Pmbar 2015 back at one of the most fun races around after two years of missing it and I’ve still not chosen a good route for this race. After moving to brevard in January and riding a fair amount in the area I felt a little better about knowing where we were going than I have in the past but my experience is limited to a relatively small area at this point as we’ve spent entirely too much time working on the house . With that being said my fitness wasn’t exactly where I wanted as I had grand intentions of putting in some long days on the bike that never really came to fruition, so my longest day on the bike in over 6 months had been a 40ish mile jaunt just a couple weeks before hand. My partner for the race, Andy, described his training as sporadic and not as much as he would have liked  but my guess was it was still more than mine. Either way we were ready to ride and had a pretty solid approach of just keeping it moving.

PMBAr is unique in the fact that you don’t really know where you’re going before you start, you know you’re going up black and there are a few other spots you’re pretty likely to go but all and all its up to Eric wever to let you know what points are out there then you decide what route you’re going to take. We lined up mid pack, got the pass port with 5 mins to start time and waited patiently for direction to open it. Go! Before taking off we quickly scanned the passport for any funny business, special rules, and quick overview of points. We’d formulate our plan on the climb up thrift to black. We were off and Andy pushed the pace , climbing a single speed kind of wants to go a certain speed anyhow, before long we were up pretty far in the field with some of the leaders and picked up view of The Rich Dillen, at that point the pace really picked up and we got on his wheel for the hike up middle black. Up near the top we got caught behind some geared riders who told us to calm down as they slowly spun with their amazingly large rear cassettes, if we wanted to stay on our bikes this was not going to work. We found a way by and left them behind. As we got to the top we quickly mounted tried to rip down to Presley gap, only to get caught behind another team who wasn’t quite as adept with the downhill aspect, we lost Rich Dillen.

Decision is made to head to the point farthest out and make use of Turkey Pen, which meant hiking up Black a little ways, heading up black it didn’t appear there were many up in front of us. Right on Turkey Pen… we’re clearly the first tracks here…hmm we were the only team to choose this route, that doesn’t give me a good feeling for our route choice, too late to change now. Up and down on turkey pen, small crash, no pain but bars aare severely misaligned. Take a second to correct the issue, or so I thought, I’d realize later I rode most of the race with my bars slightly askew. Anyhow, pick up the point at south mills/Bradley and were the first ones there, interesting. It turns out the logical route would have had this as the 2nd point after picking up the point on Squirrel gap, oh well, it was off to laurel mtn for our 2nd. This meant wanting to have a canoe to cross Bradley creek 20 30 times. Laurel really isn’t a bad climb for the most part but I was starting to feel it in my legs and at this point I was 2nd guessing the decision not to carry the camelback bladder, 3l of water would be amazing. Oh well, ration water, I know there is some at the bottom of pilot. Unfortunately there is a pretty solid hike before getting there. After picking up the point we made the hike up and start down the pilot descent, passing a handful of teams on their way up. Descending pilot on a rigid bike is a unique experience and a test of forearm fortitude. I rode more than I expected to, only bobbling once maybe twice, just hoping to see that creek. I was so thirsty at that point and starting to feel crampy even on the descent. Finally we see water and start the steri pen process, downing a bottle at the creek and then filling up two more to go.

From here we made the decision to skip the squirrel point and go over to the hatchery side to pick up the point on Daniel Ridge and way out at Bracken Mtn. Knowing this would take us to the hatchery where there was more water I was drinking much more freely. There was a lot of gravel left ahead of us and not much trail. Down 1206 to 276 off on 475B to 225 to Daniel ridge, a pretty easy ride over for the most part and we managed to pass up another single speed team on the way so we were feeling alright. We almost made a mistake and headed the wrong way on Daniel but immediately realized that was not a good choice. Most of Daniel is a descent from where we were and a pretty good time. All the way down to 475 we went and picked up the Davidson river trail. This is a short little flowy piece of trail that is primarily downhill in the direction we were going and man was it fun. We rolled into the hatchery to reload bottle and start what would be the low point of the day.

One point left, Bracken Mtn, an out and back on 475C or Horse Cove Rd. In passing conversations with folks we heard this was about 6-7 miles of gradual climbing, not what the legs needed at the moment but it was where we were going. We started up with two more single speeders from Knoxville, Jim Rivers and Gary Chambers, after a little chat it was evident Gary was finding a groove that was a notch above any groove we could find and they pulled away. I then pulled away from Andy for a few minutes but soon he caught me and I fell back. Starting to unravel I managed to eat some more and drink some more and started to feel some life again. This road never seemed to end, I kept waiting to see Jim and Gary coming back at us but it just wouldn’t happen. Finally we see a tent which meant we were there, I’d like to say there was a big sprint to the tent but that would be a lie. We checked our passport and all that then grabbed a bite to eat before heading down. 4 Checkpoints done, time to head to the house. Not without a quick stop at the hatchery for more water and maybe a Pepsi.

Time to head to the house, of course it can’t be as easy as just taking the road back, luckily some of 276 was open so we didn’t have to climb all the way back up 475B but we still had to get up to Presley gap to finish on the Black Mtn Trail. This meant going up Avery Creek road to the Stables, picking up Clawhammer to Maxwell cove. At this point in the day Clawhammer, a road I ride quite frequently, felt like a wall. We made our way up to the top and made the last little push up Black to the top where it is pretty much all downhill from here. We heard a geared team starting to get close which could only mean one thing. Andy was not going to let them catch us. I did my best to stay on his wheel down the techy top section, which mildly worked then we hit the fast lower section and were flying.

We came across the finish line and at the time were sitting in 3rd place SS, unfortunately two other SS teams picked up 5 points and with the 2 hour time bonus pushed us to 5th. Either way it was a good day in the woods and I’ll take 5th place given the awful route choice and lack of riding lately. PMBAR is one of the races that really makes racing fun it takes more than just hammering out a course, you have to choose your course wisely and know your body.