Volunteer Art Gakstettar drives the pace car for Sunday’s races in Winona. Photo by Angie Tom.

Text and Photos
By Shari Benyousky
InkFreeNews

Editor’s Note: This is the final of three articles Behind the Scenes of The Fat and Skinny event.

Reminder: This is part three of a Behind-the-Scenes look into the Fat and Skinny Tire Fest. If you missed days 1 and 2, go back and read them first. This event utilized more than 330 unpaid volunteers, so this article catches up with only a few of those amazing people.

Sunday, May 19th – Day 3

Parties

The back of a volunteers vehicle a they move signs and barricades around. Photo by Greg Demopoulos.

The air was thick and heavy. Sweat beaded up on my back from an easy ride over to Winona, but this didn’t stop the island in Winona Lake from coming alive with parties on Sunday, the last day of Fat and Skinny Tire Fest. The entire island is blocked off from car traffic although pedestrians and bikes meander behind the white barricades and watch the racers take those four sharp turns and occasionally tumble into the hay bales.

“The parties and people cheering are fun for the racers,” volunteer Kris Williams told me from his front porch on Administration Avenue. “Turn one is the most dangerous. You can see pedals spark on the pavement as they go around.” Turn one is at the corner of Canal and Auditorium across the canal from the Canal Street Market.

The Sunday morning Zimmer Biomet Road Criterium are lap races. At 8:30 a.m. the juniors aged 9-14 began. The professional riders started much later at 1:45 p.m. with women riding hard laps for 50 minutes around and around. The men went next going for a full 60 minutes of hard riding.

Pace Cars

Two sweet pace cars driven by Art Gakstatter and Ken Nisley zipped around the island for the first lap. I hooted at rider Angie Tom, and she waved. Later her son Kamden told me the air was so hot it was, “moister than an oyster.” Vivid but accurate.

The Criterium riders often race in teams. Sometimes a professional team with deep funding can put riders out front to race hard and set the pace to wear others out as the real contenders conserve their energy before making their move up the pack. In other words, there’s a lot of strategy involved.

Kris Williams told me that riders take risks. Some of the riders on Sunday had even raced in pre-Olympic races in West Virginia and driven after to get here for Fat and Skinny. He told me about one rider years ago who had taken Turn One too hard, crashed and had to be airlifted to repair his broken hip.

Host Houses

Volunteer Angie Tom and her son, Kameron, prepare for the Kids Race.

Some of the teams stayed in host houses over the three days of the fest. I caught up with the South Chicago Wheelmen who stayed at Nick and Kallie Chapman’s house. “We are one of the oldest clubs in Illinois,” Shane Feehery, the team captain, told me. “We’ve been coming to this race for 10-15 years. The crowd is awesome, and we love the unique course and how much the town gets into this.” His other members had gathered around in agreement. “The Chapmans are amazing. They took such good care of us. Thank you, Winona Lake!”

For the Kids
In the middle of this, the kid’s events began in earnest with tattoos, a scavenger hunt, bike art, and yard games. Volunteers in burgundy T-shirts helped everywhere smiling, handing out cold waters, announcing, and picking up bikers that crashed to bandage them up.

The last event to finish on Sunday was the Ortho Challenge Cup announced by Kris Williams who had to leave off grilling brats by his cottage and walk down the block. “How many of you got a chance to test the course?” He asked the riders to little response. He chuckled. “I figured no one would want to admit they practiced, but we know you did.” Williams rode in the corporate challenge himself once before. The challengers ride big cruiser one-speed bikes from the Trailhouse for the race.

Greg Demopoulos

Greg is the co-founder and co-director (along with KCV President Mike Cusick and KCV Treasurer Nick Hauck) of Fat and Skinny. He was the president of the Ball State Racing Club and first arrived in Winona Lake with an intern job. Spoiler — lucky for us he stayed. During the Fat and Skinny weekend, he stayed far too busy for me to get more than a few sentences with, but we sat down for coffee the Monday after. Mike texted me pictures and helped with my many questions, but he was busy cleaning, stacking, sorting and answering questions to finish up.

“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” Greg told me. I pointed out the “Need More Coffee” painting above him and he good-naturedly allowed me to take his picture before flopping in a chair at Three Crowns Coffee. Even when exhausted, Greg loves to talk. “My friends call it Demop-time,” he told me. “I’ll see someone new walking the trails and I’ll want to ask what brought them to town and what suggestions they have. You know?” Demop is the pastor of outreach and engagement at WCC. He has four kids of his own and wears his heart on his sleeve.

How It Began

Co-director Greg Demopoulos needs coffee and sleep.

“Those of us who had this dream to begin KCV and the Fat and Skinny always have as our motto to be as generous as possible. As kind as possible. That’s what got us here.” Greg gestured with his coffee. “Black. Just black. Not watered down with anything today.” He went on. “Sometimes money came out of our own pockets. But we wanted everyone to have a good experience and come back. This would have a bigger impact on our community.”

He looked around the coffee shop. “There’s something special about this community. We want to make it better. We want to allow kids to walk or bike to school safely.” He nodded a lot as he talked. It’s hard not to believe him. Every word seems possible.

“One of our board members says it right,” Demop takes the lid off his coffee to drink it better. “Fred Helfrich always said that our goal was to get more butts on bikes. And he is right.”

KCV has big dreams. They want to connect all the bike trails so people can freely travel safely around town and further. They gathered close to 25 big sponsors for the Fat and Skinny, and nearly 100 sponsor banners to line the racecourses. He told me how the board does it.

“K21 Foundation has been a huge blessing in helping us make it happen. Every year we gather all the comments and suggestions that we can,” he leaned forward. “Sometimes they fill a huge 10-page document. We examine all of them and ask ourselves about the impact, the cost and who could take on a new idea or event. This is where all the parts of Fat and Skinny have come from. We start in October and by early February have a schedule and start registration. Then we work all the way through until the race. It’s a commitment of love.”

He leaned back. “You know the people of KCV are all unpaid. We maintain the trails. We pay the insurance. We buy the tools. Just in the Boys Club, there are 10.2 miles of trail. That’s 20.4 miles of weed-eating and maintenance that teams do all year long for just passion and investing in their community.”

We talk for an hour before Demop realizes that he has more Fat and Skinny work to do. He ends by shaking my hand and saying, “The world is hard. We all have our struggles, but there is great joy to be had on a bicycle, and we want everyone to have that chance.”

TIP – for more great photos of Fat and Skinny, see this amazing collection.