The Fat Season

Cyclocross season is done for me (whaaaaa!!!) at this time. There are a few more local races, but I unfortunately have to work those weekends. There is alway a struggle between having to work every other weekend and weekend race events. Such is life though and I like what I do for work (ER-Nurse) so I do not complain much about it.

With CX season gone I'm looking more towards riding my fatbikes in the snow...need more snow though. So far snow has come and gone 3-times this year which is rather unusual, but I am patient. The Baconator has been getting abused at every chance and I've been on it exploring areas in my "back yard" that I've been eyeing as potential riding areas for some time.



Truly I have never had so much fun on a bike as on a fatbike in the snow. For some reason I just can not seem to convince others that this is the best biking. I know fatbikes are new to me this year, but it has opened up a whole new adventure that I can not see ending anytime soon. I've even been oogling over some "local" fatbike races coming up this winter...hmmm racing in the snow on super fatties, what a fun idea!

My weakness for needing to buy-and-ride-every-bike has also been expanded with fatbikes. It seems that Mr Gump has joined the Baconator in the winter fatness that has settled in here.



Mr Gump is a Fatback, USA made and sold out of Alaska (as one would expect). Mr Gump is forest green in color (run Forest run!) and I'm not really sure why the name popped into my head, but it did. There is also a shrimp named Bubba Gump, which is a nice paradox for a fat bike - a fat shrimp?


Anyway, there will be more to come on Mr. Gump I'm sure...in the mean time the Baconator is in action. Welcome to the Fat Season! Whoohoo!

Totally Nuts!!!

Trial-by-fire, racing-into-shape, self-torturous-fun, totally-nuts...call it what you want, but 5-cyclocross races in a 7-day period is a true test of one's idea of the so-called fun-factor in "racing" bikes, truly a test of your endurance. Which by the way I have none to speak of right now. In my 3rd race during the 1st weekend I was more like just riding along vs. racing. This was after having a rotten 1st race that day and an awesome 2nd race, until I got a flat that is (which never stopped me from having some fun heckling the hecklers and taking a beer handup to celebrate racing on a flat tire).




The 7-days later I was back at it doing 2-races in cold, rainy, wet, muddy conditions...perfect for cyclocross. I did well in my 1st race (2nd place), but had a major mechanical in my 2nd race (the mechanical was that my legs were toasted and not wanting to work anymore). So once again I settled for the fun factor of "racing" cyclocross. 








It was beyond awesome to do these races.