By Luis Calderon
What a great weekend in the beloved Pisgah National
Forest! I teamed up with Jeremy
to race PMBAR.
This meant I would have to drive solo from FL
and eat up the costs of driving. This actually
turned out to be a blessing as my favorite travel/camping
partners: my wife and Paco decided to join me!
Paco during his
co-pilot shift
As usual we left early on Friday and made it
to PNF in the afternoon. We made quick work
of setting up our campsite. Jeremy showed up
so we decided to go for a short ride to spin
out the legs. As soon as I started pedaling
uphill I felt unusually weak. I thought I just
needed to warm up after the long drive. The
ride was pretty short but that didn't stop Pisgah
from taking a little sacrificial offering. On
a rocky section Jeremy managed to mangle both
wheels. Luckily he had a spare wheelset at home
so the race was still on! After the ride we
talked a bit about our goals and decided that
5 checkpoints would be a respectable finish.
All
week I had been checking the weather reports.
It seemed pretty certain that we would have
to use the required rain jackets during the
race, the question was when? and how bad?
Race morning I woke up early
and rode to the start to find my partner and
register. We looked at the "off limits"
map for any trail closures. It was pretty straight
forward: FS 1206 , HWY 276 and hiking trails.
I saw my wife who decided to come and watch
the start with Paco! Sweet!
PMBAR promoter Eric gave a speech that rivaled
Braveheart and handed out the passports. And
with that the race was on... UP Black Mountain...
Now, I've descended this trail countless of
times, it is one of my favorites, this day I
cursed whoever built this beast. As soon as
I stood up to climb I felt the unmistakable
warning that there was no power to be had from
my legs, I thought "this is going to be
a long freaking day". I bonked bad at Cohutta,
and I was still paying the price for my nutritional
errors.
We got to Pressley Gap and opened our passport.
According to Jeremy the CP's were pretty much
in the same location as last year so off we
went, moving quickly down Turkey Pen. Going
down Turkey Pen I came upon a steep switchback
a little too fast hit some roots at the bottom
and went flying over the bars. Nice! No harm
done to bike or body.
We decided to go against the flow and hit the
logical CP 2 as our first checkpoint. On route
at one of the stream crossings we came across
a team descending down one of the "off
limits" hiking trails. We gave them a bit
of evil eye...but we didn't really care, they
know who they are. It took us nearly 3 hours
to nab our first CP.
We continued on to our 2nd CP which was fairly
close to the first one. On our way we came across
Dicky and Elk headed the way we had just come.
The were setting a furios pace as their goals
were greater and quickly caught us on a slight
climb. At the same moment Dicky was getting
close to my wheel my foot got caught on a pointed
root that was sticking out of the side of the
trail. Dicky slammed into my rear tire nearly
shearing my foot off (and tearing my shoe) in
the process. It still hurts today.
After that the day was pretty much without incident.
Jeremy and I kept cracking jokes trying to keep
morale high as we both knew the other one was
hurting. When we reached our 3rd CP at South
Mills River we pretty much decided without much
discussion that we were headed to Club Gap and
then back to the finish with the minimum number
of CPs.
We reached the Club Gap CP and discussed which
way to go. Jeremy wanted to go down Avery >
5059 >Clawhammer>Maxwell Cove> Black
Mountain. This way was faster as it involved
the first significant section of gravel FS roads
we would ride that day, including a significant
climb. I kinda wanted to go back the way we
had come since I had seen enough gravel at Cohutta
to last a lifetime: up and down Black Mountain
which involved some serious hike-a-bike to the
top, but an all singletrack descent to the finish.
We went with Jeremy's route.
I was hurting on the climb up Maxwell Cove.
It was weird that a couple of weeks prior I
was flying up this same climb. We both let out
a big WOOOHOOO! when we got to Pressley Gap.
From here it's just a short hike-a-bike and
a steep hill to the top and then all the fast
descent goodness that Pisgah offers back down
to the finish.
We railed the descent as much as you possibly
can after a big ride and came in at the finish
in 7:47 which was good enough for 19th place.
My wife and Paco were waiting and that made
me smile. I was tired after a big day but not
Cohutta bonked.
PMBAR turned out to be the
race by which I will measure all races from
now on. It really was great. Eric
delivered all the promised pain and fun (not
to mention the most brutal start to a race EVER!),
and that is the reason we do these things. I
will surely be back next year with fresher legs
and higher goals. lc
All
week I had been checking the weather reports.
It seemed pretty certain that we would have
to use the required rain jackets during the
race, the question was when? and how bad? 
We got to Pressley Gap and opened our passport.
According to Jeremy the CP's were pretty much
in the same location as last year so off we
went, moving quickly down Turkey Pen. Going
down Turkey Pen I came upon a steep switchback
a little too fast hit some roots at the bottom
and went flying over the bars. Nice! No harm
done to bike or body. 
