By Richard Osborn
 

 
I should be in Cabo, sipping lime-adorned Tecates in the sun. Instead, I’m in wintry Cable, population 825, in the nether regions of Northern Wisconsin, not an hour’s drive from Lake Superior.

I’ve somehow been talked into entering the annual Fat Bike Birkie; a fat-tire mountain bike race that each March winds (and, as I soon discover, climbs and climbs) through the snowy woods of this remote town, past throngs of balsam firs, Eastern hemlocks and black spruce. There are 47K, 21K and 10K options, but we’re going the distance, what the locals call the Big Fat, which promises 3,400 feet in elevation gain.

Forget the fact that, until the day before the event, when race officials allow competitors to sample the course, I had never ridden a fat-tire bike. Sure, I’d trained for months on a mountain bike across Mt. Tam, up and down Hawk Hill and the Marin Headlands on my trusty 2004 LeMond roadie. But nothing can really prepare you for pedaling through the snow on a fat bike until you’ve experienced it in person.
 

 
Here the conversations center around things like tire pressure and layer management. (Many riders, myself included, opt for waterproof shoe covers and pogies, which slip over your handlebars like oversized oven mitts and can keep your hands toasty despite the 20-degree temps.) Skip the protein bars, the GU: The preferred energy sources are a shot of maple syrup and, post-race, brats accompanied by a celebratory airplane-bottle of 66-proof Fireball.

Unleash the Dragon: What you have here is smooth whisky with a fiery kick of red-hot cinnamon. It tastes like heaven, burns like hell. What happens next is up to you.

My crew, four hardy Chicagoans and a fellow Northern Californian, charge off the starting line with the pack at 9 a.m., but are soon separated, finishing sweat-soaked between 2:32 and 3:13. The winner, a 32-year-old Michigander named Jorden Wakeley, does it in an astonishing 1:49, averaging more than 15 miles an hour. Grinding over the groomed, ever-rolling course, you have to keep your focus. Get your front wheel caught in a rut on a downhill sprint and things can go south in a hurry. I don’t dump my borrowed Specialized Fatboy until there are only a few kilometers remaining, but it’s memorable.
 

 
Amidst the burning thighs, the all-out suffering, you feel an instant kinship with your fellow riders, blessed to be out there charging through this pristine, frigid outback together, each of us just crazy enough to take on the challenge.

“I think we keep going back because it’s so hard,” says my longtime friend and ringleader, the bearded Matt Sommer, participating in his fourth Fat Bike Birkie. “That and just being in the Northwoods is always a special thing. The fact that it’s so challenging and beautiful gives you something to train for. To be able to complete that race on whatever level you’re competing on is very unifying.”

Afterwards, there’s an unexpected exuberance, something that goes beyond the garden-variety endorphin rush. We walk across frozen Lake Namakagon, snowmobiles whizzing by at impossible speeds, toward the circa 1920s Garmisch Resort, taking refuge in the Bierstube Lounge. It’s dumping snow now. The Bloody Marys, Irish Car Bombs and Milwaukee-brewed Leinenkugels are going around on the double-quick. One of our cohorts is having a dance-off with himself, accompanied only by the blaring jukebox. There’ll be more stops tonight: Ammo’s Evergreen, the Pioneer, the Pla-Mor for pickle fries, cheese curds and tin-can nachos. I’m hooked. Cabo can wait.