Saturday January 21st the ToHelluRide Fat Bike Challenge kicked off around ten and at one point 17 fat bikes were stomped on a leisurely all day semi self supported stompariLLAZ RallY!!  What fun!  First to arrive, friday night at about midnite were the OG STompAz from bonedale-land-area, Skooba, NiRad, and WillY. Putting them to bed proved challenging as usual but we were awake on off to breakfast by 9, La Cocina goodness to get on track. IN front of Paragon we picked  up a few more, pictures to follow supposedly. Anyhow, our fearless leader, Dr. D00M was quick to turn the pace up and by the time we got out the floor to boomerang people were ready to stop and shed a layer or two, check the safety quotient and listen to me give them my two cents. ‘It’s a rally not a race, just kinda hard to tell when you get this many stompaz stomping together cuz they’re just so darn cute and excited they can’t help but get up on the rear wheel, don’t worry they’ll sl0w down eventually, real slow’ ANyhow we’re here to support each other and stomp this baby out in a safe and satisfying manner. So we did. Glen and Chris showed up from durango as did JP and MitchyKidd, our hearts went out to chad, thad, bailey and russell, hopefully they had some nice soup and tea while wrapped in blankets. Anyhow, we left town in a blaze of glory, as usual.

Once everyone got the river grade downhill out of their system across the valley floor we headed into lawson past the beloved Telluride Brewery and onto the lawson single track up across 145 onto the jurassic trail. On our way up D00M and I had a revelation, relative to our original planned route, ‘why not skip mountain village? Ok’ So we hopped off Jurassic and climbed adams ranch road, dropped the cart path and headed up the wilson loop nordic trails where the MV Rec Dept. will be having their triathlon relay next month.  Atop there we had a good chat with ourselves, having suceeded in bringing the storm that we’ve been needing we’d also raised the adventurism, which was sweet. 

From there we got to take on arguably the most dangerous aspect of the ToHellUride challenge, the neutral road stage. Sheesh, all was well until we rolled over the dip towards cushman lake. Just a little speed and the fat tires sprayed anyone in the vicinity with the mag chloride glop that we all so love. Luckily it was over quick and we hit the telluride snowmobile trail entrance and headed into the woods. 

The night D00m dragged me up through those snowmobile trails i did concede that they were sweet but nearly as easy as he kept blabbering on about. Well luckily it was nuking and puking and occasionally the aspect was such that it was blowing sideways, anyway it was sufficiently not easy for the stomprz it seemed. It was also the point of no return and a couple folks opted to have the ride they needed to have on that day and rode back to town. To each their own, it was a challenge and you can have your money back.

Kindly the moonlander carried extra, including fried chicken that everyone was happy to see about a third of the way up the climb, especially after seeing the ti bizong. Dang. Anyhow the snow was accumulating and the times varied widely to the observatory but we all made it and the blizzard was truly happy to see us at the top.

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Thanks to the most amazing Lady aka my babymomma, we had burgers and soup to get everyone back on point for the extra exciting part, getting home! Oh and the Telluride Brewery IPA pony, that still needs to get kicked by the by. Anyhow, we were so thankful to Katy K for turnin 30 that day and lettin us join her in celebration for a bit. Especially thankful to Young Ben Knight who schelped the burgers and Matt Bowling the ALO owner who hauled the keg et. all. The plan to make the fastest person drag the keg behind their pugz looked alot more painful the more it snowed.

A couple of folks opted to ride their own pace and leave before us, Miriam and Todd, both of whom waited for us after crushing us up there. Ha, next time they’re in for the full, as we all are.

The best part about StompN with such a fine contingent is that no one has a bad time. We’re all suffering, we’re all trying to be smoother and stronger but succumbing our fate together. Even our Papa Skooba SteveZ Slowvy who brought up the lantern rouge was in fine spirits despite having the added bonus of ‘new’ used bike with mismatched ‘new’ used panniers to keep organized. It’s hard to underestimate what a struggle it can be to deal with keeping gear strapped on tight and how much energy it can suck out of you when you’re worked already. SKooba acknowledges the toll of stompin and is willing to make decisions to help it and so were D00m and I. Upon making it back to the top of ten from the observatory; a shred alert with a small climb when groomed but a raucus powder dh with a hike a bike slog through the freshies in the nordic trails to the tipi. Where we pow wowed and determined that we were in this ToHellUride Challenge together and we were gonna skip the full route which from there woulda required another serious series of efforts to get up to the top of the T trail. Instead we kamikazee DH’d the double cabin powder pugz goodness and onwards down the boomerang trail. Lo and behold a little gravity had gotten into SteveZ and he was right on my wheel schralping down boomerang lighting us both up with his swerious lighting system.

Oak was just the right big old cafeteria space for us to un wind and de robe after such and adventure.  After such a fun adventure it was a pleasure to surprise everyone with some sort of prize.

Old Man Mountain was kind enough to hook up one of their sweet pugz racks and Mitch the Durango Kidd was certainly deserving after suffering rack breakdowns just about everytime it wasn’t a good time, on tour, not on this day. Anyway he got a sweet OMM rack and boy was that sick. Next summer for his next stomp of the Colorado Trail Pugz challenge he’ll have a bomber rack to cart his crap along. D00m’s original orange pogies went to Percassi, and the sweet arctic cat gloves went to TR. James Guest got deeper into trouble with Paragon since he won the Rolling Daryll rim to fatten his pugz. Glen also owes Bootdoctors for his sweet Icebreaker gaiter that he won mid race when the wind was whipping at the alta town site and i realized i had that along with my gaiter in my pocket and his neck was looking quite red so he got the mid race stay warm prize thanks to Paragon Bootdoctors. Christopher who was suitably interested in what the jammy pack was jammin’ won the sweet headphones Brian donated from the Hub. 

And knowing that Will also has a medium pugz i decided that my prototype Crater Frame Bag would be a good thing to pass onto him. Gonna work out sweet and i’m gonna get back with Rich to crank out some more amazingness cuz all the stompaz need frame bags now that they’ve seen the light.  Another rad morning after prize was a little tlc from Josh and once again the Bootdoctors came up big and SKooba SteveZ was the proud recipient of a pair of custom insoles and some quality caressing from Josh W. So sweet.

Which will go well with the tele toons i lent him.

Since no one’s legs had fallen off we opted to schralp the goodness out of the powder day and stand in line more minutes combined than all this season combined. All Good.

All things being equal we can say for sure that we did Not NOt STOmP and until next time, peas and be well, much luv, yer pal slappy