Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
Nine riders showed up for the 2024 Big Sky Spectaculaire in Bozeman, Montana, last month. Only four of them completed the 900-mile loop through Big Sky Country. Among them was second-place finisher Jen Kelly, who penned this reflection on the longest, shortest, worst, and best day of her ride. Read it here…
Words and photos by Jen Kelly
My alarm went off at 5 a.m. I wriggled deeper into my warm bivvy, getting my bearings—chilly air, barely lightening skies. We were camped at the gate of missile silo H-02. The camp had some excellent features, being in the middle of nowhere, along a gravel road amid endless wheat fields, with no cover nearby for bears intrigued by our food-encrusted bikes and bags. It was also a few miles outside Dutton, Montana, where we learned at the pre-race meeting that the mayor had recently rousted a fellow bikepacker out of the town park. Our idle banter over the past 500 miles had turned the mayor of Dutton into a mustache-twirling cartoon villain, and it felt like we were getting one over on her by camping just outside of her reach.
I was riding the Big Sky Spectaculaire, something I first dreamed of doing a few years ago, even going as far as registering that year. The route promised a grand adventure through 900 miles of Montana roads, about half gravel, with time bonuses for eating pie and taking photos at historic sites and missile silos along the way and with the possibility of grizzly bear encounters. I didn’t make it to the start line that year, as I grew overwhelmed by the amount of gear and expertise I felt I’d need to navigate the course; a summer bout of COVID didn’t help.
This year, I was back feeling confident and capable. Earlier this summer, I completed my first bikepacking race, riding the 3,600 miles of the Great American Wheel Race across North America solo and sleeping in motels almost every night. My Spectaculaire was very different, as I rode with my friend Justin M Short BA and spent three of seven nights outside.
By the time of the morning at silo H-02, I’d been forced to confront several long-held anxieties and was happily present and mostly unafraid. I’d seen a young grizzly, who’d turned tail and darted into the woods when I told it hello. I’d fallen off my bike and given myself a palm-sized patch of road rash and a big bruise on my left hip, and it cleaned up fine and still allowed me to ride comfortably. I’d spent nights camping rough and still found rest and recovery for the next day of riding. Despite my sometime-introversion, I’d found that spending full days riding alongside Justin was comfortable and fun. Everything was working out fine.
We rolled into Dutton an hour before the breakfast joint opened, so we wasted an hour of what could’ve been sleep scouting town for open power outlets and stealing a little juice for our devices. After a huge dinner breakfast—another error, since I was so stuffed with an omelet that I couldn’t collect my pie time bonus. We left town into an endless open wheatfield prairie. The morning’s cool slowly gave way to an increasingly roasting and utterly exposed sunny heat. We rode through sunbaked ruts that had been mud recently. Then we rode right into a patch that was deep mud, currently. It was my first introduction to peanut butter mud, and I was amazed at how quickly and stubbornly it coated my bike and shoes. It took a hot, thirsty half-hour of scraping and slinging with our paint sticks before we were ready to press on toward Fort Benton, dreaming of shade and cold drinks.
By the time we arrived in the old town of Fort Benton and dallied making new friends on the banks of the Missouri, those desires hardly seemed relevant. Dark clouds were building on multiple sides, the wind was gusting and whipping, five different townsfolk were warning us of thunderstorms, and my phone was dinging with a National Weather Service warning about severe thunderstorm activity. It would only take 13 highway miles to get downcourse to Loma, where there were cheap cabins for rent, so we gambled and headed on.
The gamble paid off. We had a ripping tailwind, the threatening rain never materialized, and we were soon tucked into a cabin with a sackful of provisions (including bonus pie!). It was only 6:30 p.m., awfully early to be done with the day, but with the ominous weather and the physical and mental depletion of the roasting prairie and the mud episode, we were ready to be done. We figured we’d get generous early rest and roll out in the wee hours, getting a head start on the next day.
The reality turned out differently. I’d been riding with one missing spoke for the past 400 miles, and sometime in the baking prairie, I’d heard a second spoke go. In the comfort of the porch of the Loma cabin, Justin and I took stock of the situation. I had a FiberFix replacement spoke, but only one, and it wouldn’t screw into my spoke nipples, so I’d have to remove the tire, give up my tubeless status, and use the nipple that came in the FiberFix kit. While doing this, I dropped the replacement nipple inside the rim. Shit.
The “simple” repair ended up taking four patient hours, using a broken spoke to guide the nipple toward the valve stem hole again and again before I finally got that sucker out. At hour two or three, I tried telling Justin to go to bed and leave me to my likely impossible task, but he was having none of it. His calm, cheerful company was a huge help. The moment I felt that nipple drop out of that hole was a high I’ll never forget. I consider myself a poor and impatient mechanic, and it was hugely rewarding to force myself to continue working through my frustration and mounting exhaustion until I finally resolved the problem.
The rest of the repair was simple enough, and after a second or third round of dinner snacks, that was it. The end of the day: 19 hours of wake time and 86 miles covered. Ordeals endured with friendship and laughs. It was the longest, shortest, best, and worst day of the race.
In telling you so much about this day, I, of course, left out so many highlights from other parts of the route. There were amazing climbs and descents on pavement and gravel, ponderosa pine forests, hot springs, countless herds of pronghorns, swooping herons, coyotes, and so much more.
If you think you might be interested in riding the Big Sky Spectaculaire, I strongly recommend that you start taking steps to make it happen. The backroads of Montana offer a uniquely magical setting for an epic adventure, and race director Crowell Herrick’s love of that place and knowledge of its history shines through in the bonus stops, and in any conversation, you wish to strike up with him. You might not ride an optimal race. You might be slowed down radically by peanut butter mud or hot springs where you must simply have a soak. Your bike might fall apart and have to get taped back together. Despite your organized race notes, you might miss a pie bonus or two. But if you show up, I can almost promise it will be Spectaculaire.
Further Reading
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