PMBAR starts and finishes at the Black Mountain lot just a short 3 mile bike ride from the house. So we usually just ride over and call it a warmup. Somehow no matter what time we say we’re going to leave and how early we’re up, we always end up scrambling to get out of the house on time. This was no different, after pulling together some bacon and eggs I look at the time and realize we’ve got to get moving. Fortunately we had done most of the prep work the night before and it was mostly just a matter of getting dressed and heading out.

We got over to the start caught up with a few folks, found a good spot to hang out and wait for passports. The fun part here is you still don’t really know where you’re going. There is always a lot of speculation but nobody actually knows. Finally it’s passport time. I grab ours, take a quick look, read all the rules, and off limits areas. Nothing new here, the prologue lap is the same as last year, up Black, down thrift, then back up Black to start. This year most of the field got this right after the mess that was last year.

The checkpoints: the two mandatories Bradley Creek/South Mills intersection and Daniels Ridge/Farlow Gap intersection, about as far away as you can get. The others were at Horse Cove Gap/Cantrell Creek intersection, Pilot Cove Overlook, and Saddle Gap on the Bennet Gap Trail. This was pretty certainly a 5 CP day, none of these really made sense to leave out there. With the mandatory climb up Black to start there isn’t a ton of reason to hang out if you know the trails well and have thoroughly taken in the points. I use the climb to think through route options.

The Prologue this year was interesting. We got started at the same time as a lot of folks, which meant traffic. Climbing steep single track on a single speed with a bunch of geared riders can be challenging. So we started making passes, sometimes 4-5 riders at a time. We got to a good spot, hit the descent, and were pretty clear of most of the traffic. We started up Black the 2nd time and Andy’s back tire goes flat, a little CO2 and we hear the hole but we can’t find it…Finally find it and the 1st plug doesn’t work well. I get the Dynaplug out and it works great. Unfortunately this took 3-5 mins and most of the field caught us. So it was back to making passes all the way up Black again.

I came up with two pretty good routes I thought, at least for the 3 points on the east side. The options were to go over Turkeypen to get down into the “hole” and basically hike out, or ride around Squirrel, drop in on Horse cove, come out Bradley Creek. I felt like they were both good options, one was a little more hike heavy and the other had a whole bunch of creek crossings in Bradley Creek. Knowing where Andy and I were fitness wise I started to think mixing a little more hiking/off bike time in might not be a bad thing and I haven’t ridden Turkeypen in a while. So we opted for the Turkeypen option.

Turkeypen is actually a pretty good trail in my opinion, it’s hard, it’s hard to get to, and it commits you to a big day no matter how you slice it. These things mean it doesn’t get much traffic which also means it is usually in pretty good shape. After dropping out of the bottom, we roll into the first checkpoint to find Dahn Pahrs and his partner looking over the map. It was good to see they were close but I really didn’t want them to see which way we went. Knowing they were likely a little stronger riders than us today I figured our main advantage was the fact that I wasn’t looking at maps. I figured most sight of us would allow them to follow or if nothing else confirm they were going the right way.

We took off pretty quickly toward the next point ahead of them. At this point we start seeing the folks who I expect to be the top 3-4 teams come at us, then the other strong SS teams, they chose the other route I had in my head. Great…not one of them chose my route, not confidence inducing. We were committed at this point and we made the hike up to the next point, continue on. Up and over Funneltop Mtn, out to Pilot cove. Pilot Cove would give us a pretty good idea of how the first part of our route really compared.

As we start up, a few of those first teams start to come at us, I felt like this was a pretty good sign although they had a little more time than I would have liked. At the time it meant the leaders were only about 35-40 mins ahead of us, and no singlespeed teams came down at us. Which also meant we were the first singlespeed team. Starting to feel a little better about the route choice. Almost as soon as we started down, Dahn and Jarmz were rolling up. We made short work of the down (which is a great little downhill) and headed out 1206. After a quick stop for water at Pink Beds we were on our way out to Daniels Ridge/Farlow.

Our water stop allowed Dahn/Jarmz to pass us, but we needed water and not having to filter is nice. When we picked up 475B the rain was coming down pretty heavy, and the beginnings of my fight with my glasses began. Unfortunately these glasses are prescription and pretty strong, so I can’t ride without them. I’ve gotten away from contacts for a lot of races for a number of reasons, but it tends to backfire in heavy storms.

We run into Dahn/Jarmz once again at the checkpoint and they take off a min or two ahead. I thought we might catch them heading down Daniel Ridge, but my vision was so bad I had to hold back a lot. A little road spin back to Avery Creek road and Wes and Joe come by us like we’re standing still…gears…and they were headed home (they’d end up in 2nd overall).  With the last point at Saddle gap on Bennett gap, we had 2 options, hike up or go around on the gravel. I was pretty undecided here, but ultimately didn’t feel like hiking (which in hindsight hiking was probably the way to go and would have saved 10 mins or more). We went around, the climb was tough, but the girl at the checkpoint had homemade Snickers bars so it was totally worth it.

The heaviest of storms started just as we began heading down, and again I couldn’t see much of anything. I was trying to use Andy’s rear blinky light and the water streams as my guide, which worked pretty well for the most part. It was slow going for sure, I went down once but it was super soft. We weren’t going to make up any time descending like that but we did keep the rubber side down.

On to Clawhammer, Maxwell, Black Mtn to finish, another descent I could hardly see down and a pretty uneventful finish in 8:49 with all 5 check points. We were in fact the 2nd singlespeed team and 9th Overall.

All and all it was a pretty good day, riding bikes all day with a good friend is tough to beat. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden my bike for more than 4-5 hours, this did a good job of reminding me how much I enjoy doing it. It’s hard because I honestly missed the Saturday with the family at the same time.

On the bike I did a much better job of eating and drinking this year than I did last year. We also made a big effort to try and keep our pace more manageable, Andy was just coming off a pretty substantial injury and wasn’t real sure where his fitness was so we decided to just try and stay steady. I think this paid off bigtime, our pace stayed pretty consistent all day. We didn’t really drop off and I still felt pretty strong at the end, which is more than I can say for a lot of events.

I’m ready to get back out and do it again.

I did manage to destroy a set of brake pads, a rotor…no wonder the rear brake lever was coming to the bars for the last two hours…and a bottom bracket. Thanks Pisgah for your gracious bike hospitality.