A “Hey, I’m Somebody Now” Note from Fatty: The Davis Enterprise did a piece on the LiveStrong Challenge, and guess who got interviewed and even photographed? No, you’re completely wrong, it was not Stanley Tucci. It was me!Check it out here.
A “Hey, I’m Evidently Somebody In Two Different Cities” Note from Fatty: The Daily Herald (a Utah paper) also did a story on me, whichyou can read here. The tie-in is the fact that I’m sponsoring The American Fork Tour de Donut, or — as I like to call it –The FatCyclist.com Tour de Donutthis weekend. And believe it or not, they also did a cool little video interview with me, which you can watch below, for your embedded viewing pleasure:
Awesome video trivia: all shots of me riding my bike took place while I rode around in circles in my cul de sac.
And now, on with the report of the LiveStrong Challenge!
Team Fatty Owns Davis
From a practical standpoint, events like Davis LiveStrong Challenge make no sense. I certainly don’t need to travel all the way to California to ride my bike for 100 miles. I could donate more money, instead of spending it on traveling.
But sometimes, being practical isn’t the priority. Sometimes, being with friends and celebrating your success is important.
And Team Fatty definitely has some things to celebrate. For the Davis LiveStrong Challenge, we were not just a leading team. We were the leading team, by every possible metric. We raised the most money, individually ($35K!), as a team ($118K!), and in the strange and obscure Team Time Trial category.
We had the most donors. We were the largest team. For last weekend, at least, Davis, California was all about Team Fatty.
The Cycling Hall of Fame
Festivities — yes, festivities, because we were all feeling downright festive – began on Friday night at the Bicycling Hall of Fame. 25 or so of us hung out there, putting names (and commenter handles) to faces.
There you go. A subset of Team Fatty Davis, including some of the most prolific commenters on the blog. But you know what? I’m not going to say who’s who. I’ll let you guess.
Joe — the honcho at the Hall of Fame — gave us a tour of the incredible history of cycling:
Oh, and of course there was cake.
I had two pieces, which you would probably expect of me. That, however, was a teeny-tiny amount compared to Co-captain MattC’s cake consumption. Five pieces. Honestly. “It’s part of my super power,” Matt explained. “I once went on a cruise, and ate non-stop. I got home, and hadn’t gained an ounce.”
At which point, the rest of us stabbed Matt to death using plastic forks.
A Major Award! A Major Award! A Major Award! A Major Award!
The next day — Saturday — was one of those rare and wonderful days that come all too rarely: we had no responsibilities and hardly any agenda. The Hammer and I went on a short run — hey, we’ve got a marathon coming up in just five months after all — and then had a leisurely breakfast. And then we went to get our packets. We figured that would take a couple minutes.
It wound up taking up most of the afternoon.
This was partially due to the fact that there was a farmer’s market going on and we found ourselves looking longingly at the bread, pastries, and other food. And then we stopped looking longingly and just started buying the food.
I can tell I am in for a rude shock when I check my weight when I get home.
Then I came across the Honey Stinger booth. I felt compelled to vault the table and get my photo with these guys.
“You Honey Stinger guys are the best,” I effused. “You’ve done the impossible — turned energy food into an awesome snack.”
They thanked me and asked me to please go away. I refused, and instead gave them each a manly hug. They asked if I would go away if they gave me a box of Honey Stinger waffles.
I complied. I am not an unreasonable man.
Before long, we ran into several Team Fatty members. At which point the greatest thing ever happened: a bunch of people who didn’t know each other very well at all discovered that we are already really good friends. Seriously, it was more like a family reunion than most family reunions.
Your family reunions may be different than mine, however.
Anyways.
To show their Team Fatty loyalty, Matt and Angie had gotten face paint:
Please do as I did and try to overlook the fact that they look more like velociraptors than clydesdales. It’s the thought that counts. And the paint, and glitter.
Awards Dinner
Next, Dinner. The big event, where Team Fatty — 45 of us — got to pretty much dominate the evening, seeing as how every award given was going to us. We had three full tables and parts of several more. Check us out:
I’m not going to go into great detail of the whole night, but I will give you what was a pretty awesome quotable moment. Lance Armstrong just suddenly appeared (he can do that, you know) behind me and we had the following conversation:
Lance: “So, you decided just to win everything, huh? Not let anyone else have any awards?”
Me: “Hey, I learned from the best.”
Lance: “Yeah, f— ‘em all.”
Me: “Damn straight.”
NYC Carlos: (Dies laughing over the course of the rest of the evening)
Toward the end of the evening, I was presented an award:
And I got a chance to say a few words. Luckily, I had come prepared, having asked folks in the team to send me short stories of why the fight against cancer is important to them. Here is what I read to the people at the awards dinner:
Like everyone I know, I’ve lost loved ones to cancer—in my case, my mother, uncle, and aunt. That’s reason enough to fight cancer with Team Fatty. But I’m also a cancer researcher—and one of the things I hear when I ask people with cancer what they miss most is “I really wish I could ride my bike—I miss the independence.” Thanks to Fatty, I’m able to ride to help those who can’t.
–Shelley Adler, PhD
As a tongue and uterus cancer survivor who is about to turn 50 and am acutely aware that every day is a gift not a guarantee. I am riding to reinforce this for myself, challenge myself to better health (lost 120 pounds and have 60+more to go), support those whose fight with cancer is harder than my own, and to stay OUT of my comfort zone – where every moment is lived to its fullest.
–Lisa Johnson
Too many people I care about have faced down cancer. I used to wear their names on the back of my jersey; they don’t fit anymore.
–Jeremy Everitt
Fighting cancer is a priority for me because of my mother. A single mother who worked multiple jobs to support 3 kids, and battled 3 cancers over 24 years before passing in 2008.
–Travis Orr
This past year we lost my stepfather, Steve Jones, to bladder cancer. Like all cancer fighters, he was brave, strong, and courageous. For nearly my whole life, he was a thoughtful and incredibly caring part of my family. More than anything, I miss how much he loved me.
–Roni Jones
Because I dislike it when bad things happen to good people…
–Douglas Bohl
Because I’ve watched cancer affect the lives of my family, friends and others and I cannot stand idly by. I truly believe that we will beat this disease, and I am proud to be a part of the fight!
–Nic Grillo
I ride for best friend and sister Susie never got to graduate from UC Davis; she passed away after fighting for two years against Hodgkin’s Disease, 16 years ago. I ride for my dad who passed away two years ago after a brief two week battle with pancreatic cancer. And lastly, I ride for my mom who is a six year survivor of breast cancer, when I grow up I want to be like her. She is my hero.
–Monica Bock
I lost a friend last year to cancer, a relative is fighting stage 4 melanoma, my wife’s friend is fighting stomach cancer, my work colleague’s husband is facing repeated challenges from bladder cancer, and my father in law is successfully fighting prostate cancer. That’s a lot of cancer. Second, I read the stories and blogs online, of the spouses, individuals and especially the children, and every time I read about their passing it breaks my heart – I have to do something to help, however small and insignificant as an individual in the hope that lots like me will make a difference.
–Rob Elliott
I ride in memory of my grandmother who lived with courage, humor, and zeal for life. Even cancer couldn’t take that away. Riding my bike allows me to fight cancer with courage, humor and zeal-just like my grandmother did.
–Alicia McCaulley
I became interested in “The Cancer Fight” after losing my mom to kidney cancer, and then later on I lost other friends and family members. Seventeen years ago I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer, and in 2009 I experienced a recurrence. Now I’m a healthy cyclist who loves the battle cry: “Fight Like Susan.”
–Karen Shoup
We are biking to help Rob walk again. The Livestrong Challenge allows us to do a beginning ride with Rob, not many rides have that flexibility. Raising monies for Livestrong reminds us of a picture bigger than just our family, everyone faces challenges and needs support. It’s good to be part of a team working for a common cause.
–Amy, Dave, Rob Thompson
I see the effects of cancer on the lives of people I know virtually every day. I see their strength, pain, determination and spirit. Team Fatty is a vehicle to show support to those battling cancer and to show them how much others care for them. How they are not alone.
–Roger Whitney
Our daughter Natalie was diagnosed with cancer at age 4 on 7/5/07 and we ride for her. She is now healthy, happy, and energetic and we are thankful for all those like you that have raised so much money for cancer research and we ride to help those coming after us. Also, this is my wife’s first organized ride and we are looking forward to finishing together.
–Matt Schiefferly
I fight because it’s important to me to take the chaotic destruction that is cancer and turn it into something good. I fight because this fight is Susan’s legacy. I fight because Team Fatty inspires me to continue to fight.
–Fatty
I think this doesn’t merely reflect just Team Fatty’s reasons for the fight. I think it reflect’s everyone’s.
PS: In Wednesday’s post, I’ll go into the ride itself, hopefully with a video.
One of my favorite parts of writing this blog is that every year, I get to work with the guys at Twin Six to design the annual FatCyclist.com / Team Fatty gear. Here’s an idea of how it works:
They ask me if I have any ideas about general direction for the design.
I say things like, “Well, I think it should look really good, and there should be orange. Oh, and also stripes!”
They send me over several designs based on my very lucid and cogent feedback.
I look at all the designs and start feeling very sad that I can’t just use all of them.
I forward the designs off to the core team and ask their opinions.
I discard the design the core team selects as their favorite, because the core team has no design sense at all.
I tell Twin Six things like, “I like option A, with this part from option B, and that part from option C.”
Twin Six starts weeping softly, because the stuff I like wouldn’t work together in a jersey, at all.
Twin Six sends me a revised version of one of the designs, making changes that are not what I asked for, but somehow capture what I really wanted.
I weep with joy, because once again Twin Six has created the most awesome jersey design I could ever hope for.
And so, after this rigorous and highly-scientific process, I’m happy to show you what the 2012 Fat Cyclist / Team Fatty jersey will look like.
Here’s the front:
And here’s the back:
What I Love About This Jersey
Every year, I love the Fat Cyclist jersey Twin Six comes up with; they somehow manage to turn my incoherent hand-waving into exactly what I want. In this case, what I really wanted was a very clean, old-school, classic design.
I also wanted a design that didn’t have different colors for men and women. I wanted the pink “Fight Like Susan” collar band, and the “Win” symbol to be in pink on everyone’s jersey.
So this year, while there will be both women’s and men’s cuts for the Fat Cyclist jersey, we’re all going to be wearing the same colors. That makes me happy.
And more than anything else, what I love about this jersey is that it raises a bunch of money for the fight against cancer. Specifically, 50% of all profits from this jersey go to the fight against cancer. (The other 50% gets split between keeping Twin Six in business and sending my oldest son to college.)
There’s More Coming Soon
Of course, Fat Cyclist gear is more than just jerseys. To go with the jersey, there’s going to be:
Bib Shorts (mens / womens)
Long Sleeve Jersey(mens / womens)
Wind jacket (unisex)
Wind vest (unisex)
Socks (unisex)
Hoodies (mens / womens)
Track jacket (unisex)
Tech T (unisex)
Bottles (unisex – ha!)
I’ll be showing you the designs for all these other items this Tuesday.
When You Can Order And When You’ll Get Your Stuff
As with every year, I’d like you to pre-order any gear you want. That way I don’t have to be smart about how much of everything (and how much of each gender and size for each item) to order.
The pre-order starts this Tuesday, July 12 at Midnight (CT), and will go through Tuesday, July 19 at 5:00pm (CT). [Update: originally I said "January where I should have said "July." My brain is old.]
I’ll have lots of details in Tuesday’s post with links and stuff.
Team Fatty is Doing Some Cool New Stuff in 2012
I know it seems like I live by the seat of my pants, but I’m actually talking with some folks about some very interesting and exciting new things Team Fatty can do next year. So this might be an extra-good year to buy a jersey. Nudge nudge, say no more, say no more.
OK, I gotta go pack. The Hammer and I fly to Davis for the LiveStrong Challenge in one hour. Yikes.
A Note from Fatty: A lot of you donate frequently and generously in the contests I have where I give away bikes. All too often, though, once the winner has gotten word they’ve won a bike, that’s the end of the story. Well, Yann — the winner of a custom-built Sycip bike in in one of last year’s contests — is going to correct that problem right here, right now.
I won!!!
On June 28 of last year, Fatty notified me by email that I had won a custom fitted Sycip bike for my fundraising efforts for the San Jose Livestrong challenge. I had raised $2300 at the time. I immediately called him to confirm I had gotten the email and to find out what the next steps were in terms of starting the process of getting the bike.
One big question was unanswered: “what should I get, a road bike or a cruiser?” The rest of the day at work was not very productive as I kept going back to the Sycip web site and looking at the different pictures of the bikes that had been built. I already had a nice 2004 Trek 5200 road bike that I truly enjoyed riding. Also, I kept thinking “what would I do with 2 road bikes?” But at the same time, I didn’t really see myself riding a cruiser bike.
I called my girlfriend to tell her the good news, she was thrilled for me and said I deserved it for all the fundraising I had done in support of our friend Lisa, her husband Lloyd and her dad. I was more determined than ever to raise more money for the cause.
The reason for joining team fatty
At the time, Lisa was undergoing chemo treatment after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Her dad was undergoing treatment for leukemia. Lloyd, who in a strange twist of fate, is an oncologist, was diagnosed with a disc problem (not cancer) that was causing him to experience numbness and tingling in his neck, shoulders, arms and hands. Lloyd is a good friend that I have ridden with numerous times. This meant no riding for him until he underwent surgery to fix the discs. He couldn’t undergo the surgery until Lisa was out of the woods with her chemo and her dad was better since he needed to help take care of them.
I’m an idiot
After a very sleepless night agonizing over what to choose, I decided to go for the road bike. I figured I would get more use out of it. I emailed Elden, Jeremy at Sycip and Dustin at Shimano notifying them of my decision. A week later I hadn’t heard from anyone, so I emailed them again.
To my embarrassment, Elden told me about Dustin’s fiancé passing away after battling cancer for a couple of years. Dustin contacted me as well letting me know that he was dealing with some personal stuff.
The fitting
A month or so went by, I contacted Jeremy at Sycip to find out what was next. Unfortunately, he was buried deep in preparations for Interbike and wouldn’t have time to do anything until after the show. In October we arranged for me to come up to his shop for a fitting.
He showed me around the shop where there were numerous bikes in various states of build and assembly. There were also numerous types of completed bikes throughout the shop. Jeremy and I went through the process of measuring my old bike and transferring the measurements to a bike fitting machine. We tweaked some settings here and there to make the bike fit me perfectly.
At the end, one crucial decision had to be made: “what color to paint the frame?” while Jeremy took a phone call, I pondered the question and walked around the shop. Then I saw it, there on a stand, was a partially assembled, metallic-grey-with-orange-Sycip lettering, bike. As Jeremy got off the phone, I walked him back to the partially assembled bike and pointed it out: “I want that color combo, that looks really nice”. With that I thanked Jeremy for his time and I left the shop more excited than when I was when I got there.
I got home that afternoon and kept thinking about the color of the bike. I thought it needed something more. I did a mock up of the frame in Autodesk Inventor, a 3d mechanical design program I used to work on. I placed the Sycip logo on it. I thought the Fat Cyclist logo should also go on as well as Shimano and Livestrong logos. After playing around with the logo placements, I sent the mock ups to Jeremy, Elden and Dustin for approval. The frame was then sent to be powder coated at Spectrum Powderworks.
The delivery
On a Friday in February, Dustin emailed to tell me the bike had been shipped and that I should expect the bike to arrive at my house the following Tuesday. I of course decided to work from home that day as I didn’t want to miss the UPS truck showing up and not being able to deliver the bike.
By late evening, it arrived. I pulled it out of the box with pure excitement. It was mostly put together, wrapped in bubble wrap. As I stripped off the bubble wrap, the frame color looked great, I inspected every part of it and admired the craftsmanship of the bike, the beautiful, barely-perceptible welds, the Sycip logo on the rear dropouts, the Fat Cyclist logo on the seat tube, the Livestrong logo on the top tube and the Shimano logo on the chain stay and fork. I almost missed the Fight Like Susan words on the inside of the fork. I was ecstatic, I had a beautiful new bike.
The first ride
The first ride was unfortunately not to be had till a few weeks later due to bad weather. I took it out on a short 20 mile loop by my house with a friend of mine who complimented me on the beautiful bike.
After a few more rides on it, I felt like I was climbing stronger and riding faster than before, even my riding friends were noticing. Below is part of an email I sent to Elden, Dustin and Jeremy thanking them.
“I have gotten lots of compliments from my riding friends on how beautiful the frame looks in the chosen color and with the logos. Of course they are super jealous of the full Dura-Ace group and carbon tubeless wheels. Btw, I swear I feel a difference in the acceleration with these wheels compared to my 1 year old Bontrager Race X Lite wheels on my 7 year old Trek 5200. I think I could out-sprint the best of the Tour de France sprinters now with these new wheels (just kidding). I’d probably have to lose 40 lbs to get 1/10 of their acceleration. “
To which Dustin replied: “the wheels are awesome and faster! “
Then Jeremy: “I think it’s the frame that makes you go faster. Not the wheels. “
Lastly Elden: “I think it’s the FatCyclist logo that makes you faster.”
Finally me: “It’s a combination of the three actually. Add the Fat Cyclist jersey and I can beat anyone. It’s my secret weapon“
Unfortunately, the bike only has about 500 miles on it now. We’ve had some bad weather around here. 82 of those were ridden in the rain for the 100 miles of Nowhere ride on June 4th.
That’s me on the left.
Thank You!!!
Finally, to all who donated to my Livestrong page, I thank you. And of course, thank you to Elden for putting the contest together, Dustin for donating the parts and bike and Jeremy for the beautifully crafted bike. I thoroughly enjoy riding this bike every single time.
Looking forward to l meeting you all in Davis for the Livestrong Challenge in July on my Sycip.
Yann
PS: My friend Lisa is now fully recovered. Her husband, Lloyd had his surgery around Christmas 2010. Unfortunately, Lisa’s dad passed away last year. My dad is currently undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Doctors expect a full recovery.
There are several notable things about this helmet. First, it seems to have taken its design cues from a bowling ball; it even has finger holes so — if you are so inclined and sufficiently strong — you can roll me down the alley. Sure, it would be humiliating for me, but hilariously so.
Next, this helmet is so heavy that, even though I am trying to hide it with a sardonic half-smirk, my head is lolling to one side.
Ventilation’s a problem, too. Specifically, there is none. No, wait, that’s not exactly true. There are those two holes, which set me up for a really awesome sunburn pattern on my forehead:
Looks like I’ve just recently filed my horns off or something.
OK, now here I am, wearing a different helmet:
Obviously, I don’t have the same ventilation issues with this helmet. I mean, you can pretty much see my whole head in this photo. And while such a helmet will definitely leave an interesting pattern on my head, it’s sufficiently complex that I won’t even bother trying to Photoshop it.
Also, this helmet weighs a lot less. In fact, when I wear it, I think my head weighs the same as it would if I still had hair. There’s no easy way to verify this fact of course, because the weight of hair varies quite a lot from person to person, what with different lengths, coarseness, thickness, and population density of hair.
Let’s just say this helmet weighs less than my hair did when I was going through my Bon Jovi phase, and move on, because this really has nothing to do with the point I wanted to make in this post, which is this: highly-ventilated helmets have a very, very serious problem, especially for those of us of the bald / balding persuasion:
Bugs.
Oh the Horror
I could simply describe, in clinical detail and with very exacting precision, from a non-involved third-person point of view, the trauma I have suffered due to insects flying into my helmet vents.
That would not, alas, convey the raw, freakish grossness of the bug-in-helmet experience.
Thus, what follows is a verbatim inner monologue I have conducted on a ride, shortly before and then during a typical bug-helmet encounter. All in italics, of course, because that way you can tell that the whole thing happened in my head.
Wow, that was a hard climb. I wonder if I beat my record. Oh. Nope. Oh well, I think I’ll just call it a “nice, easy climb” when I blog about it later, then.
OK, I’m picking up speed now. I bet I’m going 45 miles per hour by now. Should I risk taking a look at my bike computer to see how fast I’m going? I wonder how many cyclists have crashed because they were looking at their bike computer instead of where they were going? That would be an interesting statistic, especially if there were a way to compare reported wrecks due to looking at bike computers Vs. wrecks due to looking at bike computers where the rider claimed it was due to something else. I’ll bet there’s a blog post there somewhere.
I’m going to look.
What? Only 35 miles per hour? Seems like faster. I should write a blog post on how bike computers tend to under-report speed as you approach the speed of light / sound / Summer Equinox.
Ow!
What was that? Did a bat just hit me in the helmet? Maybe a bird? OK, maybe it was a Japanese beetle. Well, it felt like a Japanese beetle.
Oh no. It’s still on my head. I can feel it crawling around on my head.
A wasp. I’ll bet anything it was a wasp. It’s going to sting me and the pain is going to be so intense and sudden that I’m going to wreck.
And then my head is going to swell up so big that the EMTs won’t be able to remove the helmet from my head.
OK, it hasn’t stung me. Not yet, anyway.
Oh great. Now it’s walking around.This killer wasp is walking around on my headand it’s looking for the most painful place imaginable to sting me.
No sting yet. Still walking around. I’d almost it rather go ahead and sting me already and get it over with.
I didn’t mean that, wasp. Please know that I didn’t mean that. I don’t want to get stung.
But why is it still walking around? Is it moving in some kind of freakish dance? Is the evil killer wasp on my head doing some kind of mate-attracting dance on my head? Fantastic, now my head’s a singles’ bar for wasps. Or whatever they are.
Maybe it’s not going to sting me. It’s been on my head long enough that I don’t think it’s going to sting me. So why is it still there? Is my head a comfortable place for bugs to hang out? Has it decided to take up residence?Is it about to lay eggs?
No. No no no no nonononono. That’s too awful to contemplate. I will now drive that thought completely out of my head. I will think of something else. That thought is gone.
It’s not gone.
The freakish little insect on my head is — at this moment — burying eggs right in my skull. Like in Alien, but smaller.
Wait a second. I don’t feel the insect anymore. It’s gone. I don’t know when it left, but it’s not there. What a relief.
Look how happy I am in the below photo. That’s because in that photo I’m about 40 miles into a 76-mile mountain bike ride.
And not–as I am now–dealing with the fact that Comcast service is currently totally out right now.
Which means I have no Internet, no TV, no landline phone.
So this entry is coming to you courtesy of my thumbs on my mobile phone.
As you might expect, it will be somewhat brief.
First, Team Fatty has swept the awards for the Davis LiveStrong Challenge. Huzzah! And a big "Thanks!" to everyone who raised money and / or donated in this contest.
I will choose winners for the 2 bikes and the Ride for the Roses Trip…as soon as I have Internet access on my computer again. Grrrrr.
Next, I have had an awesome, rideful long weekend. I have observations to make and stories to tell.
Also, I seem to have managed to agree to be the title sponsor for a race coming up in a couple weekends. I will talk about that soon, too.
For now, though, I believe I shall treat this Internet outage as a sign that I should go on a ride. I suggest that you, too, go on a ride. If anyone asks you why you’re riding during working hours, just tell them, "Fatty’s Internet connection is out; it’s a sign that I should go on a ride."
A “Hey, I’m Somebody Now” Note from Fatty: The Davis Enterprise did a piece on the LiveStrong Challenge, and guess who got interviewed and even photographed? No, you’re completely wrong, it was not Stanley Tucci. It was me! Check it out here.
