Kansas Fat Tire Fest

Last weekend I made the trip back to the homeland with Steph for the Kansas Fat Tire Fest out at Wilson Lake. Got into Hays about 2am Fri night and got a couple hours of sleep before heading to Pheasant Run for a little peanut butter pancake/egg/ham for breakfast. Headed out to the hill climb Sat afternoon which is a solid 2-2.5 min of serious pain. For this one I decided to bust out the Superfly for the hard tail as it is pretty much a stand up and mash sort of climb. Even after pre-riding it 4-5 times, I still managed to miss a pedal off the start, then proceeded to slip out of both pedals about 10m into it. Once I got myself off the top tube and back on the seat, the rest of the ride up went well enough to land me in 1st for the hill climb.


The only picture I actually took of the weekend...sorry Steph

Had a fun time Sat night re-connecting with a bunch of KC/Emporia/Manhattan people and then went to bed early! Sun morning we woke up to gray skies and about 40 deg. Granted, it warmed up to about 55 for the race which was perfect. Off the start I decided to just peg it and see what happened. Ended up getting the hole shot into the single track and never really looked back. Made it through the course, focusing on not pushing the corners and riding smooth through the rock gardens, then pegging it on all of the climbs and straight sections. Ended up rolling in with a pretty comfortable lead on the day to score the cash prize and a new set of Ellsworth 29er wheels. Pretty stoked to get those in the mail here soon as they seem to be pretty light/tough set to roll with.


Photos by Mike Courson