WINONA LAKE - For Fat & Skinny Tire Fest co-founder and co-director Greg Demopoulos, the fact that this weekend is the 20th year for the three-day bicycling event is surreal.
“I don’t know how to describe it at times. It seems a bit surreal because my son (Alexi) is now the age I was when we started the festival,” he said. “... He’ll have a booth set up out at the mountain bike trails. He’s leading the Warsaw Community Schools Mountain Bike Club and everything. And then, our whole family is involved so it’s kind of wild to see. I mean, I love it, all the kids are involved, they’re volunteering somewhere. Some of them for a while probably felt like they were ‘voluntold,’ but they enjoy doing it now, so it’s fun to see.”

    Fat & Skinny Tire Fest co-directors Mike Cusick (L) and Greg Demopoulos (R) talk about this weekend’s activities during an interview at The River Coffeehouse in Winona Lake. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Thinking back to those first few years with Robbie Gast, Alan Alderfer, Jim Lancaster and Kurt Larkey, Demopoulos said they were “just kids.”
“But to think it’s still going - most bike events that get started that are of this size and caliber, they’re either really good and they last or they make it a few years and then they can’t be sustained and they shrink them down or they go away or whatever it might be,” he said. “I think the fact that we’re - granted, it’s actually 22 years because of Covid it’s the 20th festival - it says a lot about the team. It says a lot about the vision for it, but also the community.”
K21 Health Foundation has been a title sponsor for over 15 years, Demopoulos said. This year, they have over 40 sponsors, “so it’s pretty incredible.”
People often ask them how do they pull it all together. Demopoulos pointed to the sponsors and the 325-plus volunteers.
Co-director Mike Cusick said, “I think the Fest has been very well accepted by the county, by the town of Winona Lake and the city of Warsaw. The support we get from those three entities, the Chamber of Commerce, Main Street Warsaw, the Village at Winona - they help us with access to the streets and the roads and the businesses. Having the leaders in charge support it, like they do, helps us enable to do it on the scale that we do it.”
In 2004, when the Fest first kicked off, there were no greenways in the county, Demopoulos stated.
“There were no trails, there were no greenways. We had the mountain bike trails, and the mountain bike trails were proving to be very beneficial to the community, just with the one DINO race being held up here. And I will also say, going back to Dane Miller and Brent Wilcoxson with the vision for The Village and them, the impetus of asking Rob and Nancy Gast to open Trailhouse and Robbie coming down and running the Trailhouse down here. And then asking us, ‘Hey, think about events. What are some things we could do to get people?’ That was really the spark I think.”
When Lancaster was able to get Frankie Andreu, an American professional cyclist who raced the Tour de France about nine times, to do a behind-the-scenes talk of professional racing at the Trailhouse, there were 200 people crammed into the bike shop. That’s when Demopoulos thought they might be on to something, and it also was KCV Cycling’s first official event.
From that first year with encouragement from Andreu and other people, the Fat & Skinny Tire Festival was born and continued to grow.
“I still pinch myself at times,” Demopoulos said, noting that Bike Fest week makes him feel like a kid at Christmastime still. “It can’t get here soon enough.”
Big News
For the festival’s road racing events, there’s always an omnium, which includes three different races, Cusick said. An omnium has a scoring for each race, including a criterium on Friday, a road race on Saturday and another criterium - which are the loops and laps - on Sunday.

      

“The exciting news this year is that the governing body for our region for road race cycling - their name is INKY - they’ve designated Saturday as the Indiana State Road Racing Championship. So that’s actually created a lot of interest in our region for road racers, and we’re seeing record registrations so far,” he said.
Anyone who is in the race who is an Indiana resident will be eligible for the state championship, though the race is still open to all racers. “It’s just the way they do the scoring on the individual finishing,” Cusick stated.
The national road racing championship is the following week. “I do believe it gives them eligibility for that, but it’s exciting to see that race. It might bring in some additional racers that haven’t been here before because it’s got that added element to it,” he said.
As far as pre-registrations as of Tuesday, Cusick said they’re seeing almost triple what they’ve had in prior years.
“I don’t know if we will see triple registrants at the end, because there tends to be a lot of racers who register during the last week, but we’re certainly going to see some of our fields and categories capped out, which will create a lot more exciting racing for the racers and spectators as well,” he said.
Saturday’s 8-mile loop road race starts and finishes at Claypool Elementary School. The races start at 10 a.m., finishing around 3:30 p.m. Cusick said there are eight different categories, broken up by male and female, as well as the different levels of racing, from beginners to professionals.
Over 20 Events
The schedule for the 20th Fat & Skinny Tire Fest is mostly the same as people have seen in the past.
“We tend to tweak it and maybe expand it. Our goal overall is to provide the best experience for participants and the spectators,” Cusick said. “We have over 20 events through the three-day weekend so it’s hard to find time to add to events and to properly execute them.”
He said they’ll always take a look at what the current schedule is and do what they can to optimize each of the events.
Friday’s activities start with Bike To Work Day. The River Coffeehouse locations in Warsaw and Winona Lake, starting at 7 a.m., will have free coffee and snacks for people who are riding their bicycle to work.
The main event kicks off in The Village at Winona at 6 p.m. with the opening ceremony and then the community mass ride. The mass ride, escorted by police, goes from The Village at Winona to downtown Warsaw.
“Our record number of participants is well over 800, but even in bad weather we tend to see 200 to 300 people show up. We’re hoping - knock on wood - for good weather this year, and we want to see record crowds for that community mass,” Cusick said.
Once the participants arrive in downtown Warsaw, there immediately will be a BMX stunt show. Third Friday events will be taking place with live music and food trucks.
“And then the premiere event is one of the road races, which is the Zimmer Biomet Twilight Criterium, which goes around three city blocks in downtown Warsaw. It starts at 7:30 p.m. and will finish around 10:30 p.m. with four different categories of racing,” Cusick said.
For a complete list of events, times and locations, see the special insert in Wednesday’s newspaper or visit the website at www.fatandskinnytirefest.com.
Volunteers
Making over 20 events over three days possible are the volunteers.
Cusick said last year they saw a record number of volunteers with over 340 and are on pace for that many this year.
“We love our volunteers. We couldn’t do it without volunteers,” he said.
Spaces for volunteers are still available and no experience is needed. Volunteers can help with set-up or breakdown, manning a corner during races or help with kids’ events. All volunteers receive a t-shirt, a gift and a meal voucher for the weekend as part of the Fest organizers’ appreciation to them.
“It’s a large amount and we appreciate everyone who does it. Those are unique volunteers. There’s a number of people who will volunteer all weekend or at least do a couple shifts as well. With over 20 events, if we didn’t have that number of volunteers, we would actually have to reduce the number of events that we do,” Cusick said.