loads of us up into the Black Hills for various rides. Each ride was either $10 or $20 for the shuttle and tour guide. I chose to go on a portion of the Centennial Trail with Tim and Tim from Minnesota along with a van full. Here are some shots from that trip...

Loading up:



Grooving some sweet singletrack while trying to take a picture (not recommended!!):



Weather was perfect and we were all smiling:



Break time and shooting the shit:



We headed back to HQ in time for the BBQ and Awards Ceremony. I got my medal and wine. The Fat Tire Festival continued on Memorial Day, but my legs were shot after 3 straight days of riding and racing at that altitude. So I got up early on Monday morning and drove back to Iowa in time for Brats with the family on the deck.

The trip out was totally worth it and I had a blast. It's hard to participate in all of the events, but there are group rides all over the Black Hills (leave every 1/2 hour from HQ), there was a hill climb, a Super-D downhill race, the XC race, movies at night (mountain biking movies), a social on Friday night, etc... and plenty of things to see and do in Rapid City and the Black Hills. If you are going to attend a mountain biking festival, what better way to do it than to attend one that is actually in the mountains? Unbelievable riding, scenery and terrain for all levels in the Black Hills. The XC race course was the most challenging I have ever raced. That Cowboy Hill 4 mile climb is not to be missed and the 3 mile descent on the Super-D race course still has me biting my nails 2 days later!!!

I'm going to put next year's festival on my calendar and start working on the wife to get the green light so I can go again. ;-)