Sette Attends the CORBA Fat Tire Festival as a Sponsor and Exhibitor

We have this report from our friends over at Sette USA:

"The Sette crew attended the CORBA Fat Tire Festival on Sunday. We were really glad to be there not only as an exhibitor but also as a sponsor. CORBA does a lot of amazing work to make sure that we all have trail access. Mountain biking wouldn’t be much of a sport if there was no place to ride. Sure, in a race there are sanctioned places to ride and bike parks are slowly growing in number, but these are examples of places that most of us only ride at once in a while, if ever. It’s the local trails that matter. Where else would we be able to train, to create local legends of derring-do, to grab a moment of peace in a crazy world?

Even the pros realize the importance of their local trail. It was great to see Brian Lopes, Ned Overend and Sid Taberlay representing at the festival which acted as a fundraiser for CORBA. They led several rides through the beautiful Castaic Lake hills. Later, they used the Sette booth as a meeting place and held a skills ride with Mark Langton, CORBA’s own Skill’s Instructor. As it came close to clinic time, the Sette booth was mobbed. I did get a chance to take a picture of the crowd as soon as the clinic began, but it made for a very hectic ½ hour beforehand.

The Poker Ride was one of the biggest contests/events of the day. They combined our donations of workstand and tool kit into a grand prize, so we got top billing during the awards ceremony for that. You’ll see a picture below of a young man celebrating his win of that event.

Weather was somewhere between absolutely perfect and then incredible gusts of wind that must have been pushing 40-50mph. Ours was one of the few tents that didn’t get pushed over or completely blown away. It made for some pretty exciting times. You’ll see in one of the attached pictures that the yellow Price Point banner that was placed right over the head of the prize announcer is partially falling down. Luckily that only happened right near the very end of the day.

At the very end of the day CORBA holds their big raffle. The Sette Impulse carbon frame was used as the Ultimate Grand Prize. People went nuts for it. Just before they announced the winner, I had them throw the remaining free swag of socks and grips that we had out to the crowd. The usual pandemonium, feeding-frenzy ensued. The winner of the frame was a gentleman that apparently is a bit of a legend in the bicycling world, a founder of both IMBA (International Mountain Biking Association) and CORBA (CA Offroad Bicycling Association), a former pro racer, and has been inducted into the MTB Hall of Fame. Not too bad for a guy I had no clue as to who he was! I had about a ½ dozen people come up to me immediately afterwards to tell me how cool it was that he won. I think they were trying to impress upon me how cool and wonderful of a person he was. They were so genuine that I have to say, I was convinced! As you’ll see, I also couldn’t resist jumping into a picture with him either. By the way, his name is Jim Hasenauer, a SoCal mountain biking legend. Very cool.

If you ever get the chance to attend one of their events, even a fundraiser, go! You will be guaranteed a fun time and will meet plenty of soul mates. CORBA really went out of their way to make us feel like the stars of the festival. They said that it was because we’ve supported them in the past and that we weren’t there just as exhibitors but also as sponsors. In our opinion, it wasn’t the pro riders, the manufacturers, the local shops or any of the sponsors that were generous, it was CORBA itself. They do a tremendous service for all of us that far too often goes thankless. So to CORBA, thanks for a great day, and a heartfelt thanks for all that you do."