Fat Tire Festival - Bike the Wilds Series

4th place sport/masters - 1:57 - 14.6 miles

The Fat Tire Festival is the second in the Bike the Wild race series. I missed the first race of the series while I was at Mohican, so I can't get lost this year and drop a race.

The course this year was almost the exact same course as last year. Some rain the night before made the trail a bit muddy and the rocks quite slick. This year they've broken the sport class in to age groups which I think was a great idea.

They let us "older" guys go off first in a staggered start. I was in the second group going into the initial singletrack. At some point, a slower rider allowed a bunch of us to crowd together making travel over the rocky trail fairly difficult.

Finally things spread out once we hit some double track. Really my race went pretty much the same as last year. I rode a very solid ride, didn't ride as much of the rock gardens as I could have as the rocks were quite slick. I finished three minutes slower than last year, but that was due more to the course being muddy and a bit slower, and walking a few more rock gardens. Comparatively though, I think I rode faster than last year. Mentally I was in the race the entire time, I was pretty tired but not destroyed.

Was quite surprised I ended up in fourth place. This will definitely motivate me to train a bit before the next race at Shannock. Also, I have to make sure I don't get lost this year at Shannock. Hopefully they'll post some volunteers at the intersections that go through public roads. Perhaps that will stop kids from turning arrows this year.