The Fat Bike Birkie is a fat bike race held on the groomed Birkie ski race course.

I've never done a fat bike race before so I wasn't sure at all what to expect, and the race guide didn't publish any elevation data other than "it's a lot".

What I quickly learned was that this race is a marathon of punchy rollers. There is almost nothing flat - you're either going up, or down, or down and into a sweeping turn.

This makes it quite hard to eat or drink because even though the course is a splendid twenty foot wide groomed ski trail, the ruts are real and you need both hand on the bars.

I had no idea going into this if the race was going to be 2.5 hours, or 4 hours, but I did know that from my "last row" start (actually the last wave) out of 1300 riders I was going to have my work cut out for me trying to get up to the front.

Race day weather was a challenge; it was 9 degrees at the 9am start with a predicted 37 degrees by noon. Hey @Bruce, put that into your clothing spreadsheet and let me know what it says - for me I chose my 45 degree north boots and the "usual" winter fare; thermal long leg bibs, base layer and fleece on top with my trusty KCC winter jacket over that. Plus POC thermal hat because #OBV

At the gun I started rolling by people who were clearly not used to riding in a crowd; the few of us who were quickly self self selected into a mini paceline punching through the crowd like a wolves through a herd of caribou... until the first hills where people started going riding back and forth - the dreaded "paperboy" move, and toppling over or staling out because of the steepness. 12% grades were not uncommon and on snow... well you get the idea.

Thankfully I avoided the toppling masses and only had to run one hill in the first half hour. Most people didn't seem to understand the physics of when to ride hard down a hill in order to carry momentum into the next uphill, so what I lacked in fitness I was able to steal back with experience.

I only passed one real crash; some woman had fallen at the fastest part of a downhill and was holding her am in a pose most cyclists know well. She was being attended to so I didn't feel like I needed to stop.

The first half hour was misery; as you can see from the map I more or less redlined it - against the advice of my inner voice which was screaming at me to dial it back a bit - until the top of the first major climb.

After that I settled into the ego-crushing reality of getting caught & passed by various shapes, sizes and ages of people. Just after the first hour I managed to get a cliff bar and a bottle into my belly and started to feel a lot better.

By the second hour I as catching people who had passed me and I felt quite good for the last hour.

I finished in 2:36 which isn't good by any measure - the winners were all under 2 hours - but if I factor in my bike which is 10-15 pounds heavier than the guys in the front and my body which is 5-10 pounds heavier than I'm used to... I'm not too crestfallen.

Getting back to former fitness is a mind game as much as anything else, and I kept telling myself that regardless of how fit or unfit I am, every pedal stroke on that day was getting me closer to where I wanted to be.

A few highlights: 

Beer & brats at the finish were sweet too.