Nine posts, two decades, and the same pull toward two wheels and a ridgeline. Back in 2004, a crash split the Tour de France peloton while, on the same date, I was making my own quieter plans for a Missoula ride and eyeing a hike into the Mission Mountains. By 2006 the chaos had become personal, a frantic drive to Bozeman that somehow still ended in the best worst race of my life at Bohart Bash.
2008 gave two very different flavors of the same restlessness: something that left me horrified enough to call it attempted murder, and, more true to form, an epic push toward Holloman Saddle and 58 miles of Vision Quest. Then came the group rides that defined so many Julys, like the sweaty, bear-adjacent glory of the Thursday Night Ride to Blue Point, and the very unglamorous business of apartment hunting in Bozeman between climbs.
Somewhere in there a quieter mood slipped in, the kind you only get once in a while, captured in a short, wandering wish to fly away. Later years got simpler: hanging out in Gardiner, a quick clip from Kellogg, and a POV ride called Suce needing no words at all.
Reading them together, July 9th seems to be the day I keep circling back to trails, near misses, and the itch to keep moving. Not a bad thread to trace across twenty years.