It’s early May, the forecast is questionable, it must be PMBAR time. Joe, my partner from last year, good friend and riding buddy who knows my tendencies made the call that he wasn’t going to be able to partake this year. Pretty quickly, Brian Ziegler from the BFC group stepped in. Brian’s a strong rider would be coming off the stage race in April and was up for some Pisgah suffering. He hadn’t done PMBAR with me yet though…
As usual, the weather forecast kept changing, although consistent in looking like it was going to be wet and wild, but hey, it’s Pisgah and PMBAR, it’s to be expected. It could also change entirely and be amazing. You never really know.
I’ve written about PMBAR in the past, I’m going to skip all the intro, if you want to read more here’s some links to past write ups, 2023, 2022, 2019, 2018, and the rest (this was my 10th PMBAR). It is, however, the best bike game out the in my honest and humble opinion though. It’s going to be hard; it’s going to make you think, it’s going to make you wonder why you gave someone else money for this. But at the end of the day, it’s rewarding and oh so much fun.
Onto the Race
The field seemed sort of intimidating this year, I knew about 6-7 teams that were extremely strong. Then there are always seemingly one or two that I don’t realize. Which seems more than normal. Anyhow, I’m not there to Win, I like to be near the pointy end of the field, when possible, though.
Katie brought the kids over to the start and was able to get where we could see each other. It was a little thing but a lot of fun to be able to see them as we got ready to start.
Racer meeting: Eric harps on the passport reading, which is typical, but it felt more than normal. Then he mentions how much of a mess Turkey Pen Gap Trail and Laurel Creek Trail were with downed trees, which felt odd. Anyhow, the passports are here this year so it’s more of the traditional start than last year.
Passports
Go! get the passports, normal rules, start 5016 to Black, same points as last year, but…5018 and 5015 are closed, Bradley creek road and ??, I feel like I’m missing something, quickly scan the notes at each of the checkpoint pages, nothing stands out.
Ok, I guess let’s get riding. I started the day second guessing, and now we’re in more traffic than I wanted to be. But we did happen to get in with Jorts and his partner, who I knew were going to do well. A little back and forth and realize 5018 is Funnel Top Road.
Routes
Something I’m usually pretty good at, I couldn’t seem to get my head around. I don’t know why I had such a mental block. The hardest point to get or most out of your way is down in the bottom of South Mills, go there first…and the fastest way there is pretty much going to be on TurkeyPen Gap. Don’t let some downed trees bother that decision. Lots of hiking on that trail anyhow. But…that’s not what happened.
We decided to go around Black Mountain and Clawhammer mountain on the gravel, and at that point we made the call to hit Club first, more fun and downhill to get it? get it out of the way? Whatever it was it felt like a decision, hit the 1/2 way road, slog a little up Avery but then descend Black, We’re the first ones to the checkpoint …. OK, so the fast teams didn’t think this was a good idea.
At this point I’m thinking we’ll go against the grain, it’s worked out before, decide to go Clockwise- Pick up the high points First …Already, I don’t love it, but at this point I was frustrated we didn’t take Turkeypen when I felt like that was the way to go and that just didn’t seem to want to let me make rational decisions anymore.
Onwards and upwards
We are committed to the direction, which means hit Slate Cove first, once again, we’re the first ones there. Not a good sign, but Josh has the music going and is getting the party started. Certainly, the liveliest checkpoint. We head out; it is a quick checkpoint and back over to start the hike up Pilot Rock.
It’s a hike, pretty much the whole way, you can pedal really short sections here and there but it’s a 45 min hike or so to the top. Crap, I get to the top and I’ve walked away from Brian and walked myself into some cramps. I tend to put my head down and go when it gets to long climbs, on foot or on the bike.
We started over the top, through the steep part and into the “flow” down to the checkpoint. However, we didn’t make it to the checkpoint before Bragg and Cypress are hiking at us. Crap – how close is everyone else? It’s not too long before we see a bunch…this is when I really started to get some confirmation we were in a big hole.
Downwards
We still had Laurel to descend, which I don’t do often enough. Super Fun, Slick, but Fun, which made the time we were behind less worrisome. Next up, Bradley Creek Trail.
Bradley Creek had so many trees down, it’s bad on its own. It crosses the river so many times. Then with tree after tree down, every time you got on your bike it was time to get off again. Finally, we come to more trails, and for some unforeseen reason I think we should stay low and take Bradley all the way out to South Mills.
In Hindsight, this was a bad idea, I’m quite sure we’d have saved some time by going up Laurel Creek to Squirrel gap, going across squirrel, dropping Cantrell down to the checkpoint, then heading back out Lower Horse Cove…but That’s not what we did, stayed on Bradley for more creek crossings, more climbing than I remembered, and around to South Mills before the gentle ride around to the checkpoint
As we were coming down South Mills to the checkpoint a big group of PMBAR folks came at us. Which felt odd at the time but, hey, it’s PMBAR.
We made the checkpoint, did our thing, ate some food and moved on to the climb up Cantrell, to do a little out and back on Squirrel Gap to Laurel gap for our last checkpoint before heading home.
The climb out of Cantrell seemed like it put Brian in the hurt locker, but I figured the little out and back on squirrel was only 40-50 mins total, and the game is 5 … so we pushed on, much to his unstated non-delight.
Finally start heading back home, Squirrell, South Mills, Buckhorn, Claw, Max, Black, easy peasy…as the rain picks up to “heavy” at this point.
To the Barn
Squirrel was a surprisingly good time, Brian came back to life and was ripping, the trail wasn’t quite as slick as you might think and well, I just love some Squirrel Gap Trail. We hit the river crossing at Wolf Ford, and it was still raining solidly. Climb out the wheelchair ramp, which was wet and uneventful.
At Buckhorn Gap, the Rescue Crew was loading up a fellow racer, which is never something you want to see, but they had it all under control at that point.
So, it was down Clawhammer for the last climb up Maxwell before that last downhill. We managed to leapfrog another team before finally passing them on Black to get down to the finish. The descent down black was up there with one of my more terrifying ones as I could barely see anything through my glasses at this point.
Doneso
It’s always fun to be finished, and that feeling coming down black to the end is hard to beat. I really had no idea where we placed. I saw Chris Joice and his partner at the finish, and they hadn’t been there long but that didn’t tell me too much. Most of the other teams ahead of us were gone and with the rain it wasn’t great hanging out weather.
Turns out we were 9th, which is hard to be anything but excited about on a day when it just felt like I couldn’t make a good decision on where we were going.
