Celebrating 30 Years of FAT! - Official Party by Chris Chance & Wendyll Behrend

[troda]

Yes it was an awesome ride. On my way back to the Cape this morn so I misse the last ride. I'll talk to the doc tomorrow and get a surgical consult. Right now it's better living through medications. Thanks for the well wishes. You guys are an awesome group. Already told the wife a West Coast trip might be in our near future. I have a punch of pics from the weekend and ill regroup and post them when I get home
Thanks Tom

[yo-Nate-y]

This sounds like it was a blast (all crashing aside). Thanks for the pics and updates from everyone that was there. Hopefully I will see you all at the 60 year anniversary celebration.

[wickedwillie]

Get well soon Tom....

Here are a few more photos. I had intended to take some additional shots today but the rain was relentless, unfortunately.

I brought my Santana and Ms. K's Monster Saturday:



Some more shots of 831:











I think this was an '86, I loved the bars, blacked out 6206 crankset, and Tommaselli levers:






Headed out for Saturdays ride:




Both of these cross bikes were off the map....now I have something else to covet:




I had a wonderful time and want to thank Wendyll for the fantastic food-that Guacamole was the sh!t-and hospitality, everywhere you turn there were little Fat-related treasures to check out and we all enjoyed a look back through the history of the brand and the bikes.



Thanks to Chris for the opportunity to celebrate awesome FAT bikes with him!

Thanks to everyone else for traveling such great distances, it was a pleasure meeting you all.

[colker]

the green Fat has some Ritcheyesque details to it. the purple cross bike kills me.

[John]

Great report and pics, thanks for sharing. Looks a really cool event.

[jonsonneborn]

Originally Posted by colker

the purple cross bike kills me.

A little story about the Purple Cross-Bike. Gene Bell who owns Belgen Cycles had the NOS frame hanging on the wall in his shop Friday Morning when Greg & I stopped in to pick up the Fat Chance Tandem. Gene told us he was planning to ride up to the Fat Party on his Salsa (& would probably never build up the cross bike). The next day when we cancelled the morning ride due to rain we decided to bring the Fat Party to Gene's shop & check out his bikes. The cross-bike was on his stand & nearly completed! Gene rode the bike from Stow to Morrisville to the Fat Party that afternoon

[grd]

Got back to the UK today. It was a fantastic weekend, met a really great bunch of people, and special thanks to Chris and Wendyl for putting the weekend on, and for John and Greg for their efforts, also good to know that Tom is on the mend.
I had 3 great rides, and got to look at some awsome bikes. The trails that Hardy has built around the Stowe area, and was good enough to take us around, are first class. I will post up some of the shots i have once I've got my computer fixed as it went bang earlier today and the iPad is not up to it.

[ameybrook]

Originally Posted by jonsonneborn

A little story about the Purple Cross-Bike. Gene Bell who owns Belgen Cycles had the NOS frame hanging on the wall in his shop Friday Morning when Greg & I stopped in to pick up the Fat Chance Tandem. Gene told us he was planning to ride up to the Fat Party on his Salsa (& would probably never build up the cross bike). The next day when we cancelled the morning ride due to rain we decided to bring the Fat Party to Gene's shop & check out his bikes. The cross-bike was on his stand & nearly completed! Gene rode the bike from Stow to Morrisville to the Fat Party that afternoon

That's an interesting story. Has to be this bike as the builds are nearly identical.

[chainline]

I believe that Jon is referring to the wild cherry cross bike. The team violet belongs to John funk one of Chris's long time team members for fat city cycles. John asked me to bring it with me so people could check it out.

[colker]

Originally Posted by chainline

I believe that Jon is referring to the wild cherry cross bike. The team violet belongs to John funk one of Chris's long time team members for fat city cycles. John asked me to bring it with me so people could check it out.

I have a wild cherry wicked and a buddy of mine kept saying it was purple.. then he swore it was maroon.
Those subtle colors...

[Spikes]

How is the steerer on that Chris Cross done? It looks threadless, but as far as I know the were only made with threaded steerer?

Originally Posted by wickedwillie

Get well soon Tom....

Here are a few more photos. I had intended to take some additional shots today but the rain was relentless, unfortunately.

I brought my Santana and Ms. K's Monster Saturday:



Some more shots of 831:











I think this was an '86, I loved the bars, blacked out 6206 crankset, and Tommaselli levers:






Headed out for Saturdays ride:




Both of these cross bikes were off the map....now I have something else to covet:




I had a wonderful time and want to thank Wendyll for the fantastic food-that Guacamole was the sh!t-and hospitality, everywhere you turn there were little Fat-related treasures to check out and we all enjoyed a look back through the history of the brand and the bikes.



Thanks to Chris for the opportunity to celebrate awesome FAT bikes with him!

Thanks to everyone else for traveling such great distances, it was a pleasure meeting you all.

[jonsonneborn]

Originally Posted by chainline

I believe that Jon is referring to the wild cherry cross bike.

Yup, My bad. Both of the Cross-Bikes were Purple I guess...or Team Lavender & maroon . I was referring to the Maroon Bike: Here it is in Gene's Shop on the wall & then the next day on the stand:




I wish that I had a picture of just the fork to see what the steerer tube looked like. Gene had another Cross bike (which he called his Chinese Plastic Bike aka Carbon) which he borrowed all of the parts off of to build up the Criss Cross.

Wendyll also has a NOS Cross Bike which was hanging in Gene's Shop & I did get a picture of the fork but it's hard to tell if it's threaded or not:




Here is a picture of the (3) '83 Fat chances that were present. One was an old frame that Chris found in the barn. The other 2 were Greg & Michael's which they brought to the party. Notice the beautiful Vermont Trees in the background:


Matt from the UK with his Yo Slingshot that he bought from Groovy!


This guy Steve hosted all of the Huffy Throws at his house in Vermont & received this water-jetted Titanium drop-out scrap from one of the Fat City Welders one year.



Some old Sommerville Photos that were framed & behind Glass (thus the glare)

[Retro Dude]

Looks like a great time, wish I could have been there.

My son and I had plans to go but we finished off his Eagle Scout project instead, building 54 feet of bridges over some wet areas in our favorite riding area.

[I-ROBOT]

Hey Gang
So sorry I couldn't make it up last weekend. Really cool to see the pictures showing the Fat City sign that I built from tubing that was used on a trade show booth. I see that it had been modified but nice to see it acknowledged in the pictures.
Great memories, nice to see Chris in the photos looking trim and sporting the goat! He never had any facial hair during the Fat days in Somerville - guess he left that to us crazies in the back rooms.
Olive Square was a pit but some amazing machines rolled out of those creaky doors
Hope all the attendees had a good time and that they can do again some time and my schedule will permit.
Regards
Scott

[Dan]

Thanks for all the great pictures

[troda]

Here's a few shots from the party to keep it going. More to come

[troda]

A couple more for the mix

[billyb]

Hey guys , was this at Wendyl's farm???? If so is the tree house still there?????? We camped in it one year for one of the last Factory parties.

[jonsonneborn]

Originally Posted by billyb

Hey guys , was this at Wendyl's farm???? If so is the tree house still there?????? We camped in it one year for one of the last Factory parties.

Yes it is Wendyll's farm. Hmm Would that be the falling apart structure behind Chris in this photo???

[troda]

The pic with all the fats in the back of Hardys truck. The one from behind on the pass side Is one of My favoites. The "tools" are all packed up and ready to get to work

[billyb]

Originally Posted by jonsonneborn

Yes it is Wendyll's farm. Hmm Would that be the falling apart structure behind Chris in this photo???

Haha yep!!! It was a very nice tree house when we went up. Our tent actually fit inside it!! I guess that was '98 or '97 not sure. Ended up being a 17 hour drive from Cincy. Man we had a great time that weekend!!!Looks as though you guys had a great time too!!!

[grd]

Right, I know it's a little late in the day but I have finally got my head round uploading my photos of the party.

My wife and I brought a couple of my bikes over, my owned from new 93 Wild Cherry Candy Yo, and my Blue and Yellow 95 second generation Shock a Billy. We combined the party with a weeks holiday in Boston and New Hampshire, finishing off with the party in Stowe.

We both had a fantastic time, and it was really good to meet up with everyone.

I have got a selection of shots from the weekend here so enjoy:-


A very early frame that Chris made and the head badge and stars on the forks are all hand cut silver. This frame went back to California with Chris so hopefully it will be back on the roads at some point.




The 83 bikes of Greg and Mickey, plus an 83 frame that Chris had


3 Team comps. At this point there was much talk of segmented forks....







A very nice pair of Cross bikes. As has been previously said, the Wild Cherry Candy one is NOS.


A very nice tandem


A bike that really caught my eye, a Beetle Juice Wicked lite




A couple of shots from the Saturday ride. One of Chris and the second is of Hardy, our expert guide for the weekend without whom we would not of experienced the local trails along with I think Marty of Geek Bikes fame.


A shot from the even wetter Sunday ride. I'm afraid I did not take as many ride shots as I had intended due to the prevailing conditions..........

[grd]

and here are some shots from the party



Chris and Wendyll

[Tin machine]

dear fatcog members , on the 25th I got a email wishing me a happy birthday ,I had not visited this site in close to a year or more , I had just had one of the worst days in along time , many thanks for the bright spot on that day ....first class site in my humble opinion , thank you everyone ....looking forward to refreshing my love for vintage mtb , sincerly Anthony ...aka Tin machine

[sbarner]

The black 16" is my wife's, bought new as a frameset in 1986 to match the one I bought for myself in '85. I wanted to build it up with the same basic parts as mine, but I went with the black Deore XT parts because I thought they would look classier with the black frame. The bars are aluminum Bullmoose with an expander stem adapter. On mine, I silver brazed a tube into the fork crown and clamped the bars to that.


I was working at the Ski Rack in Burlington back then and we were a Fat Chance dealer. It was a huge upgrade from the Trek 850 that I had before I upgraded to the Fat. I do wish that I had sprung for the box crown fork, but money was tight in those days and that fork was really expensive. I have a mangled one that was left over from a Huffy Throw, and I may use it as a guide to build up a clone someday.



Steve Barner



[QUOTE=wickedwillie;19344]Get well soon Tom....

Here are a few more photos. I had intended to take some additional shots today but the rain was relentless, unfortunately.

I think this was an '86, I loved the bars, blacked out 6206 crankset, and Tommaselli levers: