Since I bought my Scott Spark RC mountain bike last year, I’ve been eager to attend my first mountain bike event. Last week while on Instagram, serendipitously I was served an ad for Dirty Bloom 50mi. The ad said it was their inaugural event, as such it had very limited spots and there were only a handful left. There is no time like the present, so on a whim I signed up four days before the event.

Dirty Bloom is held in Wenatchee in Eastern Washington, it is about a two and a half hour drive from Sammamish across I-90. It’s just close enough that I could drive there in the morning versus needing to go the day before and stay in a hotel – so the alarm clock was set for 4am. I arrived into Wentatchee at about 7:15, went to the nearest McDonald’s to grab a coffee, bacon & egg muffin and change into my cycling gear.

The course for Dirty Bloom is 50mi/80km in length with 8000’/2666m of elevation. For those that aren’t familiar, any ride (regardless of distance) with over 2000m of elevation is going to be a tough day. I was lucky enough to get a ticket for RAMROD (Ride Around Mt Rainier in A Day) last year, it was 160mi/255km with 10000’/3333m of elevation and it was a huge effort.

As it turns out, the climbing was front loaded on the course and was absolutely savage. At the 5km mark the climbing started with gradients regularly going into 12-15%. In sections, they were so steep, I couldn’t ride them even in the lowest gear and had to push my bike.

Without question, this uphill section was the hardest effort I’ve ever done on a bike and lasted three (3) hours and 15 minutes. For some perspective, my max heart rate is 183bpm. When I do a one hour max effort and bury myself, I can sustain a heart rate of 168-172bpm and produce 300w. I averaged 162bpm over this section, absolutely brutal!

When I made it to the second aid station, the elite riders had completed an additional loop and were passing back through that aid station a second time before making their way back toward the finish line. A whole bunch of them commented how tough the course was.

I’d been riding for about 4 hours at this stage, guessed I had at least two hours of riding to the finish line, followed by a 2.5hr drive home. While I knew I could have completed the extra loop of about 20mi, I decided to drop it and begin the ride to the finish line.

I’ve heard people speak of ‘single track’ a thousand times, but having never ridden a mountain bike event or a trail network as massive as this before – I didn’t fully understand the wonder and magic of it. With the exception of another 2.5km climb, the next 23km were downhill – blasting through meadows covered in wildflowers, fast, flowy, up, down, left, right – it was like a rollercoaster!

I crossed the finish line in 6 hours, an average HR of 155bpm & just under 50km under my belt.

Can’t wait to do my next mountain bike event!