LAKE MACBRIDE — On a chilly and windy day like Saturday, most people would probably want to stay at home and snuggle under a blanket than the temperatures. But close to 200 people would disagree with that sentiment, as people competed in the Lake MacBride Fat Tire Classic Saturday morning.
The bike ride is an annual tradition hosted by North Liberty-based Sugar Bottom Bikes and the Solon Centennial Lions Club. This year’s edition was a little over 30 miles in length, with a total elevation of over 2,000 feet, providing a unique challenge for racers.
Along the route were aid stations for racers who needed a snack and drink or needed to do maintenance. Also on offer was a “Bacon Station,” where hungry racers could stop to grab a cookie or bacon provided by race sponsor Sam’s Main Street Market, and a can of beer provided by another sponsor, Big Grove Brewery.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a member of the Solon Centennial Lions Club, said the race is the club’s biggest fundraising event, with the money raised going toward the Solon community. 
Fitzpatrick said in previous years, the money raised has been used to donate hearing aids and scholarships to send kids to diabetes camps, and any other needs that arise in the community throughout the year.
“So we really appreciate all the cyclists or volunteers and Sugar Bottom Bikes for just being able to get this whole event going forward for us,” he said.
He also said the event was always something that involved a lot of planning but was worth it when seeing everyone’s reactions.
“Just seeing smiles on people’s faces, just enjoying the trails that they get to be a part of, and getting together with friends and just enjoying the whole experience is the coolest part,” he said.
Tim Gordon, Solon Centennial Lions Club, said the race this year raised $11,000, which is close to what it raised last year. Like Fitzpatrick, Gordon said a highlight of the annual event was seeing the reaction from participants.
“Just seeing the people, new faces every year is a great thing — some old faces of people that ride it every year and just love it,” he said.
Gordon said roughly 50 volunteers from the Solon Centennial Lions Club were helping with the race on Saturday. This included club member and Solon City Administrator Cami Rasmussen, who was stationed at a parking lot in Lake MacBride State Park near the beginning of the race.
She was acting as a spotter for riders, pointing them in the right direction while also encouraging them. 
Rasmussen said putting on the race was a community, collaborative effort.
“It takes several pieces of this to all come together and the benefits are the riders get a great experience, the community gets the benefit of having all these visitors to our community,” she said. “[It] impacts our businesses because they’re going to stop and they’re going to be hungry and thirsty later and maybe stay you know stay in town for a little while.”
The money raised for the community along with the opportunity for riders to race the Lake MacBride Classic made it a win-win for everyone, Rasmussen said.
Race director Nate Kullbom said the Solon Centennial Lions Club first came up with the idea of the race and has been an integral part of it since.
“They approached us at Sugar Bottom Bikes, said ‘We want to do a fat bike race out to Lake MacBride’ and that’s how it got started,” Kullbom said.
The race has taken place for the past seven years consecutively, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. In 2020, the race occurred right before the pandemic hit, and the 2021 edition was toned in response to the pandemic.
The race itself was designed to be a fat tire bike race, a type of bike featuring a wider wheel made for traversing surfaces like sand, snow, and other soft terrain. 
There have been times in the seven years the race has occurred where snow has been on the ground, lending to the challenge and appeal of the race.
Part of the reason the fat tire bike was selected came from an agreement the event has with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Fat tire bikes will do less damage to the environment, Kollbum said, and this type of bike will be safer to use if the conditions of the course are muddy.
“That was the agreement and we’ve just rolled with it, and we really love the fat bike community,” Kollbum said.
As for the challenge of the race, Kollbum said the course will feature grass, snowmobile trails, fields, and hilly sections. He estimated most people would be completing the race in two to four hours and potentially up to six hours for some.
 
Racers enjoy route and challenge
Des Moines residents Mike Dakovich and Chris Ahlers both said that time sounded right to them. Dakovich said he’s competed in race two or three previously, and Ahlers said he’s competed in every edition excluding the first two.
Both men said the conditions and weather were favorable, and the most intense part would be the hills throughout the route. As for the length, Ahlers said it was double what he normally rides.
“This is about double our distance and time, and feet of climb is about 2000,” he said. “It’ll be challenging.”
Metamora, Illinois, resident Beverly Enslow was another ride on Saturday, competing her fourth Lake MacBride Classic race. Initially attracted to the race for its cash prizes, she said continued competing in it because it was a “great race.”
“I love the course there’s different challenges along the way, and Illinois doesn’t have much in the wintertime,” she said. “Iowa seems to be kind of a hotbed for good racing.”
Another thing Enslow highlighted was the community support for the race, and she in turn liked being able to support the community.
“There seems to be a lot of community support and I think that’s really cool,” Enslow said.
Speaking after the race, Enslow, Dakovich, and Ahlers all said they enjoyed the race and had a great time. Each said parts of the race had proved challenging physically and liked the weather they had been competing in. 
Looking ahead to next year, all three said they were planning on coming back to compete again.
As for the winners of the race itself, Kullbom said the winner was a Chris Hansen, who clocked in a finish time of about 2 hours and 11 minutes. Second was Mason Wilson, who Kullbom said was 14 years old, and third was Michael Maney.
 
Different from other races
The race itself is unique when compared to other bike races hosted in Iowa, such as RAGBRAI. That race sees cyclists travel across the state, going through different cities by sticking to the main roads.
In contrast, the Lake MacBride Fat Tire Classic race takes place on a route going around the lake, with a course featuring dirt, gravel, hills, and more to provide a challenge to the riders. Being a winter race, it regularly includes snow and ice plus the accompanying freezing temperatures.
But Saturday’s edition was a change of pace for most and a welcome one too. The temperature at the beginning of the race was roughly 30 degrees Fahrenheit and would warm up over the course of the day.
It was also windy, as well as cloudy at the beginning, but both of those would change during the race too. By the end, the sky was clear, and the sun shone down on the racers who crossed the finish line.
Event organizers and volunteers who were stationed around the route welcomed the comparatively warm temperatures, although said some racers would have preferred the cold and snow.
Such was the preference for snowy conditions that one volunteer said there had been discussions to postpone the event a week. 
The impact of not having snow could also be seen in the registrations for the event, as Kollbum said the number of registrations began to slow when it became clear there would be no snow this year.

Gallery • 4 Photos

Jordan Barry/The Daily Iowan

A rider navigates a narrow single-track trail during the seventh annual Lake Macbride Fat Tire Classic in Solon on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024.