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| Picture credit: Icon Media |
The last time I had made the trip south for PMBAR was 2010. I have changed a lot in the last 8 years, but so has my amount of riding in Pisgah. So, I am in a lot better shape, but not as familiar with all the trails. The only time that I have actually finished this race (4 check points in less than 14 hours) we grabbed 4 check points and finished with 20 min. left on the clock. My goal was just to finish and hopefully in less time than that. My teammate had a little more aggressive goals, but we both gave some and came up with a goal somewhere in the middle. We figured that 4 check points in 10 hours should be possible and to try and go for 5 check points if at all possible. The ultimate goal was to finish before dark. That should be fairly easy right??
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| You need to be prepared for anything |
I ended up sleeping pretty good for most of the night, but I did wake up about 3:30, hit the bathroom and had trouble falling back asleep from there. Eventually it was time to get up and get ready. The morning routine was pretty typical and soon enough I was loading up to head out the door. With all the traffic at the start finish area, we decided to park at the ranger station and ride over. We got there in plenty of time and waited around until it was time for Eric to give out all the pre-race info.
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| the race bible |
It seemed like it took a while, but then next thing I knew, Eric was talking at it was getting real pretty quick. Eric said several times to make sure an read all of the passport. Passports were handed out and we opened a map to see where all the check points were located. We also looked for any other important information. We loosely figured out what our plan was going to be. I just knew we would end up taking Bradly Creek. I have never been on that trail/creek. At least the weather was good enough that I would not be walking on ice blocks all day. We did see that all racers must start from Black to Thrift to Black.
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| The masses waiting for the passports of pain |
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| all smiles before all the pain started |
As I was flying down thrift there was a root section with a little drop. I was moving pretty fast when I rode over it and then I heard the dreaded loud POW! well shit! That is not good. Back tire is now flat, so I pull over and stop. I assess the situation and see that I did not burp out air or anything easy to deal with, but a pretty new back tire now has just short of a 1" slice in it. Jeff said he saw a rock fly out to the side when it popped. Those rocks can be pretty sharp. So, we went to work trying to fix the issue. We put duck tape over the slice and put a tube in the tire. After we mounted it up the tube was sticking out the side some. This does not look like something we would have a lot of luck riding all day in Pisgah.
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| well crap |
Not only that, but in my busy week leading up to the trip I guess I didn't swap my stuff over to my new camel sack very well. I did not pack an extra tube. So, now we are 20-30 min in to a 10+ hour race. Already used our only spare tube and even that one is bubbled out the side of the tire. We decided that we needed to head back down to the start. I would see about finding a tire and Jeff would hit the van to get an extra tube. Thankfully Eric came thru for me and had a tire I could use. By the time I had the new tire on and aired up, Jeff came rolling up, but with out an extra tube. As I finished putting my bike back together, Jeff went to take a drink and water came spraying out the bottom of his bottle. WTF!! How the hell do you break a bottle while it is on your bike. Eric to the rescue again!!! And hooked us up with a new bottle. We finally got everything put back in place and could try starting this race again. We were told that with all of our issues and time spent fixing them, we did not need to go do the prelude lap again. We did half of it anyway.
Jeff kept trying to settle me down and said it is a long day and we are fine. I knew that, but this was not exactly what I had planned. I knew unexpected things would come up, but I didn't expect that many to happen that close to the start. I guess it really could not have happened at a better place. We were able to get everything fixed and started better off than we would have been if any of these issues would have happened somewhere in the middle of the woods.
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| Picture credit: Icon Media |
The hike up Black is never easy. A little riding in between a lot of hiking. I'm sure I could ride more if I was not on a bike that doesn't shift, but I made my choices and have to live with them. Surprisingly we found ourselves around some other racers. Most of them are the ones who took a little more time leaving the lot or rolling at more of a party pace. We found ourselves passing several teams as we just kept trying to move forward. We eventually hit Pressely Gap and I just rolled on thru passing several teams looking at their map. I think Jeff was not sure if I knew where I was going or not and asked a couple times if I knew the route. As the day went on he just started to trust me if I said I knew where we were going, even if he didn't know where we were.
Down Maxell and up Clawhammer to Buckhorn gap. Along this climb we came up on Richard. He had an extra tube that he didn't think he would need. I felt a lot better having a back up. At Buckhorn Gap I took a short break here to grab a bite to eat and take a quick look at the map. I knew there were a couple intersections coming up and I didn't want to miss one that I wanted. Down the wheelchair ramp and over toward Squirrel. I think this section was fairly uneventful and we were at Cantrell Creek "only" 3.5 hours after starting. After we checked in with the check point, we took a little time here to eat, get some water and do a map check. I had never been to Vinyard and was not exactly sure what turns to take.
I got the plan in my head and off we went, right or wrong. We took Squirrel the rest of the way. I have always taken Mullinax to the parking lot and never been on this part of Squirrel. It was more grown up and it had been a while since we saw anyone. I was wondering if we took the wrong route, but it was too late now. Eventually we passed some riders that were headed the other way and one said that he thought we were heading the better direction for what ever that means. Eventually we turned on to Riverside trail. This is another new trail for me and it didn't take long before we knew why I probably have not been on it. We crossed a creek at least 5 times. This in itself was not that bad, but when I realized that we are doing this as an out and back to the check point, it didn't seem as good.
I thought we should be getting pretty close to the check point and then the trail disappeared. We were definitely on a trail up to that point, but then there was no trail. We back tracked some trying to figure out where we messed up and a lot farther down the trail than I would have thought, we saw a turn that was missed. The sign was hidden behind a tree and easy to miss. Once we were back on the right route we found the check point. This check point had some amazing homemade snickers. We were joking with him about what was in them. After handing out several he said, now I'm not sure what one, but one of these has acid in them. Enjoy the trip. Its supposed to be an adventure right? LOL
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| One of about 20 creek crossings and not even close to the deepest or widest |
We didn't stick around long and headed back the way we just came.....and thru the same creeks heading to the trail that is full of creek crossings......awesome! As we went along Bradly Creek we came to a little turn in the trail and started climbing some gravel. It didn't seem like we missed anything and Jeff said that this looked familiar. So we kept going on......sustained climbing forever.... on a trail with a lot of creek crossings..... hummm.. I was going to stop and check the map and Jeff said that we were good, so we kept going.
So, after climbing for 45 min or so, I made the comment that we sure are climbing a lot for a trail that crosses the creek so many times. I stopped and pulled my phone out to see where we might be. After a little bit of looking, sure enough we were on what the map said Bradly Creek Road or as I should have known as 5015 and off limits. Perfect!! So, we turn around and head back to figure out where we messed up. Jeff said at least we have some down hill for a while. Ha!
A few corners in to our decent, we came flying around the bend and noticed something up ahead. It took a second to realize what it was, but it was a huge black bear!! SHD$#$%!!! After the initial shock/freaking out, I felt a little better since it was running the other way (thank you I9's). We stopped and said lets just wait here a minute. My heart settled down a little and we started to move forward again, but scanning around looking for anything that would not like us being there. We did see the bear again as it was climbing up the hillside. This was an amazing event and the best thing that happened all weekend! I have never seen a bear out there in all the times that I have rode there. We really wished we could have gotten a good picture of it, but I am more thankful that we didn't spook it or provoke it. I know who the slower rider of this team is.
Back to riding down the hill.....a long ways. As we hit the intersection where we made the wrong turn there were two guys standing there trying to figure out where to go. We said "Not that way!" and pointed up the hill. I saw the sign for Bradly Creek that we missed and just like that we were back to crossing a creek a shit load of times. Towards the end of this trail I was really wearing down. My shoulder was hurting from carrying my bike and I was slipping a lot more on the rocks. Both of us had a moment of slippage where we got a lot wetter than we had planned. We did stop and refill bottles since there was plenty of water around.
When we hit 1206 we had a deciding point. We were either going for 4 or 5 checkpoints. I am pretty sure Jeff wanted me to say lets go for 5, but after the slow start and the two wrong turns, I was feeling pretty worn out. I really did not want to do a Laurel/Pilot loop (hindsight, if I would have looked at the map and realized we could have done an out and back to the check point with out hitting the big hike a bike, I just might have been talked in to going for 5), so we headed toward the inner loop to do an out and back to the Slate overlook.
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| Oh what a view! |
Back on 1206 and headed to the gauging station and up the wheelchair ramp back to Buckhorn Gap. This section we came across another SS team, but as we went up the stairs on Black, they said they had them all and heading toward the beer. Man did that sound good to me! Back to more hiking up toward Buckwheat. I was really getting run down. We were over 9 hours in and I knew finishing in 10 hours was not going to happen. With all the creek crossings and wet shoes, I was having issues with the back of my heels. My shoes were moving and rubbing them raw. All I could do is just keep moving forward and head toward home.
We hiked up the start of Bennett and rolled in to our last check point. We were running low on water and ready to be done. On the way to the check point it crossed my mind that we should do it as an out and back, but I really didn't know if that was a good idea or not. I knew Bennett had a lot of down hill, so I continued with the original plan, but I also knew that I could not ride down all of Bennett. Nothing like hiking down hills, but what ever. We passed several teams climbing up this section. I was very glad that we didn't decide to go that way and we saw some people that we saw earlier so I think we went the better way.
Bottom of Bennett, take a left and then up Clawhammer. I was told about a natural spring on Clawhammer that was safe to drink and we knew people that have drank out of there before. We were both out of water and I could really use some. Jeff was just climbing along and forgot to look for the pipe. Thankfully we found it and filled up a bottle. The water didn't taste too bad, but we found out later that who we thought had drank out of there, actually didn't. Thankfully we didn't get sick, so it must not be too bad.
I was really hurting on this section of Clawhammer and even stopped for a second to walk a short pitch. I could smell the car and got back on and kept turning pedals the best I could. For some reason the turn on to Maxwell seemed to put a spark in the legs and I motored up Maxwell a lot better than I would have expected. The climb was a blur and then we were at the gap and making the turn on to Black with out hesitation. The hike sucked, but I knew it was the last hike of the day. Over the top and bombed down Black. I was riding way too fast for how tired I was, but I was ready to be done. I did play it safe on a couple spots that were more sketchy, but I let it all hang out the more we went.
So, we rolled across the finish line in 11 hours and 33 min as official finishers!! The main goal was accomplished, we finished and it was no where near dark. Yes, we would have liked to finish in 1.5 hours less or at least with 5 check points, but with everything that happened, the wrong turns and all that could have happened, we are pretty happy with our end result. The numbers shake out as official finish time of 11:33:48, 10th place SS and 44th place overall. Right at 60 miles and 9,200 feet of climbing. My Garmin says we had an actual ride time of 9.5 hours, so there is a lot of time that can be improved, but with an event like this there are so many things that can happen to make your time even slower. I have to say that while I was the team navigator for the day, 2 of the 3 times we missed a turn Jeff was leading the team 😜. But, that does not mean that I would not have made the same mistakes LOL.
I want to thank Jeff for being a great partner and waiting on me all day. I know if he really wanted to "race" this event, he would need to find another partner. I was happy to be able to temporarily wear the People's Brewing kit as well as I did. I really need to thank Eric for helping us out or our day would have been a lot shorter. I also need to thank Pisgah Productions and all the volunteers for putting on such great events!! If I lived closer to this awesome area, I would attend every one of his events. Thanks to everyone who has helped me get to where I am. Adventures Recreation, ESI Grips, CarboRocket, Trucker Co, Honey Stinger and of course my wonderful wife. I would also like to thank Richard for all the things he has done for me!! I truly appreciate it all.
Even after a big day like this where I still feel the effects to this day, we immediately discussed heading back in 2019 and getting 5 check points! At one point I thought just finishing this race would be one of the hardest things I could do, to now I have finished while riding a singlespeed and next I hope to finish with 5 check points while on that singlespeed. It is hard to believe how time has changed. #singlespeedaintded #barendsarenotacrime
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