Global Fat Bike Day 2020

For those of you who ride the fat tire the first Saturday in December is a holiday, those that do not likely see it as just another Saturday on the Calendar. Global Fat Bike Day, as near as I can tell, started in 2012 and was the brain child of the folks over at Fat-Bike.com as a way to get riders together and celebrate the new found popularity of the fat bike. It's also my annual reminder that I have received a life time ban from their Instagram page, the ban is coming up on it's third anniversary here shortly. Not entirely sure what I did but I have a suspicion it revolves around a few Pugsley pictures I shared that they accidentally let slip a wee bit earlier than Surly wanted them to do so. Wasn't done in malice as I didn't know at the time I shared them that they posted early, nor did they ever actually say anything to me about it but shortly there after... poof, Fat-Bike.com's Instagram account ceased to exist in my world. I reached out to them once to see what the blockage was all about but after their initial response saying they were looking into it, crickets. Much like Nebraska, I guess I'm not for everyone.



I didn't get into fat bikes or Global Fat Bike Day until 2015 so I missed out on the first three but to be honest I don't remember there being a bigger, sponsored and organized event in eastern Nebraska until we put that first one on. Over the years we've had some really fun events and even added a chili cook off on our second rodeo. The prizes and the chili cook off I feel really bumped things up from a ride to an actual event, not only did the event attract riders but it also started to attracted chili slingers looking to pit their best recipe against all comers. Add a few kegs of beer, a fire pit or two and you had hours of fun after the hours of riding. This year being what it is most of that went away and we pared it down to just a ride. I was a little apprehensive on what that would do for the ride but as it turns out we still ended up with a good group of folks looking to get their fat biking on.




Not sure what the turn out was going to be this year we planned a fairly short ride down to Van Dorn Park for a few laps but not before we hit up the Dockhorn SAG stop for beverages and donut holes.




VDP was a blast and it was pretty cool seeing so many fatties in there on the trails all at one time. Not sure I've seen that many riders in there at one time since the old CX races that used to be held at VDP not too many years ago. VDP is rapidly becoming one of Lincoln's favorite parks, much like it used to be decades ago and with all the new trails, a new water refill station coming next year, a push to get native grass and flowers going in to replace the evasive species in there now and new playground equipment there is plenty to get excited about. 







Since the day brought fantastic weather and an adventurous group, we decided to head through Wilderness Park for some additional miles and smiles. Managed to get in the entire east side, well as much of the east side you can ride minus the small sections rerouted around due to bridge outages. Even managed a few trails I hadn't been on in years.




With the official ride over and the unofficial bonus miles also over, the numbers started to dwindle as the numbers do but those of us still in it for the long haul found ourselves enjoying a beverage at Saro before closing the door on another great GFBD and heading home.