Twenty-four years of June 24ths, and a pattern emerges. Not a tidy one, but a real one.
It started quietly enough in 2002, sidelined and sipping tea, itching to get back on the bike. By 2004, the trails around Blue Mountain and Dead Man's Ridge were getting proper attention. In 2005, riding on fumes and an empty stomach through the Thursday Night Ride somehow ended in wildflowers and a backyard BBQ slideshow. Peak mountain biking, honestly.
Then 2006 arrived with its full comedy of errors, crushed glasses, a broken CamelBak, an exploded car window that wasn't actually shattered, and a mom with a broken wrist baking in 110-degree Yuma heat. The response? Espresso, a lemon scone, and getting on the bike anyway. Some things don't change.
2007 brought an Idaho road trip and a race course that defied logic in the best way. 2011 marked a life transition mid-24-hour-race, pedaling from one chapter into the next. And 2012 distilled it all down to one sentence: making it through the night in a 24-hour race is like rebirth. Hard to argue with that.
By 2015, a two-person urban ride counted as saving a series. 2020 offered bitterroots and wolf tracks north of Gardiner, Mo finding a rare bloom while the trails kept climbing. 2021 was a quieter day at Bridge Bay, set to music. 2022 revisited desert slot canyons with warm feelings intact. 2023 celebrated June blooms and the particular magic of mountain biking when the wildflowers are going off.
And then 2025, a seagull in Seattle teaching a graduate-level seminar on knowing when to walk away. Institutional fog, sleepless nights, and a photograph of pure avian audacity as the unexpected anchor.
June 24th apparently specializes in contrast, breakdowns and breakthroughs, exhaustion and momentum, crunch sounds that turn out to be springs not glass. The thread running through all of it is showing up, sore legs, empty stomach, broken gear, and everything else included.