I went out to Black Butte today to check out the mountain-bike course for next weekend. Next week will be my first mountain-bike tri, and my first MB race of any kind in seven years, so I figured it'd be a good idea!

First the good news: the sprint course is not bad at all. It's graded into the hillsides, fairly smooth, and at least 3 feet wide nearly everywhere. From what I can tell, it's not had a lot of use since it was graded (probably in January judging by the occasional overgrowth) so it's not fast hardpack, but the surface is generally no rougher than upper park road. The course description describes rollers and occasional technical stretches, but don't worry about it! The worst sections were much less technical than Middle Trail in Upper Bidwell Park, and most of the rollers involve 50' elevation changes at most. The worst "roller" is not as bad as that crazy hill in California Park. It's about what you'd expect for a fire access road most of the way, but narrower and with occasional off-camber hairpin turns.

Then there's the bad news: the International-distance-only section of the route is, as far as I can tell, a complete disaster. I say "As far as I can tell" because there's a large section on Black Butte itself where I have no clue where the trail is supposed to be! There were little yellow ribbons marking the trail on the graded stretches, but the graded stretch goes about 3/4 of the way up Black Butte and then just stops. The ribbons keep going for a bit, then they're gone too. The terrain there is high-angle, the ground consists of lava cap or loose mayonnaise-jar-sized rocks, and the overgrowth ranges from 3-12 inches so you can't see what you're riding on until suddenly it rolls out from under you. Or until suddenly your bike stops and you keep going. The ribbons themselves --- in what I'm sure was someone's idea of a great April Fools' joke --- are the same color as the yellow flowers, which are in full bloom! Oh, and the wind today was gusting well over 40 mph across the top, so most of the ribbons were blown over if not blown completely away. I didn't find many up there.

Anyway, it promises to be an interesting race.  Another source of interest is the weather forecast, which currently calls for rain on Thursday. Any significant precipitation Thursday or Friday ---or heaven forbid Saturday--- is going to turn the graded sections of trail into a death-march, and I don't mean that in a good way.

If you have a choice of bikes, there's really no reason not to take a hardtail on either course. Nothing is really bumpy other than probably the Black Butte area of the International course ---where walking will be faster anyway--- and the hardtail's increase in efficiency will be helpful on the rollers. The sprint course would probably even be do-able on a cyclocross bike, though for myself I'm definitely more comfortable with at least a front suspension. I guess I'd say for the sprint course, basically just pick the bike you could take on the park road from Horseshoe Lake to Brown's Hole and back in the least amount of time.

Good luck for those doing one of the mountain-bike courses, and see you Saturday.

Posting from the Black Butte Triathlon:

Water Temperature CURRENTLY 50 DEGREES

Ok, we need to be frank with you it is cold:. There is no way to candy coat it, it is what it is. We are currently getting water temp readings right around 50 degrees which is totally doable with a wetsuit. Trust us we have swam it before but you need to be prepared for it. We have a lot of first timers and or peeps who are not seasoned Polar Bears we are strongly URGING that everyone wears a wetsuit. If for whatever reason the day of the event you feel like the swim is not for you, you can bypass that hurdle. You will just have to wait for all the swimmers to finish the swim portion and then you will be able to proceed with the Bike and Run. Unfortunately you will not be eligible for Age Group prizes but at least you get to race the majority of the event.

On a warmer side of things and a bit of local trivia for you. Black Butte Lake is a shallower lake as opposed to a Shasta Lake or a Lake Tahoe. Point being is the 10 day forecast is insanely AWEEESOMMMEEEE! We are seeing a forecast of +70 degrees! So we do expect the water to come up a bit but not to bath water like temperatures.