Fat Bike Worlds 2026

It’s been a while. No good excuse for the silence. I haven’t been out of the country or laid up in the hospital or anything noteworthy like that.

It just seems that even in my currently unstructured phase of life, things tend to fall into predictable patterns. I was simply out riding, enjoying the mountains, you know, living life. Before I knew it, four months went by. There just hasn’t been anything truly new or blog-worthy to report. I mean aside from the general collapse of the empire, but for the sake of our collective sanity, let’s not go there right now.

Normally by January I’d have come up with at least two or three skiing posts but in case you haven’t heard, up until this past week winter has sort of forgotten to show up in Colorado. Sure, you can ski inbounds but conditions have been marginal at best and since Monarch doesn’t make snow not everything was open and there was a lot of brown, grassy snow to contend with. Out of bounds, coverage is thin and wind-blown. Low avalanche danger, but in the backcountry, twenty inches of snow doesn’t really help with twenty-four-inch rocks and tree stumps. Like skiing in a mine field, no thank you.

But then this past weekend the Fat Bike Worlds came back around. Same race as last year but for the 2026 edition, at a venue closer to home in Leadville. When it’s in your backyard, you go.

The morning of the race I was a little concerned about the whole idea of riding a bike because it was 3 degrees and cloudy at the house. Salida is at 7,000 feet, Leadville is at 10,000 feet so you can expect it to be much colder there. If it’s 3 degrees in Salida, in Leadville it’s normally going to be a temperature that will make you question the meaning of life. When I rolled into the parking lot at 9:00 a.m. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a balmy 12 degrees and a little sunny, a little snowy.

The race was held on the Timberline Trails on the grounds of Colorado Mountain College. It was a beautiful winding, wooded course on mostly familiar trails.

Unfortunately, I have no race video to share because someone was busy chatting with his fellow racers at the start line and forgot to start the GoPro. But here are some pics of the goings ons in the expo area after the race. Leadville definitely knows how to throw a party!