Occupy the Yeti - World HQ
A bunch of us made the trip up to Levis for the inaugural Sweaty Yeti Fat-Bike Race last Saturday. We all were coming together to combine race director, Steve Meurett’s, amigo, Adam Blake’s & my lovely wife, Bethany’s Birthday Party…drink some good beer…ride/race? some sweet snowy trail…..and (with Steve’s OK) occupy the Levis Trail Center Ski Chalet. I somehow got it in my head that we could make blanket forts with the tables in the chalet and hang out, up there, all weekend.
Night Riders! - photo by Russel Bernard
On Friday night, Beaker was so psych’d about riding his new Noirre-Pug, there just had to be some night riding!……that went well past my bed-time……and on into the whee hours of the morning. After the usual 4 hours of sleep I get before a race….the trails were ready to rock for the Yeti!
photo by Russel Bernard
Steve had spent the week, leading up to the race, getting the course freshly groomed to fat-bike perfection. The starting line shot racers down a wide corridor of groomed ski trail for about a mile (against a brisk wind) and then two quick lefts onto singletrack back past the chalet and looped onto about an additional mile of fast and FUN wooded trail. The course alternated between groomed skate track and machine packed singletrack. The singletrack on the first section had two or three icy corners that made Big Fat Larry skitch (and me scream!) every time through.
Steve pulled the trigger on his muzzle loader and the racers were off – via ,the usual, Le Mans start with Team Moose Poop getting to his white pugsley first and blasting away, never to look back, all the way to victory, 3 hours later. BoBandy Incorporated duked it out with Team Boner all afternoon for the second spot on the podium with a pretty thrilling last lap that ended up with Randy-bo-bandy crashing on one of the fastest corners on the course. Team sAdam Insane captured DFL, and the prize for ‘most fun’ after executing an almost flawless beer hand-up on their last lap. We enjoyed an almost perfect afternoon with sun-snow, cold beer and a nice warm campfire….with big fat-bike grins! This wasn’t the biggest race that I’ve been too, but I have to say it’s one of the best! We all got to ride great trails and test-ride a bunch of different fat-bikes. We even had a few rounds of Derby once the beer got flowing!
Queen Gabriel - photo by Ryan Nanney
transition - photo by Ryan Nanney
Greg and his sweet John Deere Fatback - photo by Ryan Nanney
Beaker - photo by Ryan Nanney
Champs!
See how everyone is smiling? Steve should think about calling this race the Smiling Yeti!
Links to more Sweaty Yeti Fun
Ryan Nanney’s Photos – http://ryannanney.com/gallery/?galAlbum=12&page=1&limit=14
Steve’s Blog – http://on-theedge.blogspot.com/2012/03/sweaty-yeti.html
Jeff Engel (Marshfield News-Herald, Reporter) – http://www.wisconsinoutdoorfun.com/article/20120305/MNH0101/203050499/Fat-bike-riders-feast-fun-Sweaty-Yeti-race?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE
My Photo’s on Flickr – http://www.flickriver.com/photos/gomez_lakeraven/sets/72157629521237405/
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