Smoke 'n Fire'd
A tragic bikepacking ballad
It’s 2 a.m. and I’m inflating my sleeping pad in the vault toilet at the Williams Creek trailhead. I just finished my dessert for the day - the acclaimed Fisher Creek mountain bike loop on the edge of the Sawtooth Mountain Range, dodging small owls on the road up and headlamp-illuminated singletrack and creek crossings on the way down. Thunderstorms boom in the distance. I’m cold and just rode over 200 miles with very little stopping, beginning with a breakfast of greenbelt miles out of Boise early the previous morning, lunch of a mixture of remote dirt roads and chunky singletrack, and finishing with dinner a couple of hours earlier on a comically terrible 2-hour long hike-a-bike from Galena Lodge to the summit of Galena Pass.
I’m nearly halfway through a solo effort of the Idaho Smoke ‘n Fire 400, an annual self-supported bikepacking race that starts and finishes in the state’s capitol, testing bike riders’ strength, self-reliance, and skill through a variety of off-road terrain. This year’s route, due to some road closures and the organizers’ diabolical maleficence, covers some 430 miles and 40,000 feet of vertical gain, with plenty of rugged stretches of limited to no resupply opportunities, painful amounts of hike-a-bike, and the occasional nice view and smooth dirt road.
The race was significantly altered last year due to devastating wildfires in the area, so I was motivated to go fast on the route this year. I had success in a similar distance race last year and was feeling strong and confident going in. But it didn’t go to plan.
Back to the outhouse. I pull a cold, half-eaten tofu burrito out of my jersey pocket as I slip into my emergency bivvy. I set my alarm for a 2-hour nap.
Ahhh, the glamors of bikepacking.
Covering 200+ miles in around 20 hours I was on track to reach my goal of sub-48 hours. Maybe I was too ambitious. Maybe I was pushing too hard. But I felt great. I was on top of my fueling strategy and was moving very efficiently, having only stopped for about an hour total. But here and now I was struggling. During the long hike up from Titus Lake on the pass my left knee started screaming in pain. It had started raining on the ascent, and even in early September, it can get frigid in the mountains once the sun goes down. To add insult to injury I had stupidly forgotten my leg warmers in Boise and I think my cold legs, combined with walking in stiff MTB shoes and pushing a loaded bike up a mountain pass aggravated things. I had insulated pants that I pulled on for the descent down into the Sawtooth Valley and hoped that a short rest would give my knee some time to calm down.
My alarm goes off. Surprisingly, I had slept well and felt quite refreshed. It was one of those weird sleeps where you wake up completely confused about where you are. I survey my surroundings: bike leaned up against the toilet with my belongings strewn about a glorified porta-potty. No time to question the ridiculousness of what I was doing. I pack up and head out, flicking on my lights as I head down the highway, backtracking to a dirt road and another steep and chunky trail that brings you up to a ridge above Redfish Lake outside of Stanley. 220 more miles to Boise.
My knee feels worse. As soon as I hit the trail it starts pouring rain and I’m on and off the bike, switching from pedaling to pushing in the still dark early morning. I’m now behind schedule, hoping to have been through Stanley at this point to get through the most remote stretch of the course - about 120 miles of no civilization and another exposed mountain pass - before the forecasted heavy rain and thunderstorms. But I’ve slowed down a lot, my knee revolting against the constant torque I’m putting on it. I make it down to the lake and can barely pedal the pain is so intense. There’s another steep, hardly rideable climb and rough descent separating me from Stanley, the last resupply for the next 15 hours.
It’s here that I decide to “scratch” - or drop out - from the race, fearing my knee will only continue to get worse, forcing my pace way down going into this remote and demanding stretch. Combine that with the incoming weather, and I just didn’t have the stubbornness or will to push through.
I don’t like excuses, and no one likes to drop out of races or fail to complete objectives that they’ve worked hard for. I was incredibly bummed to pull the plug, frustrated at myself for not preparing more, or pacing better, or a whole host of other woulda coulda shoulda’s I tumble-dried over and over in my head to have had this go another way. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to be competitive in ultra-cycling.
But ah. Herein lies the beauty and the tragedy of these ultra-distance bike races.
It never goes perfectly, and many times it goes quite poorly. It’s perhaps just as much mental as it is physical. A lot can and will go wrong, and as I learn more about how to do this I’ve recognized that going in with a set time or even outcome goal is perhaps the wrong approach. It takes you out of the present moments of the ride and can lead to biting off more than you can chew because at the end of the day, “simply” finishing is a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself, and much sweeter than going for glory and having your knee tell you “Yep, you’re done.” As a very competitive person, new to this scene, this fact has been hard to reconcile with.
Yes, I didn’t finish. But also yes, I rode my bike from Boise to Stanley in 24 hours at a pretty damn good pace, fueled by instant mashed potatoes and Fred Again’s Boiler Room set. My friend Emily saw me at the grocery store in Ketchum and sat with me in the parking lot while I ate snacks. I saw the sun rise over the stunning Sawtooth Mountains and got to ride my bike for 24 straight hours.
Most importantly, though, every time I ride Fisher Creek with my friends or drive by on the way to Stanley, I have a great story about the time I slept in that pit toilet.