Twenty-three years of May 6ths and the through line is pretty clear: this date does not believe in easy days. It believes in broken seat posts, cockleburs, and snow where there absolutely should not be snow.
It started simply enough back in 2002, a few games of pool with work mates and an update to the racing site. Low stakes. Then things escalated. By 2006 the plan was to ride 92 miles over two mountain passes in the Big Hole, starting a new job the following week, because apparently transitions deserve to be celebrated with suffering.
The racing years brought their own chaos. A broken seat post nearly ended the Georgetown Lake race before it began, but some scrounged washers and sheer stubbornness salvaged the day, ending with a selfless lead-out for a teammate named John. A year later came a Coyote Classic win in Boise, sandwiched between a phone number change and a housing plea that somehow landed in the mix.
The Jumbo Juggernaut years showed a guy getting slower and caring less about hiding it. The Palisade Falls entry from 2016 summed it up perfectly: "I'm 50 now and I go where I please."
Then came Ogden's birthday enduro, cockleburs and dizziness included. A goal reset in Livingston wrestled honestly with getting older while refusing to stop chasing distance. Some years went quiet. Others turned to desert sunrises, as the Bootleg Canyon photos from 2022 quietly prove.
In 2023, a perfectly planned ride at Larry Creek became a snow slog with bikes on shoulders, and somehow that was better than the original plan. And just recently, Carnage Asada at Silver Mountain delivered exactly what the name promises.
May 6th has never once offered a boring day. That streak, apparently, is the whole point.