Mother Nature did not play fair with the inaugural edition of the Chugach Fat Bike Bash March 18 – 20 in Valdez, AK.
Here’s a couple videos from the crit and the finale of the rodeo, the Big Air, Big Splash.
We had a great time during the Ursa Major Northern Lights Criterium that kicked off the event Friday night. But it was snowing. And it kept snowing and we woke up Saturday to the biggest 24-dumpage of snow in the past 3 years.
We had snow machiners running loops on our cross country course from 7 a.m. and only delayed the start of the race, albeit shortened – by one hour. City Streets Department workers plowed off our “rodeo grounds” on the ferry terminal dock and stacked giant piles of snow for us for to create ramps for our gap contest.
The BMX track that took easily 100 man hours to build was toast. Yet we had a cross country race on our beautiful Mineral Creek trails. We had a Gap Jump contest on Kelsey Dock. Nick Weicht was the lone taker for the Big Air, Big Splash into the harbor. Tanana Rafters played awesome Alaska roots tunes at the Fat Mermaid.
On Sunday, City Street groomer extraordinaire Ron Hoffman got up early on his day off to meet us to groom in a track on our backup venue, Meals Hill overlooking the Valdez harborfront. The private property had graciously been permitted to us for use in case our preferred venue on Thompson Pass got weathered out. The snow on Thompson Pass was too deep, too wet and too unstable so we settled for a Chinese Downhill on the in-town venue.
We may try to pull off another massive downhill event on Thompson Pass later this Spring. We’ll keep you posted.
Looks like a kickass time was had in Valdez! Hope to see you there next year with bike and snowboard in tow.