Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
People will be coming to Winona Lake and Warsaw from all over the United States and Canada for the Fat & Skinny Tire Fest May 15-17.
One of the new things for the 21st year of the event is the festival’s role as the kickoff for the Midwest Cup, a new regional road racing series.
Fat & Skinny Co-founder and Co-organizer Greg Demopoulos explained, “This year, the Zimmer Biomet Omnium ... so we have the Friday night downtown (Criterium) race, then the Saturday road race out in the county and then the Sunday Village criterium ... are part of a new road racing series that’s called the Midwest Cup Road Series. We’re the first, the opening round.”
Other races that are part of the series will follow this summer in Elmhurst, Ill.; Kankakee, Ill.; and near Grand Rapids, Mich.
“So that is a new series to try to drive interest from some of the bigger regional teams that often are going to the national races, the pro races in the country, but getting them to stick around and commit to some of the larger regional events,” Demopoulos said. “So that’s us. These three races, they’re looking at expanding next year, but this being the first year, these were the first handful of races they wanted to do because of the atmosphere at those races. It’s not just a - you show up at a race course and it’s just the road races, but there’s actually like a festival feel to it. There’s other events going on. The community gets involved. So there’s participation opportunities for other cyclists as well. Family-friendly, those kind of things.”
In the middle of last year, Demopoulos said, the Midwest Cup directors reached out to the Fat & Skinny organizers to see if they were interested in being a part of the series. Demopoulos had conversations with them and he had the opportunity to be a part of the steering committee for the kickoff of the new series.
Last year at this time, the pre-entry for the Fat & Skinny road race was about 300 cyclists. As of Friday morning, it was 519.
“So, we’re almost double pre-registration with basically a week to go. Our hope is we’ll see big turnouts. We’re only about 60 entries away from being where we were at total last year, and we saw a huge jump last year the last week because everybody that’s on the fence and might be traveling from a decent distance, if their team is not already committed to the event, they’re watching weather. So, we’re already seeing huge turnout from that,” Demopoulos said.
An online tool that Fat & Skinny uses to sign bikers and teams up has a heat map on it and the Midwest is all red with bicyclists signed up. Demopoulos said there’s also spots from Texas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Washington, Canada and all along the East Coast.
“So we’ve got people literally coming from all over this year. A lot of the bigger teams that do the Pro Crit Series are coming, so we’re pretty excited to see that, already, and the rest of the other directors from Midwest Cup are excited because they’re seeing, if these are early signs, then it bodes well for the race,” Demopoulos said. “And we found out as well that one of the Pro Crit Races that would have been the same weekend got cancelled down in South Carolina, so we could have even more teams that would have been going to that, committing to going to a larger regional event just to try to get some more race time in.”
For the race course of Fat & Skinny’s size, there is a field limit for each category of 75 cyclists. Demopoulos said they already have 50 pre-registered in a couple categories.
Fat & Skinny Co-founder and Co-organizer Mike Cusick stated, “That would be incredible. There’s already fields crowded with 40 people coming through, so 75 is quite (a lot).”
Demopoulos said with the technology that the Kosciusko County Visitors Bureau has - placer.ai - they knew they had 10,000 to 12,000 visitors to the area last year over the entire Fat & Skinny weekend.
“To be fair, we always assumed it was a little bit less, but we were very pleasantly surprised to see that type of attendance,” Cusick said.
Frankie Andreu
Because the South Carolina race got cancelled, a familiar voice and face to cyclists will be announcing during the Fat & Skinny Tire Festival races.
Frankie Andreu is a former professional cyclist who raced for the U.S. Postal Service team and in the Tour de France. Now, he announces at big races across the country.
For the last few years, Demopoulos said they’ve been “bugging” Andreu about coming down and announcing races. When the South Carolina race got cancelled, Andreu reached out to see if the Fat & Skinny could use him.
“The neat thing behind that, the side story, is that Frankie is actually the one that convinced us to move forward with coming up with the festival,” Demopoulos said.
In 2002, when the Trailhouse in Winona Lake was first getting started, Andreu was coming to town as Fat & Skinny co-founder Jim Lancaster was working with Andreu’s wife as she needed a hip and DePuy was providing it.
While he was in town, Andreu was convinced to do a talk about professional racing at the Trailhouse, in early 2003. The Trailhouse was packed with about 200 people to hear Andreu speak.
“That was even the first time that Alan (Alderfer) and Robbie (Gast) and myself and Jim, we were like, ‘We’ve got to come up with an organization name to be behind this.’ And that’s how KCV (Kosciusko County Velo) came about, actually, so we had to create the flyer and everything for it and come up with a logo. But, it was neat because at dinner during his visit, there were a few of us talking about the community and the Village was brand new. The mountain bike trails were starting to get popular. And he was just chatting with us, saying, ‘Your community is so unique and what you guys are starting to do with the push for the greenways and the mountain bike trails starting to become known and successful and everything,’” Demopoulos recalled.
Andreu told them they really could do a multi-event bike festival in the community. Alderfer, Gast, Lancaster and Demopoulos had already been tossing the idea around. Andreu convinced them to at least try it and see what happens.
“It’s kind of neat then to know that 24 years later, he’s coming back and will be announcing the event,” Demopoulos stated.
Continued Growth
Cusick said they hope this year’s festival will be even bigger than the 20th last year.
“We were pleasantly surprised once we saw the numbers of last year. There’s been a few things in the last couple years that have helped expand it. I think greater awareness, our partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and downtown Warsaw,” he said.
Third Friday events downtown Warsaw will coincide with the first day of the Fat & Skinny Tire Festival on Friday, and Cusick said he thinks that has brought in a few more people.
“I think one of the key things to this, and we’ve talked about this before, we have over 20 different events over three days. So we’re not always trying to add something new, but we are constantly trying to improve what we’re doing or improve the experience,” he said. “So one example is the Midwest Cup Series. It’s taking what we’re currently doing and combining it with some other opportunities out in the region to make it bigger and better.”
Cusick said the festival doesn’t always have something brand new, but they are constantly tweaking some of the events to improve the experience, make it easier and streamline it.
For Adults And Kids
For those who aren’t racing, there will be plenty to see and do during the three-day festival.
“It’s really what are all the casual rides. We have racing events - we have the road race, we have the mountain bike. We have the countryside tour, which is casual, but it’s for more serious cyclists. You can do from 12 to 100 miles. But we also have a few things for both adults and kids every day,” Cusick said.
Friday starts with Bike To Work Day. The River Coffee locations in Winona Lake and Warsaw, starting at 7 a.m., will have free coffee and snacks for anyone who is riding their bike in and riding to work after that.
The big event on Friday is the Community Critical Mass Ride that takes place right after opening ceremonies in Winona Lake. Everyone jumps on their bikes and rides from The Village to downtown Warsaw. The ride usually averages over 400 people, though in some years there’s been over 800 people riding.
One of the hidden gems that is part of the festival, he pointed out, is the Winona Lake Historical Tour at 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday.
“It’s about 3.5 miles, very casual pace, regular stops - 16 stops. The leader will take the group throughout Winona Lake and share the interesting and unknown history of a lot of the stops, as well,” Cusick said.
On Saturday and Sunday, there will be kids rides. There will be kids activities on Saturday in The Village at Winona, including a bike safety school, a scavenger hunt, games and a chance for kids to decorate their bikes and then ride in a bike parade around 4 p.m.
On Sunday, there are more kids events in The Village. At noon at the trailhead, there will be a mountain bike clinic for kids from kindergarten to 12th grade.
It all wraps up with the kids races and the Ortho Cup Race on Sunday.
Over a Hire BMX Park in Warsaw on Saturday, Cusick there’s a Four Cross Mountain Bike Race, as well as BMX races.
“So there’s an open house. Anybody can go over with their mountain bike or BMX bike and a helmet and ride the course. They have bikes and helmets if people don’t have it. That’s around noon, and then around 3 o’clock the races start,” Cusick said.
Demopoulos said a lot of people come down casually on their bikes Saturday to The Village for the live music. He said some people have pre-parties in Southtown and then rides their bikes down to The Village for the bands Saturday night.
“We’ve always talked that there’s different crowds that attend different parts of the festival. There’s racers, there’s casual riders, there’s people who love live music on both Friday and Saturday night. There’s kids and family events. But there also tends to be, on Sunday, parties around the island in front of people’s houses, too,” Cusick stated.
Volunteers & More Info
Demopoulos said a couple days ago, there was around 100 volunteer roles that still needed filled. As of Friday, there were still about 60 to 70.
“We still have some spots that we could use warm bodies to help fill,” he said.
For more information about the festival, events, camping, registration and volunteering, visit the website at fatandskinnytirefest.com
“The goal is just to get more - as Fred Helfrich likes to say - more butts on bikes. That is our goal, is we want more people riding bikes. It’s good for their health, it’s good for the community, it’s good for our mental health as well, and socially and even economically. People that ride bikes to locations tend to spend more time there and spend more money there as well. It’s really a win-win,” Demopoulos said.
