McDowell Meltdown 2026
For this year I am building my Whiskey fitness by racing more locally. This gives me access to more start lines and bar to bar action; putting me in a better frame of mind and making me more prepared to be racing. The first even of the year was the McDowell Meltdown. A race that’s local to me in Phoenix, Arizona and put on by the MBAA at the beginning of January. They offer a large number of categories to race in from pros to age groupers and a variety of distances from 10 miles to the marathon category of 44 miles.
My preferred distance is the marathon category, 44 miles of glorious desert single track in the winter! It genuinely doesn't get much better than this. I did a pre-ride of the course the weekend before the event since I had never ridden these trails and was impressed with the diversity of terrain on the 34 mile main course. The extra 10 miles comes from a second lap of the “long loop” part of the course.
Starting off the course quickly dives in to single track that climbs its way out from the parking lot and into a combination of fast, flowy trail and tight technical sections. No hard climbs out of the gate, which is nice, but I did end up trapped behind a slower rider on a single speed which made the gap to the leaders quite large (not that I would be in that group, but I can hope). Once out of the single track the course takes a double track road towards the first extended climb but you get to enjoy some chunky downs before putting the power down. This climb had some technical elements that mostly involved dodging rocks and choosing the right line to be able to keep pedaling. Fortunately for me I only had a couple of riders to pass so I wasn’t held up and kept a consistent pace to the top. The next section is really the best part of this course. Its a very fast downhill section that is both rocky and smooth in some weird way. Unfortunately I got caught up behind another rider who wasn’t very stoked to be passed so I was riding the brakes most of the way down. The pace was OK but I know I could have pushed a bit faster.
Following the ripping downhill comes the rolling double track. This section is mostly slow climbing at an easy gradient but does require sustained effort to maintain pace. The climbing eventually turns the other direction and gets REALLY fast. Pedaling through this section can easily see see 23-25mph! During the race it was quite windy so I wasn’t able to make up as much time as I would have liked but that’s racing.
Another big climb along a ridge followed by yet another fast descending section gave me the opportunity to catch a wheel and hold behind another rider with a similar pace. I ended up following him for probably 10 miles before finally passing, the pace was right about where I wanted to be!
Once you start dropping back down towards the parking lot there is a turn on to the “long loop.” This part of the course is the section that the marathon course does twice. It differs from the longer (yes this is kind of confusing) portion of this course in that it has a bit more technical aptitude required to go fast. Some punchy climbs and chunky downhills with the course littered with larger rocks. This section ends at the start/finish line, which marathon racers pass once before starting their second lap of this loop.
As I was coming through the line one of the age group categories was being set off on their race so the course was very crowded yet again. I was able to make some moves and hang with faster riders. A lot of these guys were very nice and would offer to let me by knowing I wasn’t part of their race. It was an awesome display of sportsmanship!
I was happy to cross the the finish line in 3 hrs 22 minutes!
My overall impression of this race is that it was a great place to start for the year, The competition was high but I wasn’t racing elite riders so I felt very good with pacing. The organization of the race was very smooth and if I did not have other events scheduled already I would want to race the whole xc series! I highly recommend having this race on your calendar!