Fat Pursuit 2025, Part II

Make sure you’ve read Part I of this epic tale.

Riding into the night…

I love night riding so much! Add snow and this is my absolute favorite kind of riding. Night focuses one’s attention. It’s impossible to get distracted by anything, so it’s time to think, get into a zone, and simply ride the bike. And that’s what I did. It was snowing some so the fastest-ever conditions were becoming not-quite-as-fast and this section is a long, steady climb, but still it felt great.

I was following a bike track laid down by a rider in front of me. I hoped to find this person to say thank you for laying it down since he was riding on the fastest part of the trail, and it made it easier.

Since I’d had what I thought to be altitude issues at the last Fat Pursuit, I wanted to get to the top of the climb and then descend from there prior to sleeping. I was feeling good and was keeping a nice rhythm. Once in such a place, it’s not good to stop!

It’s nice to pass people who are asleep in their bivvies and tents along the way. Just seeing signs of life is beneficial. They’re hours ahead of me, yet I’m riding past them. Love this kind of a “race!!”

Sleeping in the snow, 18 degrees, 3:30am-ish…

To bivvy is a verb. I have learned to put the bivvy sack under my sleeping bag as that’s perfectly warm enough and far easier without the feeling of suffocation that I’ve felt a number of times when sleeping inside the bivvy. The concept of bivvying has been nearly life changing for me since I learned to do it at the last Fat Pursuit. Sleep anywhere! Or just stay safe. Once zipped up in that little bag, it can be -50F degrees outside and you’re safe and warm inside. It’ll all be okay. It’s light and easy to manage. Take it and a sleeping bag and now the entire world of cycling is available to you, no humans or infrastructure required.

I camped in deep snow under a tree. It took a fair amount of work to drag the bike through the snow to get to the spot I liked. A bit of stomping around and the hole for the sleeping pad was big enough. Took off my boots and liners, it wasn’t that cold so I figured my feet would be fine without the extra layers and complication of pulling the liners out of the boots.

I set the phone alarm for 90 minutes of sleep for one complete sleep cycle, figuring it’d take about 30 seconds to doze off. After hitting snooze a couple of times, I woke up refreshed and ready for the day. I was low on water, so I melted enough snow to fill my 3L pack and finished up by boiling water for a pour over. I had pre-ground the coffee beans, and this was something I had been looking forward to for a while!

Saturday Morning…

While it didn’t feel like it took a long time to melt water and make coffee, time was moving by quickly. Time has a different meaning out there. If something is going to take 2 hours, no big deal. But it can take this much time to move 5 miles. The sun was coming up when I pulled out of camp ready to set off for the day.

It took a little while to settle into moving again. The rhythm I’d been in the previous night was no longer there. I’d take a few pedal strokes and remember I needed to do something. Put Dematone on face. Check. Rearrange hydration hose. Check. EAT gosh darn it! It’s breakfast time!! Check. Oooh, it’s pretty, take photos. Check.

It was only another 10-mile stretch to get to checkpoint 2, so I didn’t need all of that water I’d made, but it was comforting to be able to drink without worrying about running out, so I drank a lot and enjoyed the ride to the second checkpoint where pancakes and coffee awaited. I loved this part of the route. It was beautiful and fun riding. This was the part of the ride at the last Fat Pursuit where I was hurting badly, and I didn’t feel I could go on. It felt great to know that I would be passing through checkpoint 2 with no concern about continuing.

It snowed 3” or more overnight which meant riding was harder now. Slower riders get to go even slower! I heard that people behind me had a lot more bike pushing. The fluff on flat terrain was okay, no complaints here!

Breakfast at Checkpoint 2, Mi 77, 11am – Still morning!

CP2 near Harriman State Park was a terrific stop. Nicki is a super pro with pulling people’s food bags when she sees them coming in and making pancakes (I ate 3.), and when I put Skratch in my water (now that I had my checkpoint 2 bag of food) & it had clumps, she took that hydration pack and massaged out every single clump with vigor.

Mental Game…

The next many miles are a blur. The riding was good, harder than Friday with the soft, new snow. Even though the course looked flat in spots or even down, it felt like this whole stretch was some kind of climb. The last big climb of the race hit at mile 85, and the top was around mile 89. This climb was hard to ride, so pushing the bike was nearly as fast and felt like a good choice. This was a new part of the course that I hadn’t seen before. I started hearing my breath loudly, and it felt a lot like what I’d experienced last Fat Pursuit, when I was sure I had altitude sickness.

Here, I had a very serious conversation with myself. It’s a new part of the course, but there is nothing scary about it, it’s the same as the first part of the course. It’s fine. The top will come soon enough, it’s okay.

It worked!

My breathing changed back to how it’d been before, and I felt fine again. All that I had been experiencing was anxiety at the newness of the terrain. The sun was dropping in the sky and preparing for a second night is intimidating especially on a new-to-me part of the course.

Made it to the top of the last climb!

The top of this climb was beautiful, and the sun was setting. The fast people didn’t get this sunset. Of course, they did get a pretty sunrise with nice conditions on Two Top, so there’s that.

The descent was slow with the powder tossing me off the bike from time to time. It was a tree-filled mountain, really nice. Soon it was pitch black. I was still surrounded by trees and enjoying the ride. Hallucinations of elves in the trees started in this area. They weren’t too numerous, and they were all of friendly creatures, Lord of the Rings-style. Totally fine. This comes with sleep deprivation and is not frightening.

The course meandered along and then went around Island Park Reservoir to parallel a river for miles and many hours of pedaling. The trees disappeared and there was nothing on both sides of the course. The moon was bright, and it was snowing for a while – yes, even with the bright moon! Sometimes there was thick fog that was a bit eerie. Off to the right looked to be mountains in the distance.

I heard howling of either coyotes or wolves coming from the mountains. They were loud and many of them were out there. Then I had a hallucination of some creature that was in front of me, also right out of a fantasy book, that was ready to pounce. Jay would not put us on a course where animals would eat us, I kept thinking. The creature ended up being snow and shadows from my light in the snow. It was fine! Continuing on.

Eventually, the trail turned into a snow-covered paved road that was passing by massive ranches. I was still in the middle of nowhere, but I was making progress to checkpoint 3 (an unmanned trailer).

How to make a long ride much longer…

After getting on the paved road, my loooow tire pressure was making everything quite a bit slower than it needed to be. I considered the risk of adding air and causing problems. Something I shouldn’t do, I thought. But then, I succumbed to the allure of a faster ride and tried to add air into my back tire. The cold pump which had worked fine all day Friday, was too cold for the seals to work, and so it was useless. I flatted my tire in the process.

Was it really that cold? Back-up time! I had CO2 cartridges and an inflator. I put the inflator next to the Hot Hands chemical hand warmers I’d had in my gloves to warm it up. Alas, I didn’t do it long enough, the CO2 air went everywhere except in the tire, the on/off valve simply didn’t work at all.

Rob had been waiting for me near checkpoint 3 to take a good night shot of me riding by. After waiting for me for a while and wondering why my dot had stopped, he showed up on this dark road in the middle of nowhere in the rental vehicle. Naturally, I was alarmed at this stranger and got on the bike, riding it with the flat to not look like a damsel in distress. Finally, he said something and came over, and I realized it was him. Thank goodness! He tried to offer good advice for the flat and to just ride it, it should be okay. I rode the bike slowly while warming the pump in my jacket and then tried adding air after a few minutes. The pump was back to life, and I got a lot of air in there! Now I was flying!

…except the rear tire went flat again. Oh no! I spiraled to believing the tire had a big problem and it was going to be flat forever so I’d be walking the rest of the time. When I went to add air, I realized I hadn’t tightened the valve stem. Do I know better? Of course. This is what happens when the brain is tired.

So I added air yet again and the valve core came off with the pump. All of the air escaped. It takes a lot of pumps to get a fat tire full! Did it once again after tightening the valve core in there, and this time it held just fine. Whew! It wasn’t far to the trailer and CP 3 at this point, so I didn’t have far enough to get warm again.

The trailer had big water containers, and it was time for more water. I filled my bladder with about 3/4 L of what I thought was water, but it came out milky yellow…hmmm. Bone broth! Then I found what was actually water and filled the rest of the bladder with that. I haven’t ever had bone broth on a ride, and it’s my new favorite food. I don’t eat meat, but I have no problem with this savory, nutrient-rich, creamy substance. Oh, and it was warm!

Pulling out of the trailer, it felt like a cold, dark, still night. There’s no bivvying allowed after this, since the last 11 miles of the race are called “a victory lap.” 11 miles sounds like nothing until one is sleep deprived, and the body is beyond being out there for too long. My lights and everything with a battery started to suffer. It’s weird since the AAA lithium batteries aren’t supposed to be affected by subzero temps, but my small flashing front light died. My headlamp did, too, but it was fine once I put it in my pocket and warmed it up. The rechargeable headlight showed signs of being close to the end of its life, so I turned it to pulsing rather than low to save it as much as possible. It’s annoying to ride to a pulsing light! After it died ~45 minutes later, I rode by the light of the moon for a while.

It was bright enough to see just well enough. Finally, I pulled out another small backup light that I’d been warming in my jacket and put that on, set to pulsing since it was the very last one I had. (I couldn’t remember where I stashed the last battery for my powerful headlight and was worried I had forgotten to bring it.)

The last section was really fun terrain, and I liked it! I wish I could have been there in the daylight.

My derailleur stopped shifting. I was sure it was just too cold to work. Again, tired brain talking here. I had another full backup battery which I knew was with me and ready to go, but it didn’t occur to me to try it out.

I just saw the snowy rear derailleur and decided it had frozen up. This is crazy to think since my bike worked absolutely fine at -9F degrees after a night of sleeping outside with me so of course at 6 to 9F degrees, the battery is going to be fine. So, there I was stuck in my 42-tooth cog paired with a 26t chainring for the rest of the race on a course that had almost no climbs left. I really enjoy finishing races strong, coming in fast (er, relatively fast) so the super spinning I was doing didn’t cut it, and I couldn’t speed to the finish line even though my legs told me they still had something left to give.

How much? I will never know!

For those who are thinking I’m not so smart for having an electronic shifting bike, I saw plenty of people have issues with mechanical shifting bikes when things freeze in both the shifter and derailleur so all systems will have issues in the cold. I was just too tired to do the logical thing that I would have advised any group rider to do on a typical ride.

It was about two hours prior to the finish (43 hours in) that I started to feel pressure on my saddle, my shoulders got sore from the weight of the hydration pack, and my knees began to feel a bit creaky. Going this long without any physical discomfort was a major win. Everything is much more dialed now than 2 years ago.

The finish (4:05am Sunday) was the best! Rob was there taking photos and welcoming me back. I am so lucky he was there, his presence and support mean the world.

Jay and a volunteer were there to proctor the water boil test and it looked like they had been out there for the entire night. Jay was there for every single finisher. And because he had the water boil at the end, that meant he interacted and had conversations with everyone who had energy left to chat. It was the best way to end the race and to be able to say THANK YOU to Jay.

No excuses…

Throughout the race, I was repeating and reviewing this mantra. I came up with others as well surrounding the concept of being prepared and never needing to end a ride if one brings the right stuff. No excuses. One makes one’s own luck. Things go wrong, it’s just a matter of managing whatever it is with a clear head, leaning on experience. Preparation and practice lead to efficiency and speed in all facets of this race or any endeavor one takes on.

There are countless reasons why getting to the starting line is impossible. Another thousand or so why getting to the finish line is impossible.

Crossing the finish is not a finish, it’s a mark in time. The learning of the past week will stay with me forever, as will the memories of the people, the conversations, the smiles, the hugs, and high fives. There is so much more to be learned, but the foundation is solidly in place to build on, and I intend to attempt to impart what I have gained with everyone with whom I ride and interact.

I left my fear of cold behind. I learned how to talk myself out of dangerous breathing. I feel capable of taking on anything. I want to keep improving, be more efficient, do my work more quickly and proactively on the bike, constantly being on top of doing the right stuff at every moment on every ride.

For EVEN MORE of this adventure, see the full report at Ride Headquarters.