Missoula ProXCT

We rolled into Missoula late, after too much time spent checking out Salmon, and too much construction on the 2-laners that got us there. We checked into the cheap motel that we would call home for the next ~week, and the first thing on the agenda was recovery! I was pretty trashed from the Sun Valley races, having raced just about as fast as I possibly could. Sleep and recovery rides were just what my feeble body needed.

where did the trail go?

We spun along the Clark River trail, eventually getting out of town and just a little bit lost.

“I’m probably going to die of an asthma attack…” but we pushed through the flowers anyway and popped out on the other side.

Krista had to stop to have a meeting with her sponsors (Osprey!). When we ran into Paula on the path she excitedly told us to go find the big birds along the path, otherwise we would have missed them.

Never did get around to trying the switchbacks up to the “M” visible in the background.

the first time we visited there was a bomb scare and we had to evacuate the building 30 seconds after we stepped in!

I got to visit Adventure Cycling, creators of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route! They’ve got to be one of the coolest organizations out there, (pushing adventure and cycling) and the office and people were just further evidence of that. I had worked a bit with them on divide profiles before, and just generally got to talk bikepacking and routes with a number of people there.

If I ever had to get a ‘real’ job, this would be a place I could work… though I’m not sure it actually qualifies as a ‘real’ job either. It’s funny, to me a ‘real’ job has the connotation of being a job you don’t really like, and I think I could quite enjoy working there, so…

On Wednesday we went to pre-ride the course and were pleasantly surprised at the fun factor, even though I wouldn’t call it technical. Just as we were about to do a couple fast laps we noticed that a race was getting organized. We hemmed and hawed for a moment, but in the end decided against it. We rode our laps, then watched and cheered Tucsonans Travis and Chloe as they ripped a few laps on the course.

The next day I couldn’t resist attending the Thursday Night Ride (TNR). I’d read too much about it in DaveC, Jill and Bill’s blogs. It seemed like something I couldn’t pass up on, and that turned out to be true.

The only problem was that this week the ride was a 4000′ climb to Blue Point, which is one of the harder TNR rides. Sure enough, we climbed and climbed and climbed.

And it got steeper and steeper, but no one was giving up, and I felt good; it felt easy. So I kept rolling with it. Ed Stalling, the ride leader and current organizer of the TNR, calls this ride the “Hayduke” ride, and he has a great story behind that name. But I won’t tell it here, you’ll just have to go to Missoula and do a TNR to find out for yourself.

We hit the top. Everyone pulled out their jackets not so much because it was cold, but as mosquito defense.

I guess I missed the memo on that one. To my left is Alden, who at nearly 70 years young rides incredibly fast. He’s the former department head at the Computer Science and still doing research. Inspiring. I think maybe I went to the wrong school…

Aaron was fun to ride with, and is contemplating the AZT300 next year. Come on out Aaron!

It was really cool to meet such a great group of riders, and ones that were so friendly and quick to accept me as one of their own. The ride ended with pizza downtown, which was the perfect way to close out the evening.

Everything you’ve read about the TNR is true, and if you’re in Missoula, don’t miss it! I knew in the back of my mind that I might pay the price for this ride come race day, but so be it.

photo by Paula Morrison

And sure enough, my race wasn’t much to write home about. I made a lot of mistakes and had some bad luck. I’d rather have bad luck on a day with bad preparation, so from that point of view I guess I count myself pretty lucky.

I lined up early, making sure I was on the front and correcting a mistake in not being aggressive enough at nationals. But someone (the only person I knew in the Cat1 race!) didn’t line up early, and ended up hopping the rope and squeezing us all in at the front line. It didn’t seem too tight at the time, but in hindsight, my handlebars were pretty close to both riders on either side of me. I don’t know whose ‘fault’ it was, but the guy to my right locked handlebars with me and went down right in front of me. I kept myself from crashing completely, but by the time I was clipped back in and was pedaling, the field was already getting out of sight.

I crushed the start, but could not fight very far back up. I was maybe 15th overall coming into the first descent of the race. Dropping down the steep trail, I was closing in on the rider in front of me and looking for opportunities to pass, but I couldn’t invent any. His wheel slid off the tread on one of the steep turns, and he ended up on the ground, right in front of me. We got tangled up a bit, and I almost made it around him when we got started again. But instead I ended up riding his wheel all the way to the bottom of the course. So it goes in racing. If I’d had any legs, even at that point, I could have fought back, but there wasn’t much fight left in me. I did my best to stay on top of it and get in front of people, but just couldn’t get going.

Pretty early on my stomach revolted, I think due to consuming too many calories. This was the first ‘hot’ / warm race I have done all year, which actually made me quite happy… except that it meant more fluid intake, and the CR333 was just too much to handle at this intensity. Lesson learned, the hard way of course. I felt pretty terrible out there, nothing like myself. I ended up 13th out of ~30 Cat1’s, so not horrible, but not great either. The guy I passed on the rock drop at nationals was 5th overall, and almost 5 minutes faster than me.

I suppose a more fundamental mistake was racing in the first place! I don’t think I was recovered from the super effort at Nationals the week before. But coming to Missoula was definitely not a mistake. Besides finding a possible summer spot, making and learning from mistakes, Paula and I also got a nice ‘date’ vacation in. I still had a fair bit of work (like a paddling race in Canada that required translating everything on our tracker into French) but we explored quite a bit of Missoula, went to a movie and even went dancing (!). There’s nothing like being away from home for spending time together. Paula met people to do her workout with just by randomly showing up at a track, and she quite liked all the paths and “sporty” feel of the town. I think Missoula is very near the top of the list for next summer…

photo by Paula Morrison

And of course there was still Krista’s race. She had wisely skipped the TNR, though she would have loved it. One of the many sacrifices of a pro racer, and it paid off. After starting conservatively she moved up into 7th, and rode a close race with Chloe from Tucson.

photo by Paula Morrison

We ran bottles and gave her info on placement, times, etc. In the end it was good enough for her to land on the overall ProXCT podium — 5th place for the entire series. I have a pretty good idea of how hard she trains (at least this winter) and how dedicated she is to the sport, so it was pretty cool to see her race fast and race well.

We probably should have been on the road early the next day, but an early start wasn’t going to happen, and the Corsica doesn’t like midday drives, even in Montana. So instead we went to check out Montana Snowbowl, a place I knew I had read about in the blogs.

We didn’t know where we were going, and got on a steeper road than intended, but we were rewarded with a bouquet of flowers at the top, and some killer views. I was sure that it was going to be all singletrack back to the base of the resort, but I hadn’t really studied the GPX track I had poached off Garmin Connect minutes before the ride.

This is what happens when you follow some random person’s GPX file on Garmin Connect. You end up skidding down steep ski runs, not shredding singletrack!!

Actually it was pretty fun, especially since it didn’t blow all of our elevation. The track merged into a singletrack.

if you get on the podium for the ProXCT series, you can ride with your number plate the next day too!!

And the singletrack was good. Very good. It was a long and flowy descent with a few floater ledges thrown in for good measure. Great way to wrap up the week in Missoula. We’ll be back.

Our endurance failed us on the drive back, and we ended up in Idaho Falls for the night. Idaho Falls was a trip — what a place. I’ve passed through there a dozen or more times on the way to/from Salmon, but had no idea there were actual falls in the Snake River, and that everyone and their dog walks along the path, taking in the views of the falls and the temple. It fit the bill nicely for us though — a cool evening run/spin along the river. Quite nice. Then it was back to Salt Lake City, where unfortuantely Paula’s summer came to a close. She had to fly back to Tucson to get ready for a very early return to the next school year. Awesome summer, but too short…

I got one more ride with my brothers and dad. Here they are on the “$20 climb” which as been nerfed such that it is now the “buck fifty climb.” Still a great ride, especially with such good company.

We had planned on a longer ride, but the electric jellyfish were strategizing, so we made a dash back for home. The next day I made a dash back for Salida, where a mountain of SPOTs (fresh off the divide) awaited me. It was time to get organized for CTR!