9.5 Hours of Disco: Endurance MTB Race in Salmon, ID – 05/09/2025

The 9.5 Hours of Disco is an endurance mountain bike race. The event takes place in beautiful Salmon, Idaho on the discovery trail SYSTEM. The race, usually taking place during early May, is a great excuse to get some early season training in. from Boise, It’s also a great drive through some of Idaho’s best country.

I started coming to this event in 2024, after Josh got a job promotion and moved to Salmon, ID. Last year, Josh, Morgan And I Raced disco as a team, The Midpack Mustangs. This year we all raced in solo categories and this ended up being my first solo endurance mtb event.

Before discussing our 2025 race, I wanted to share our team jerseys from last year. The 2024 Midpack Mustang uniforms, designed by Morgan, were sick!

On the Friday before the race, we met at the Hub, a new bike shop in Salmon, ID, for the pre-race social. It was great to have our friend Ana come from Boise with her team for her first attempt at 9.5 hours of disco. Morgan snapped this photo with her cool Fuji Instax digital cam.

The 10am race start gave us plenty of time to stop by Odd Fellows Bakery for some pre-ride treats.

The race has had different iterations over the years. The past few years, the race has been a 9.5-hour endurance event where participants complete as many loops as possible on a 10-mile course with 1,000 feet of climbing. This year, Disco began with a Le Mans start, where participants ran` to find their bicycles in a pile nearby.

The conditions were brutal this year. It felt like the first proper day of summer. The consensus between laps seemed like we were all struggling with heat and nausea. I was pretty stoked to maintain consistent pace throughout the day.

Because this was a race, we all moved at our own endurance paces. as fate would have it, Josh, Morgan, and I were able to finish our last lap together.