Prep for Butte

The Butte 100 mountain bike race is in two weeks, on July 30th. For the most part I did a good job of riding and training this year, and race season started out pretty well. Then, in June I had that foot injury and had to spend a few weeks sitting on the couch. As soon as I was feeling good enough to ride again, some family came to visit, we went to Canada, and then I had a wedding to go to. So there was basically 2 weeks of hanging out and drinking beer after 2 weeks of sitting on the couch. Not really the training I wanted to get in before Butte. Thankfully, I did still manage to get a reasonable amount of riding in once my foot started feeling ok, have cut down on the beer and junk, and last week got in a whole bunch of riding, so I'm starting to feel like I'll be alright. I'll get in a few more good rides this week and then it's time to taper.

Missoula XC

After somehow hurting my foot while rafting a few weeks ago, I spent about a week on the couch with my foot up. By the next Friday, it was feeling a bit better so I went out to the XC course and tried a lap. Foot actually felt decent in a bike shoe so I signed up for the race.

MTB racing

Like I mentioned last time, it's been a good time to get out on the MTB, and the WM trail series has gotten started. The first event was called the "mittower XC," which was partly on the pro xc course at Marshall mountain, and partly on some new trail up above it. Mittower gulch is the next valley over from Marshall canyon and the new trail starts right on the ridge, if you were wondering where the name is from.

Mountain Bike Season

After Speedwagon, Rocky mtb Roubaix, and the Hell Ride, it seems that "road" season in Montana is about over. Well, except for Wednesday Worlds. Now that the trails are clearing up and the days are longer, it's time to get out in the mountains. I had an issue with my freehub on about the 2nd ride out, plus my rear tire is all cut up, so I've only gone on about 3 mtb rides so far. I should probably go do that later.

2016 Montana Hell Ride

The hell ride I've been talking about happened a little over a week ago, on april 30th. Put on by The Cycling House, it covered about 83 miles of Montana roads, which means plenty of dirt. The ideal bike for something like that is fast and light, but also durable, and has big tires. If my road bike had been back together, I would have seriously considered riding it with 27-28mm tires. For about 90% of the course it would have been fine, but the other 10% was rocks and mud. Mostly passable on a road bike, but I was stuck with my cross bike so I went and bought another set of tires just for this event- Clement Strada LLG, in 32mm width which is new for this year. 

2016 Rocky Mountain Roubaix

Last weekend was the Rocky Mountain Roubaix, about the only road race in the Missoula area. Being a spring event in Montana it goes down a few dirt roads and the conditions are usually interesting. It rained fairly hard in the days up to the race and was still raining when we started. I think the weather discouraged a few people from racing, plus it was the same day as the grizzly triathon so the turnout seemed a little smaller than usual. There was a 1/2/3 group that raced 3 laps for 51 miles, and then everyone else did two laps and 41, including Ingrid, the only woman who showed up.

Post roubaix

It was muddy. I won the 4s. Will write about it later.