Domnarski Farm - Root 66 MTB

FAT BIKE!!!

Sean Whitehurst took his big wheeler out for this popular MTB race in Massachusetts. Here is his recap:

I headed up to the Domnarski Farm Root 66 race today.  Months ago Zac brought to my attention that there was going to be a Fat Bike Category.  Being the proud owner of the cheapest Fat Bike you can get I felt compelled to use it.  They lined up Pro/Cat 1 followed by Cat 2 followed by us Fatties.  I think the Pros had about a 20 minute head start on us.  Cat 2 and Fatties only did one of the 10 mile laps.
4 of us lined up on a nice cross section of bikes, including a specialized Fat boy.  Tires ranged from 3.8 to 4.8, half tubeless and half tubed.  The Specialized rider had won a Root 66 category last year and seemed to be the favorite.  An Expo rider seemed like good competition and the fourth place rider just seemed to be out to have fun.

For the first half mile we were all together, we all changed the top three spots a few times.  Eventually Specialized and Expo rode away from me.  At around Mile 3.5 I came across Expo with a broken chain.  I gave him my 9 speed master link and rode away in second.

Eventually I started passing a few women and some male riders, then single speeders; mostly on climbs and some fire roads.  The long exposed climb under the power lines netted me 5 passes.  Others were walking the sometimes loose rocky climb.  I had one bobble just before a flat, otherwise I cleared the entire climb.  My one hick-up was on a single track downhill when my bottle fell out.  I stopped and grabbed it, losing 2 non-category spots.  I got them back through a couple deep mud sections. Carrying my 36# bike on an extremely long, wobbly skinny bridge set was the worst part of the day.

The last technical downhill, an extended rock garden, saw the two leaders of the Pro catch me.  They let me know they were passing, but not which side.  I moved far right and had my elbow smashed by their handle bars as they passed even further right.  I still can't understand how you descend that fast on a hard tail.  My confidence was growing through the race and I was off the brakes more often than usual.

I came through the finish in 2nd with a time of 1:17:02.  This time put me just into 7th of 10 if I were in my usual Cat 2 category.

It was an experience riding the Fat bike.  It was super fun on smooth stuff. Through rock gardens the bike rolled over my terrible choice of lines.  Lines really do not matter as long as you do not get bounced off.  On the climbs I had tons of traction even with the minimal tread pattern.  I feel like the rolling resistance is overcome by the rotating mass when you get the wheels up to speed.

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