The Fat + Skinny Tire Fest wouldn’t be having its 19th year May 17-19 if it weren’t for the many volunteers who plan, organize and execute it.
Organizers are still looking for more volunteers to help during this year’s event, which will take place in Warsaw, Winona Lake and out in the county.
Co-Director Greg Demopoulos said as of Monday night, they had about 70% of the 305 volunteers that will be needed this year.
“We still need a handful of folks,” he said, to help with everything from helping with the kids activities to watching a corner during the criterium races downtown Warsaw on May 17 or out in the county. “We do have some groups that have done it for years and they like to go out for the races in the county. Whether it’s a youth group or whether its employees from work or friends, and they’ll set up a tent and they’ll cook out. It depends on how many shifts they end up signing up for. But we have some that will spend all day out there, just hanging out. So it really depends.”
Most volunteer shifts are broken up into two-hour segments, but if people want to help more, they can.
“There’s some people who do a shift on Friday night, they do a shift on Saturday, they do a shift on Sunday. There’s some people that - like several of us from the planning committee - are there every shift,” Demopoulos said.
Co-Director Mike Cusick said that for most of the roles that are available, no experience is needed.
“We will have a meeting with everybody involved. We’ll tell them what’s required. It’s really just a fun way for people to get involved with the Fest and help out, and pretty low pressure as well,” he said.
Volunteers will get an event T-shirt, a meal ticket and a gift. To sign up, visit fatandskinnytirefest.com and hit the “volunteer” button to go to the form. It’s all online.
Demopoulos said there also are flyers around town that have a QR Code that people can scan to go right to the sign-up page.
The volunteer meeting is Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. outside of the Trailhouse at The Village at Winona. If a person can’t make that meeting, it does not mean they can’t volunteer.
“We’ll provide food and drinks. We give a rundown of the festival, and we’ll provide some guidance to everybody,” Demopoulos said of the meeting. “We allow each event director to meet specifically with their volunteers, to kind of walk them through - here’s what I want you to know, here’s what you need to be aware of. Some things are very simple - it’s like, just be here on this day, here’s my number if you have questions. Versus, ‘Hey, I’m going to be manning a corner at the criterium,’ and we want to make sure that they’re aware, ‘here’s how you’re going to do that, here’s what you’re going to be doing, here’s what it means to man that corner.’”
On Saturday, May 18, festival organizers try to highlight the volunteers and one of those ways is with the Robbie Gast Volunteer Award. Gast was one of the original co-founders of the Fat + Skinny Tire Fest.
“Robbie was really passionate about people helping and being part of what’s going on,” Demopoulos said. “He was definitely one that would push, ‘Hey, for as much as we want to push local government to do things, we need volunteers to help do things as well.’”
Since Gast died Oct. 5, 2011, it was felt that the best way to honor him was with the Volunteer of the Year Award. “Ever since then, we’ve been highlighting at the festival, our Volunteer of the Year. It’s a maximum of two people - sometimes it’s just too hard (to decide) who deserves it,” Demopoulos said.
“We have a lot of great volunteers,” Cusick said.
The award is based on the volunteer’s impact to bicycling and community in the past year, their volunteerism with the trails, the festival, KCV and all the different bicycling aspects in the community. The award recipient(s) ends up with a few hundred dollars in gifts, gift cards and a custom mug that says “Robbie Gast Ride On Award.”
Many Events On The Schedule
For the 2024 festival, Demopoulos said it’s a similar schedule to 2023’s, just with a few things refined.
“We did move the start/finish line of the criterium on Friday night. The course is the same as last year, but the start/finish line will be at Buffalo and Main (streets), just based off of comments from USA Cycling. We’ve got to have more space to run up to and run out from start/finish line,” he said.
Organizers hope to have an even better turnout this year than last.
“If we have good weather on Friday night, it could be huge,” Demopoulos said. “Even in the rain last year, we still had close to 300 people that did the community ride to downtown. We even actually had comments from a lot of the riders that said they’ve gone to nationals before and they don’t have that many spectators in the rain, even in the dry sometimes.”
Working with Main Street Warsaw, who is planning Third Friday activities for that Friday, it’s hoped that downtown Warsaw will be packed.
Cusick said he thinks overall the participation and spectators should be back to normal. “I think we saw some down years on attendance because of Covid and the pandemic, but I felt like last year we were back to normal, and, again, we’re expecting as good as or better crowds this year. We understand it’s weather dependant,” he said.
Some years, the critical mass ride had over 800 riders when the weather has been nice out on Friday.
May is National Bike Month, so the Fat + Skinny Tire Fest is tied into that. The week of the festival is National Bike to Work Week, with Friday being National Bike to Work Day.
To tie National Bike to Work Day into the festival, in the morning on May 17, Demopoulos said, “We look for partners to have places where people can grab free coffee or oatmeal bars or whatever it might be.”
Light Rail Café has always been one of the places in Winona Lake. This year, weather permitting, there will be coffee at the Warsaw City Hall plaza from Courthouse B + B. There’s also discussions with The River about offering something.
“That is a new addition. We haven’t had the ride to work activity or breakfast, if you will, and coffee in downtown Warsaw so we’re happy about that,” Cusick said.
The mass ride on May 17 starts off at The Village in Winona. Cusick said there will be a short opening ceremony, with comments from KCV representatives and local officials. The ride to downtown Warsaw, where all the action will be on Friday night, then begins. Immediately, there’s a BMX stunt show and racing will begin as soon as possible. He said there will be a band playing, food trucks and adult and kids activities downtown Warsaw.
One thing that may be a little bit different this year is that Hire Park, 750 E. Arthur St., Warsaw, will have an open house at the BMX track at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 18. They will have an open track for people to ride, with races starting out there at 5 p.m. as they typically do, Demopoulos said.
Fat + Skinny will have something for everyone, Cusick said, not just as spectators but also for them to get on their bikes. There’s the Fat + Skinny Tire Fest Countryside Tour & Century, which starts at 12 miles and goes up to 101 miles.
There’s the historical tours at 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday.
“That’s a very casual, 3-1/2-mile ride through Winona Lake, and it’s a fun event because it’s fascinating what you can learn about the history of Winona Lake,” Cusick said.
“There’s a lot of stops,” Demopoulos said. “There’s close to 20 stops, so it’ll take you a good 90 minutes, but Brian, our ride director, has done a lot of studying just on Winona Lake history, so it takes you to a lot of these different spots to learn about the community and its history.”
Events are free, including the kids activities on Friday and Saturday.
The festival ends on Sunday with the Ortho Cup Challenge.
“So we invite all of our sponsors, which we couldn’t hold this event without all of our sponsors, to our Ortho Cup Race, which is around the same circuit in Winona Lake, about a half mile. Sponsors will put together teams of four individuals, and they are racing cruiser bikes that are single speed,” Cusick said. “... That’s what we do to culminate the entire event because, again, the purpose of this is engaging our community and having a good time with bikes and promoting healthy lifestyles.”
Demopoulos said going back to the early years of the festival, K21 Health Foundation has been a title sponsor since then “and we really can’t put the festival on without their support, encouragement and help.”
Zimmer Biomet has been a huge sponsor, especially for the road races. Clearly Kosciusko and the Kosciusko County Convention and Visitors Bureau has been a supporter, as well as Lutheran Kosciusko Hospital and Wildman Business Group.
Cusick said, “Those are two of our top levels, but we also have incredible help from DreamOn Studios, Blue Note Design, The Village at Winona, DePuy Synthes and 1Eighty Digital as well.”
Demopoulos said the festival will wrap up in May, but some things - like cleanup and reorganizing - will go into June. In September, they’ll start meeting again to talk about next year’s festival.
“So it’s almost a year-long project for KCV and we are all volunteers. People joke, ‘It sounds like you all live and breathe this.’ It’s like, yeah, we pretty much do,” he said.
Cusick stated next year’s festival is number 20.
“I think we want to go really big and bold with next year’s festival just because it is such a milestone,” he said.
For more information, visit the website at fatandskinnytirefestival.com.