Twenty-two years ago on this date, a guy on a mountain bike outside Missoula was wishing he had his camera, white-knuckling a steep sidehill track, and apparently discovering that East Missoula has the best singletrack he had "ver rode." Two posts from that same day, actually. The Marshall Canyon loop delivered speed and views. The Deer Creek to Pattee Canyon route delivered transients and, inexplicably, Frisbee golf.
By 2008, the theme shifted from "I wish I had my camera" to "I need to put down the scone." The Fatty post is a holiday morning reckoning, ten extra pounds and a scale that delivered hard truths. The very same day, a careful field review of CarboRocket was underway, complete with mood scores, snot analysis, and llamas on Route 12 throwing peace signs back.
Then came the big race years. 2010 slipped by in a banner distraction. But 2011 brought a 24-hour race in wet, cold conditions, and 2012 delivered a genuine epic told in two breathless parts, the first twelve hours of careful pacing and quinoa pesto, and the final twelve of hallucinations, a dramatic surge into the lead, and a finish line moment so chaotic it ended with a starting gun and one more lap.
Later years brought a rainy vacation redeemed by bacon and a perfect descent, a wandering month across Montana talking to ducks, a newborn alert, a brief and sunny May 26th, and a robot bear ambush that honestly fits right in with everything else.
May 26th, it turns out, has never been quiet. It has been steep singletrack, hard scales, cold rain, warm quinoa, and whatever a robot bear is. Not a bad pattern for a life lived mostly outside.