Fruita – Five minutes before midnight on a cool Friday, the beach at Highline Lake State Park looks reminiscent of a scene from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
Nearly 100 halogen lights illuminate the sand and water, casting an iridescent glow of blue and white, mixed with the pale yellow and eerie red hues of auxiliary headlamps, tail lights and decorative add-ons.
The Lycra-clad pilgrims lining the beach await instructions from their leader, Troy Rarick, whose voice broadcasts over a loudspeaker. Soon enough, the countdown begins: “Fifteen seconds … 10 … 5-4-3-2-1 … Go!”
A mad dash ensues, lights bobbing in the darkness like a brilliant meteor shower as the horde of about 65 mountain bikers stampede the beach in a short foot race before mounting their trusted steeds and pedaling off into the night. The 10th annual Fruita Fat Tire Festival is officially underway.
More than 200 dedicated riders would pass the baton for the next 18 hours, riding 5.6-mile laps around the lake through sunrise and into Saturday evening at the festival’s first 18-hour endurance race. The race is Rarick’s twist on the 24-hour mountain bike races that have exploded in popularity nationwide in recent years.
“The thing with Fruita is we always have to do it a little different,” Rarick, the event organizer, said when asked why the race doesn’t span the entire cycle of the clock. “This is actually a 30-hour event. It’s six hours of partying, an 18-hour race, and another six hours of partying.”
Despite the prominent presence of the New Belgium Brewing Company from Fort Collins and a pair of rock ‘n’ roll bands that have taken the microphone out of Rarick’s hands, the notion of “partying” to race participants – at least at this early stage in the event – consists mostly of chugging espresso and energy drinks for an extended caffeine buzz mixed with a full complement of adrenaline-fueled endorphins.
Teams of up to 10 riders, male and female, take on the single-track course and ensuing sleep deprivation in an effort to see who can muster the most laps. Nineteen of the racers rode the entire 18 hours solo.
The festival environment spreads throughout a tent city that spills beyond the park’s typical capacity, riders huddled around campfires for warmth or anxiously adjusting gear as they await their turn in the saddle. Only a smattering of spectators venture to the stage to listen to live music, still the band willingly serenades the train of cyclists circling through the venue until 3 a.m.
“Here they come now up around the bend,” the singer belts out in concert with the event. “Everyone wants to know how it’s gonna end. … I’m in the race; pick up the pace …”
For many participants, the fact that this is an actual race is nearly an afterthought. Rarick’s team, sponsored by his Fruita-based Over the Edge Sports cycling shop, is humorously named “TNT,” short for Team Not Trying. The Mad Cows square off against Team Bandage, Team Beer takes on the Late Bloomers and the Singletrack Suckas, while the Dirty Dames mix it up with Damsels in D-Stress.
“I’ve done every type of racing from cyclocross 45-minute races to 24-hour team rides,” said Paul DesRosiers of Boulder, riding for Wily Cycles/BPN. “And these types of races are just a whole different experience. Just finishing is an accomplishment. It’s not like the cutthroat racing that sometimes happens. If you just finish or are out there just participating, everyone is friendly on the course. Everyone is a spectator and a fan, as well as a rider. I much prefer that environment.”
DesRosiers is not alone is his assessment. In the wee hours of the night, it’s difficult to evaluate your standing against riders, and many choose to focus on the long-term task, like finishing a marathon.
“You’ve got to be kind of crazy to want to hang out here, stay up for 18 hours and ride your bike all night ” said Amy Drumm, 27, a top-ranked collegiate mountain bike racer from Mesa State. “But we decided to do it just because it’s something fun to do that we’ve never done before. It’s kind of freaky at night.”
For many riders, it’s the opportunity to ride at night that appeals the most.
“It’s a blast,” said Avon resident Linda Wells, pulling the midnight to 3 a.m. shift for Team Bubbler. “We’ve got a group in Avon that goes out every chance we get, usually on a full moon. You can see, but it takes a lot of concentration for sure.”
Team Bubbler posted a respectable showing of 44 laps around the course, or roughly 245 miles – fourth-best among the 62 teams. But no one could top the 50-lap, 280-mile effort by the Trek/VW duo of Nick Martin of Boulder and Brian Smith of Gunnison. As the lone professional team in the race, Martin and Smith felt the pressure to perform, yet enjoyed the benefits of the festival environment.
“Out on the trail I had multiple conversations going on with people I would pass cheering us on to do 50 laps,” said Martin, 25. “You don’t get that in a standard 2 1/2-hour, cross country mountain bike race. There’s no talking, you’ve got drool coming out of your mouth and you’re in the pain cave the whole time.
“Here you have a chance to build relationships more. You’re spending a whole day on an epic adventure with these people. It’s really cool.”
“It got a little competitive, but only amongst ourselves to get to 50 laps,” added Smith, 30. “This was probably one of the best training things we could have done – basically 18 hours of interval training. Once we recover from this we’ll probably be stronger than ever.”
Smith anticipates it will take the remainder of the week to fully recover, effectively eliminating him from participating in the remainder of the Fruita Fat Tire Festival, which continues through Saturday. But the strength of the mountain bike community is already evident in the attitudes of riders clustered beneath the beer tent as rain clouds burst just before the award ceremony.
“This is the heart and soul of mountain biking. You come to this event and you realize there’s good in people,” said M.K. Thompson of Fort Collins. “The people in mountain biking all want to help one another out. The people who are here are people who just love to mountain bike.”
Staff writer Scott Willoughby can be reached at 970-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
