The Post-PMBAR Blues

I've been in a little bit of a funk the past few days. Maybe it's because I was just worn out for the first couple of days after PMBAR, or maybe it's because I have a slow work week. I don't know. Maybe it's a combination of both. When I woke up this morning, I seriously debated just drinking bourbon all day, but that seemed pathetic, and reminded me of a time in my life where things weren't good. Things are fantastic now, so that wasn't the right solution. I had a bit of work I could do, but I just wasn't feeling it. No, I needed to ride.

I headed down to my bike shop in the basement, and unpacked all of my required PMBAR gear. Today wasn't going to be an epic ride, whatever the hell that even means. Out came the compass and the emergency blanket. My blinkie was reinstalled on the road bike. My unused, pre-measured, cocaine-like bricks of half-evil endurance fuel were set aside for another time. Just clean water today, thank you. The water filter wouldn't be necessary either, 100oz. would be plenty. I didn't want to care about the time, distance, speed, elevation, or calories, so the Garmin was left on the workbench. I did, however, add the camera. Today was going to be a cruise around DuPont, my recently neglected stomping grounds. Just me, the Lazer Cat, and minimal gear.

I loaded up the Grand and headed out to the southeast side of town. I hadn't driven this way in a while, but the curves were still familiar. So was the frustration of being behind an out-of-stater not so familiar with the curves. No big deal; I'd be on the trails soon enough. On the way out, I decided to stop and see the newly opened Connestee Falls Park. This is a waterfall a very short distance off the road, that had been closed for some time while the City turned it into a park. I gotta say, I was disappointed. I was hoping the City would make the bottom of the falls safely accessible, but all they did was build a boardwalk to the top of the falls. It's a shame. This is a double waterfall, and I would love to see it from the bottom.





I eventually made it to the Fawn Lake access lot, and headed down to Reasonover Creek Trail, one of my absolute favorites. The forest was quiet, and it seemed like I was the only one there.







I made it down to Lake Julia (Gulia), and hung out for a bit, walking around taking pics of anything that interested me.









From there, it was up to the airstrip, down Airstrip Trail, and over to Bridal Veil Falls via Barn Trail. This was to be my lunch stop, and I had it all to myself. The falls were really flowing today.









From the falls, I headed up Corn Mill Shoals Trail, to Shoals Trail, to Laurel Ridge, and finished up with Mine Mountain. On my way up the tough Corn Mill Shoals climb, I stopped to talk to a couple of Brits for a few minutes. One of them was talking about how mountain biking was putting a strain on his marriage. That's just something I luckily don't understand. Riding makes me a better person at home. It centers me and keeps me sane. Heather gets that. She knows when I need to ride and why. She supports my passion, and wants to hear about each and every ride I do. That's just one of many reasons why she's my soul-dork.

After quickly telling the Brit that I would not represent him in his potential divorce, I continued on and finished my ride, cleaning two tough climbs I've never cleaned before in the process. It was a great, and much needed ride, and I couldn't believe how good I actually felt physically. It was nice to ride just to ride. Goal specific riding has its place, but that's not why I make my way back to the trailheads time and time again. For the near future, I won't be training for anything. Any riding I do will be because I love it. Just me and the Lazer Cat, sailing through the forest.

The PMBAR Experience

PMBAR was awesome. I don't know how else to put it, and the more I recap the day, the more awesome it was. That may be because the memory of the pain is starting to fade, but it was one of the best days I've spent in the woods. Yes, this was a race, but Mike and I weren't really racing, so it really was about the experience for us. Sure, we wanted to get our 4 checkpoints and finish the race, but most of all, we wanted to have a good time and push ourselves to our limits, and we achieved both of those goals. We made it to 3 checkpoints, but rode 63 miles. In looking at the results thread on mtbr, other teams rode the same distance, if not less, and got 4 checkpoints. That means I chose the wrong route. I may have known where all of the trails were, and we may have only had to look at our map a couple of times, but I learned a valuable lesson about sequencing the checkpoints. Next year, we will not be heading out to the furthest checkpoint first.

After handing in our wooden nickel, avoiding a 2 hour penalty, we headed up Thrift and Black like everyone else. Once we hit Pressley Gap, where most teams were sitting down looking at their maps, we headed down Maxwell>Clawhammer>477>276. We decided that we would go to the checkpoint at the intersection of Daniel Ridge and Farlow Gap. We hit Daniel, and followed the creek up to Farlow. At this point, we were feeling just fine about our day, and were confident we would get 4 CPs. We continued on Daniel, took the shortcut trail up to 225, over to 475B, and up to 276. We stopped at the Pink Beds picnic area and filled our water, and then headed up and down 1206 to the CP that killed our day.

The plan was to hit the mandatory CP at the Pilot Connector/Laurel Mtn intersection, head down Laurel Mtn, then down Bradley Creek to its intersection with S. Mills for that mandatory CP, then up S. Mills to Cantrell Creek, up Horse Cove to Squirrel, to its intersection with S. Mills for the final mandatory CP. From there it would be the home stretch up to Buckhorn Gap, down Clawhammer to Maxwell, up and down Black and then Thrift Cove to the finish. Well, that didn't really work out.

We headed down 1206 to Pilot, and started the 2+ mile hike-a-bike straight up. At this point we were probably at around 3000ft elevation, and the top of this trail is close to 5000ft. 2000ft of elevation gain over a little more than 2 miles makes for a steep hike. Add to that the 30'ish miles we had already ridden, and the fact that we were pushing our bikes, and you can probably see why this zapped most of our energy. My quads were cramping, and we got to the point where we were only taking 20 or so steps between rest stops.

We finally hit the CP and decided to reassess our goals. After finishing Laurel, heading down Bradley Creek would be a commitment. That trail is out there, and we would have a long way to go for the finish. We decided that we would be happy with 3 CPs, and really wanted to knock down a beer sooner than later. After heading down Laurel, we were feeling pretty good, but I assured Mike that it was a false high, and would fade as soon as we hit some climbs, so we continued on 1206 past Bradley Creek, and up to 476. From there we went up and down S. Mills to the CP at Squirrel, and then headed back up S. Mills, up Buckhorn Gap, down Clawhammer, down 477, and then took 276 back to the Finish. That part of 276 was off limits, but since we were DNF'ing anyway, we didn't care. We were just ready to be off our bikes.

Again, we rode 63 miles over ~11 hours in some of the toughest terrain around. I feel like that was a pretty darn big accomplishment, and I know that we will finish the race next year. Mike did awesome. This was really only his fourth time ever mountain biking, and he was able to do this. Unbelievable. Our first PMBAR experience was a great one. The atmosphere was the way anything involving mountain bikers should be, and the weather and trails were perfect. I also had the opportunity to ride with this guy for a bit. I didn't take the camera out at all during the race, but brado1 was there taking much better photos than I could have, and you can see his here. A big thank you to everyone involved with coordinating and carrying out this event. We'll definitely be back next year.

Some Garmin Stats:

PMBAR

This time tomorrow I'll be somewhere out in the middle of the mountains above with my buddy Mike G. I've done endurance rides before including the Brown County Breakdown, the Muskingum Mayhem, and a road tour from Cincy to Cleveland, but I've never been in a race. I'm excited to finally enter my first one, and I'm sure it will lead to many more. We won't really be going at any kind of racing pace, though, just hoping to finish with four checkpoints before it gets dark, so hopefully I'll pull out the camera and grab some pics for the blog.

I'll report back on Sunday. Gotta go eat a few pounds of pasta now.

Busted Pisgah Loop

Yesterday, I went for a ride in Pisgah and wanted to do some exploring/scouting for PMBAR. I knew that one of the checkpoints in the past had been the intersection of Squirrel Gap and Cantrell Creek, so I thought I'd go there. I parked in my usual spot in front of the South White Pines Group Camp, and headed up 477 and Clawhammer. Once I reached Buckhorn Gap, I headed down the trail with the same name to S. Mills River trail and turned right. This is an easy trail, so of course I wrecked on it on a big, slippery rock. Not too much damage was done, so on I went.

I made it down the switchbacks to the suspension bridge just before the intersection with Squirrel Gap.


The first part of Squirrel is tight, twisty, and low, and actually reminded me a bit of trails in Ohio. Once you hit the intersection with Horse Cove (I think), the trail turns into pristine, benchcut singletrack that flows nicely along the contour of the mountain.


I made it to the intersection with Cantrell Creek Trail, but not before having to cross Cantrell Creek itself.


At this point, I had a loop in mind, and headed down Cantrell Creek Trail. I liked the tight, techy feel of this trail with all of the rocks and creek crossings, but I didn't like how overgrown it was. My legs were quickly sliced up. Also, this trail has 10-15 creek crossings on it, and the water was flowing, so I was only able to really ride across a few of them. It was hot out, though, and I didn't mind the wet feet.

I made it down to the intersection with S. Mills River Trail, and this is where we get to the busted loop. I inconveniently forgot that this section of the trail requires you to cross the S. Mills River many times without the help of a nice suspension bridge. I mentioned before that Cantrell Creek was flowing, but it was nothing compared to the river. I started the first crossing, and almost lost my footing a couple of times, with the water coming up to my lower thigh. I made it, though, and continued on to the second crossing. This one looked a little deeper, so I looked for a better place to cross. The place I found was still deep and flowing hard, but the deep section looked to be shorter, so in I went. The water here came up to mid to upper thigh, and the rocks were slippery as snot. Somehow I made it and continued on. I got to the third crossing and said "no mas." It was a very wide crossing, and looked to be even deeper. It was just a little too much to attempt alone, so I turned around.

I barely made it back across the first two crossings, and continued on S. Mills Trail the other direction, past the intersection with Cantrell. The trail basically turned into an old road bed, and the trip up to Turkey Pen Rd. was uneventful. I was happy to see three more of these along the way.


Not really feeling like I had the energy to head up Turkey Pen Gap Trail to Black, I shot down the road and pedaled the pavement back to my car, which of course was pretty lame. I still managed to get 30 miles in, though, and had a good adventure.

Laurel, Revisited

When I first moved down here, the Laurel/Pilot route was one of my first rides in Pisgah. At that time I was riding my rigid, SS Karate Monkey and between finishing law school, studying for and taking the bar, and then moving to Brevard, my fitness level was dreadful. Now, I would say my fitness level has risen to the level of "poor," so I thought it was time to hit this route again on the Lazer Cat. Only, by the time I decided to ride up Laurel, I had already put in 15 miles in Pisgah, which is roughly equivalent to 127 miles on any trail system in Cincinnati.

The ride up Laurel started off much better than last time, and I think a lot of the reason was the addition of gears. Laurel has some pretty technical sections, and I still couldn't clear most of them, but did better. On my way up, there was a group of three riders that passed me in the other direction, easily clearing a section that I wouldn't even attempt. Not too long later, they passed me in the other direction. There really are some amazing riders around here.

Anyway, I eventually made it to Pilot, and wussed my way down switchback hell and through the rock garden. I ended up doing 36 miles, and felt pretty rough by the end. My fitness is really improving, but I need to work on feeding myself better on long rides. A Cliff bar just isn't going to cut it. For anyone interested, my route for the day was 477>Clawhammer>Buckhorn Gap>S. Mills River>476(?)>1206>Laurel>Pilot>1206>276>477.

A few pics:

Family Visit and Riding

Heather's parents came up to see our new house this weekend, so Friday and Saturday we hung out with them. Before we met up with them on Saturday morning, though, we walked down the street and watched the roadies from the Assault on the Carolinas zip by.



I believe there were 700-800 riders this year, and it was more of a festival atmosphere than in years past. They had a band playing, vendor booths, and food and drink booths. Hopefully a precursor to a mountain bike festival in the near future? If you rode in the race, I might have a pic of you if you go to my Flickr page.

Sunday, we met the pseudo in-laws for breakfast before they headed home, and then I went to Pisgah for a longer ride. I started off climbing up Clawhammer, and immediately regretted eating french toast right before the ride. I felt better by the time I hit the top though, and continued down Buckhorn Gap to South Mills River. That was my first time down that way, and I really enjoyed it.



From S. Mills, I took Pink Beds. I really wanted to do Squirrel, but I had no way to get more water, having left my filter at home. Once I got up to the Pink Beds lot, I refilled my water and headed down 276 to 477, and up Club Gap. Club Gap is rough and straight up, but thankfully short. I then sat down in whatever shade I could find for a quick break at the intersection.



I was thinking about going down Avery, but felt like I had a little more in the tank, so I headed up Black instead. On a downhill section, I came around a corner a little too hot, and my front wheel slid out. Everything went in slow motion for a second, and down I went. I landed hard on my left side and just stayed still for a minute. Once I realized that nothing was broken (bike or body), I got up and noticed the major knot in the side of my calf. I tried to work it out, but it wasn't helping, so on I went.





Once I got down to Buckhorn Gap, I was really wishing I had just gone down Avery, and in fact, I still wanted to go down Avery, but how should I get over there? Well I decided I wasn't beat up enough, so I thought some exploring would be in order. I had noticed an unimproved road on the map that connected Clawhammer to Avery (5057), and wanted to check it out. I headed down the somewhat overgrown path, and all was well for a bit, but then I ran into sections that were totally overgrown with thorn bushes. I was glad I had just filled my tires with some fresh Stan's, but wished I had worn long pants and long sleeves.

I eventually made it over to Avery, and the trip down was a blast, and uneventful. It was a great, and long day in Pisgah. This place is like nothing else. I only rode 25-30 miles, but I was in the forest for 5+ hours. The miles here are tough and slow-going.

New Digs

I've been MIA for a bit, but it's been for a good reason. Heather and I bought and moved into our new house. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, and we are both totally exhausted, but we absolutely love our new place. We're still in Brevard, but tucked away in a quiet little corner, just outside of the city limits. Without going into too much detail, it has way more space than we need, is in great shape, and we got it for a killer price.

Now, onto the features of interest to mountain bikers. For the first time ever, I have a dedicated bike space. We have a full basement, and one section in particular just seemed perfect for it. I can keep all of our bikes, parts, tools, and accessories in one place, and still have plenty of room to work on the bikes.

Here's the space with the Lazer Cat in the stand, getting some TLC.


It's not all put together yet, but I'm very excited to have it.

The next feature of interest is the setting. We are tucked away on a hill, with trees all around us. There's another house on one side, but the other side is an empty, wooded lot. Behind us is a gravel road, and then just mountains beyond that. It's so incredibly quiet and peaceful, especially compared to the townhome, which was on a very busy road, and had very thin walls separating us from our fat neighbors. The difference is remarkable, and our stress levels have just plummeted.

Back and Side Yards:




Now, the real kicker. If you look closely in that last pic, you can see the gravel road. About a hundred yards beyond the section you can see, the road dead ends right into a conservation easement that the city owns. If you go up there and look around, you'll see colored tape around trees. That's because the city is planning on building trails through the property, and have already started the layout phase, with construction probably starting this summer. So yes, we will have trails to ride and hike right out of our back yard.

But wait, it gets better. On the other side of that conservation easement is Pisgah. The ultimate plan is to work with the Forest Service and connect the city trails into the Pisgah trails. My guess would be that it would connect to 475C, which would mean I could ride from my house, into the fish hatchery area.

Needless to say, we are so happy and excited to be here for many reasons.