How to train?

What tire pressure to use?

And even: What to wear?

“It was a real puzzle trying to figure out how to dress,” Durango’s Ned Overend said in a phone interview this week after claiming the first-ever U.S. National Fat Bike Championship on Saturday in Cable, Wis. The temperature at the start was about 8 degrees.

The competitive sport of fat bikes is just reaching speed, and racers are still trying to understand the tricks.

“There’s a lot of nuance to setting up a fat bike,” Overend said.

The 58-year-old’s time of 1 hour, 52 minutes, 51 seconds was 2 minutes ahead of 24-year-old Will Ross of Anchorage, Alaska. Overend’s fellow Durangoan, longtime rival and friend, Travis Brown, also figured to contend for the title. But a leaky tire slowed him, and he couldn’t keep in touch with the main pack, ultimately finishing 13th.

It was the second running of the race, called the Fat Bike Birkie because it’s held on the famed Birkebeiner cross country ski course. But this was the first designated national championship for the sport.

Like anything where numerous inventors and tinkerers are involved, the origin of fat bikes is hard to pin down. But the Iditabike, the Alaska race that follows the Iditarod dog-sled course, certainly was a mother of invention. Alaskan Dave Ford won the second version of this race in 1988 with the help of his creation: two rims welded together and covered, of course, with side-by-side mountain bike tires. There are frame differences, but the main difference between fat bikes and mountain bikes is the tires (3.7 inches or wider for the fat tire national championship).

The Midwest has become a hub for fat bikes, but it’s becoming a big thing out West, too. The Purgatory Nordic Center had a series of such races this winter, held in conjunction with cross country ski events. The Mountain Fat Bike Series includes races in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota. Leadville has hosted a series, as well.

Several bicycle manufacturers have found a market for the fat bikes – a way for mountain bikers to ride snowpacked trails and roads, and keep going year-round.

“For me, the highest priority is to understand this brand-new product category,” said Brown, a product developer and racer for Trek. The former Olympic mountain biker is a national single-speed champion and is not afraid to experiment.

He noted that the sport’s popularity has “really accelerated” in the last two to three years, and that acceleration will continue.

“It’s a pretty exciting new category with a lot of new energy,” Brown said.

Race results show that 291 men and 34 women finished the 47-kilometer course.

Elements to consider

For one of the Purgatory series races, the temperature reached 50 degrees. So the single-digit temps in Wisconsin left Overend in a quandary: You don’t want to freeze going downhill at speeds up to 30 mph, but it’s easy to overheat when pedaling up the course’s many hills and dales. Obviously, he chose well.

Snow conditions offered another challenge. A hard snow surface allows for higher tire pressures and faster riding. But with higher pressures, you’ll lose some traction in the turns, and if you hit soft snow, you may sink.

Lower pressures are better for softer snow, but go too low and you’ll drag.

And there’s pack strategy, as well. There’s a bit of drafting. Also, if there’s new snow on the course, as there was in Wisconsin, the front-runners are packing the course for those behind.

“The guy who goes in front has a little bit of a disadvantage over the guy following in his tracks,” Overend said.

The race

Overend said that at the halfway point on the 47-kilometer race he was with a group of about 12 who’d broken away from the field.

Overend didn’t want to finish in a sprint, so he began pushing the pace. In the next few miles the pack narrowed to three or four.

“Then I kind of just struck out on my own, probably for the last 8 or 10 miles.”

Brown’s problems left him with underinflated tires.

“Things didn’t go too well for me out there,” he said. “I hoped to be in the mix for the win.”

At 44, Brown was the second-oldest top-20 finisher.

“I was really happy to see Ned win. He’s an inspiration for me, too,” said Brown, who noted: “I can never play the too-old-to-do-it card as long as he’s around.”

Overend, who won the inaugural cross country World Mountain Bike Championship in 1990, doesn’t think of himself as an ageless wonder but admits to hearing such talk.

“I try not to think about that stuff,” he said. “I train hard. I train year-round, and my body still responds to that with improved fitness.

“It’s the only time I’ve ever been 58, so I don’t know any different.”

johnp@durangoherald.com