The weekend is over and I have tallied up the damage.  I only accomplished a modest 147 off road miles but the 21,500 feet of vertical gain for the week says it all. With the help of friends I put in three huge single track days in the last four days to push up my week’s saddle time to 26 hours. First it was the Missoula Thursday Night Ride and then it was Dave’s idea to do the Sheep Mountain Loop. Yesterday it was to meet up with friends to ride the Butte 50 (last half of the Butte 100). Map!

By the time I started out with Colin and a few endurance folk I was feeling a bit over cooked from all the sun and exposure the day before. The only thing keeping me upright was my new TRP kit. I wanted to go with Team Muleterro but for some strange reason they decided to do the course backwards. The entire idea was to pre-ride the course right?

It wasn’t long before Colin’s group dropped me leaving me wondering if I could even do this 50 miles loop after an initial 50 during a race. I was slogging along at a turtles pace but there is a reason for that. The beginning of the Butte 50 course has a shit-ton of climbing. You climb for like the first 35 miles.

Along miseries path was beauty. We crossed numerous meadows with great wooden bridges over the wetlands. Still though, there was mud to be had in some forested sections. The course is really wet this year.

The day got way better for the last 20 or so miles. All downhill sections of the greatest single-track anywhere on this planet. Here is a simplified track. Skipped sections include the archery range (to avoid getting shot), a swampy section in the Highlands Rec Area, and a new additional climb section Bob just put in.

After the ride which took 6.5 hours we converged upon the Triple Ring Headquarters where we all enjoyed some snacks and lounged around talking about the course. I waited to long to begin my drive home and ended up getting back to Missoula around 11ish.

Today is drag ass dog day for me with only a dose of Pain Lab in the afternoon.