Nineteen years of May 24ths, and this date has a personality. It shows up muddy, determined, occasionally hypothermic, and somehow always grateful.
It started in 2006 with a win at the Cow Pie Classique, surrounded by a crew that included a snake whisperer and a water bottle technician of apparently elite standing. Then 2008 arrived in triplicate, because apparently that year had a lot to say. There was a crash, a foggy recovery in La La Land, a stubborn plan to ride anyway captured in Going to Lolo Pass, and then the actual ride, documented in Still Snow Up There, because of course there was still snow up there.
By 2011 the theme sharpened into something worth keeping. With a Little Help from My Friends is a dispatch from a cold, rainy, borderline reckless 24-hour effort, and it holds up. The pre-race spiral of 2012 lands in Dismount, where no work got done and that was probably the right call. A Tobacco Roots adventure in 2015 traded race adrenaline for campsite wandering and snow-blocked trails, which is a different kind of good.
Then 2021 brought Gardiner, Montana, followed by a 2022 post called Wrecked that felt like an honest exhale. The 2023 posts scattered wide, from a bike listing to a quiet reflection at Cannon Beach to an eagle watching over a horseshoe crab on the sand, which is as good a metaphor as any for paying attention to the world while you still can.
May 24th, it turns out, has always been a good day to show up and see what happens.