Some dates just collect a life. July 22nd has apparently been mine for camping, racing, and getting cheerfully lost since 2006, when I was blogging from a tent near Showdown Ski Area, listening to a stream instead of the internet. That same year, from a Missoula coffee shop, I was juggling race prep and friends flying in from New York, running on caffeine and pure momentum.
The years since have zigzagged between grit and grace. There was a notorious course I barely finished describing, a banking meltdown solved by a bike ride, and a night of riding through homesickness with One Republic in my ears. Some years were quieter, just a day of family instead of adventure, or musing on how life gets too noisy, like an overworked painting. Other years leaned into the climb, like 2,500 feet of vertical with the best climbers in a two-person fieldMo's photos from Yellowstone outshine my own eye, and a year later left just a single link, bug season needing no further explanation. Most recently, a moto trail swallowed my Monday and spit me out wiser. Twenty years of July 22nds, and the thread holds: dirt, bikes, weather, and people worth riding toward. Turns out the date was never the point. The trail always was.