Global Fat Bike Day

Global fat bike day was originally started in the UK

"Three years, ago a couple of very clever Brits came up with an idea for a grass roots – worldwide – fat-bike holiday, that would bring the fat-bike community together, like nothing we’ve ever seen before or since! December 5th, is the date of this year’s – GLOBAL FAT-BIKE DAY!"

GFBD Fat-Bikesdotcom

I helped a good friend (Kevin) back at the 2013 event with the course planning.  I also helped a little last year checking out the trail conditions when I was in town although I couldn't make the event as I was sunning myself in Hawaii, I know its a tough life.

For 2015 I again offered my services to both Kevin and Jordy who stepped up to organise this grass roots unorganised event.

This year the event format stayed the same with a unannounced route and a social gathering afterwards.  However this year we also had the opportunity to collect for the charity toys for tots, this was tied into a competition from fatbike.com and their sponsors, the twist is that we took names of all who donated toys and assuming we win one of the prizes all the names will be put into a hat and a random donater of a toy could win the big prize. 

So how did it all go down? We had around 135 people at the event though I believe the number went up as we picked up some stragglers during the ride.  It was around 15F at the start and cooled down during the route to around the single digits. I heard the burn barrels went down really well though it was a little like penguins huddled together to keep warm.

Here is a cool photo from Dan Bailey of the line up before we started riding, Amanda, Fiona and I are on the right hand side of the picture with the pink light in the wheel.

Photo credit Dan Bailey

View of the line up - Photo credit Jordan Blackson

My view of the line up went on.....

and on....

I had a blast helping out again and my only problem this year was not getting to talk with all my friends who made it out to the event. 

and on!

Stiched together

Here are a couple of shots of us on the ride.  In the picture with Amanda, Fiona and my bike the white you can see in the air is fog not 

look a pretty christmas tree

The smile says it all

Anchorage collected 79 toys which is fantastic and hopefully will mean some children get to have a much better christmas.  

79 toys looking for a new home

Thanks for a great event Kevin and Jordy, my only suggestion for next year is get a megaphone to talk with/organise people before the start.... maybe announce the route too :D

See you all next year. 

The route

Just a little side note on the route, firstly I hope everyone had a good time and didn't get lost. 

We planned two routes this year a short and long one.  The shorter route took us to Campbell airstrip then up to Salmon run and back the longer route took continued around to rovers run and back to Salmon run to join with the short route. 

Route planning

This year I was the one who marked the course, our only intention was to mark the short course which would have been around 10miles.  I ended up doing this on Friday for the bit around Campbell Tract and Saturday morning for the bit around the university.  the event was Saturday evening and unfortunately some people decided that the marking shouldn't be there I guess.

marking out the route on Friday 

I guess someone wasn't happy with my marking

all that work destroyed

Sorry if you missed this turn onto Campbell Airstrip trail, it really was marked well on Friday. 

Also if you took the unmarked route through blue booty that was never in the plan for the route but I hope you enjoyed that trail. 

Tour trail marking but alas most took 
blue booty and probably didn't see this