Last Best Ride: ROUND TWO

On August 22, the trails and roads around Whitefish Mountain Resort were filled with cyclists decked out in spandex and onlookers armed with cowbells, and in one instance, a walrus onesie. 

“I had probably at least five people come up to me and say there was a guy dressed up like a weird sheep with upside down horns,” said Jess Cerra, a professional cyclist and Whitefish native who founded the “Last Best Ride,” a gravel cycling race that debuted in 2021. 

The Last Best Ride saw more than 550 cyclists compete in either the 48-mile or 90-mile courses that looped around Whitefish Mountain Resort, Haskill Basin and the Flathead National Forest north of Whitefish, a field that included world class participants dueling for podium spots. 

“It’s one of those things where you plan it and it works out even better than you could have hoped,” Cerra said recently. “We started the race as a way to bring people to our community that we think should be there, bike people, people who care about our sports and our lands.”

Cerra, along with her partner, Sam Boardman, are both professional cyclists who have competed all over the world, and wanted to bring a world-class event to their backyards, which they consider ideal terrain for such a race. However, that was secondary to Cerra’s goal to to raise money for scholarships aimed at helping women in the Flathead pay for college. 

“I was a scholarship recipient growing up, and they helped fund a huge part of my undergraduate tuition,” Cerra said. “I always wanted to give out scholarships like the ones I won.”

The Barbara Mansfield Champion Scholar Award program is named after Cerra’s guidance counselor at Whitefish High School, who Cerra credits as one of the driving forces that helped her get into college. 

“The scholarship fundraising was embraced by the participants in a way that quite honestly was shocking to me,” Cerra said.  “By designing the event around the Scholar Award Program, I’ve created an event such that just signing up means registrants play a part in bettering the lives of the locals of the community they visit, regardless of if they want to donate more or not.”

Last year, the program amassed more than $20,000, which was awarded to four local girls — two at Whitefish High School and two at Glacier High School.

To further grow the scope of the race’s scholarship efforts, Cerra is working to retroactively qualify as a 501c(3) non-profit organization. 

Cerra is hoping to double the number of scholarship recipients next year, while keeping the amount significant, and based off registration numbers, that goal is well within reach.  

In the first day participants could sign up for the 2022 event, the number of locals registered doubled from the previous year, and in the weeks since, the race has neared its expanded capacity. 

“Our number one goal from last year was that we left the community feeling supported, and not like we’d come in and brought a bunch of people who didn’t care about the area,” Cerra said, adding that the interest in next year’s event continues to bolster the event’s success. 

Cerra hopes to build out a mentorship piece of the program, which last year included outfitting four local women with bikes, helmets, shoes and tools, and coaching them as they prepared for the event. She also wants to incorporate an internship program where she can pair young women with professionals in the fields they’re interested in studying.

“There’s always more guidance that needs to happen,” she said. “Coming from a family where I’m a first-generation college student, I want to give other girls the resources I didn’t have.”

Participants who want to compete in next summer’s Last Best Ride will choose between the 90-mile “Big Horn Sheep” long course, which includes 8,224 feet of elevation gain, or the 48-mile “Mountain Goat” short course which features a mere 4,200 feet of climbing. 

According to the event schedule, a casual pre-race dinner and fundraising happy hour will take place at a local eatery on Friday, Aug. 19, 2022. On Saturday, Aug. 20, local bike shop Great Northern Cycle and Ski will host the race expo, a women’s ride and brunch, and community fun rides. The races will take place on Sunday, Aug. 21, and the post-race celebration will include a catered meal, adult beverages, handcrafted huckleberry ice cream, and other only-in-Montana offerings. 

To register for the event or to learn more about the Champion Scholar Award, visit www.thelastbestride.com