Pisgah Enduro™ '24

My biggest concern about doing the Old Fort Fifty back-to-back with the Pisgah Enduro™ wasn't all the potential fatigue in my little meat sticks, it was the eight or nine hours I'd need to entertain myself after the Fifty and before I went to bed.  Problem being this:

Not too many people outside of the King of Pisgah ding dongs are doing both events, so there's not gonna be many people in my boat sticking around Camp Grier all day long. I mighta watched Deadpool in my bunk.  I mebbe sought out cell signal to catch up on the social media world.  Eric "PMBAR Honcho" Wever sorta found me hiding (on his front porch), and if there's ever someone who knows how to fix idle hands, it's him.  After regaling me with Phish tales and why freshly fallen rain smells so good (spoiler alert: it's death), he coaxed me into helping tear down the start/finish truss work and barricades.

This is Eric's printer and he doesn't want it to be confused with the other dozen or so printers that weren't there... I guess.

Hands full of trusses and barricades can't be holding beer, at least all the time, so I would say it was a good activity before going back to my bunk to watch Sherlock Holmes and sweat-sleep the night away.

I could skip the part about the two hours and forty minutes it took me to get to the top of Heartbreak Ridge for the start of the Enduro™.

But I won't.

Upper Heartbreak looks even more chunderess when you have time to look at it walking all the way up.  I forgot about that.  I found more points of semi-concern, you know, other than the fact that I'm going to have one more run-in on the Heckle Zone at the end of Stage Two.  I'm 0-2 this weekend, and don't wanna end m y experience with that thirty feet of trail on that note.

I had time at the top to take note that there were only two other idiots up here on hardtails.  IDIOTS.  All three of us.  I jumped in behind my SS podium compatriots from the day before, Scott (who had swapped to a big Transition something or other) and Chris (who had borrowed an even bigger bike... which he single speeded, natch).  I knew they would blow my doors off, and I let the guy a minute behind know that if he sees me, just holler and I'll be a hundred yards off the trail in three seconds.

I poke my way down, walk the death roots, and knowing how much I loathe going high rates of speed over trail with loads of exposure, it's no surprise to learn (later) that I was one of the slowest on Stage One.

But I didn't die, so okay.

Stage Two ends with the Heckle Zone, it has way less exposure, better lines of sight, and we can just say it's more my jam.  I don't get caught by my minute man, granted the stage is half as long as the first, and I had a clear run with no pedestrians through the Heckle Zone.

All race images: Icon Media Asheville

Achievement unlocked, sphincter no longer perma-clenched, redemption... and I've moved up into the top 75%... which is something given my limitations and recently misplaced mojo.

Over to Kitsuma, which as I said, is where I can get my potatoes mashed.  It's probably my second favorite descent in Pisgah, even though that's not true because I'm not mentally putting anything in the Wilson Creek on that list for some dumb reason.  It's honestly the most "pouring like an avalanche coming down the mountain" feeling I can get when I rip this way too familiar downhill.

And despite my self-imposed limitations, and thanks to my recently found and fully reacquainted mojo, I managed to place exactly mid-pack on the third stage.

Who's happy that he's one (but actually two) race(s) away from finishing another King of Pisgah Series?

This guy.

The post-hangs were limited due to the fact that The Pie texted and said mebbe call her on the drive home.  No emergency, but she didn't wanna dump on me when I got home.

Who needs a functioning dryer anyways?

Oddly enough, I was present for a lengthy conversation between two pasty white bearded hill people about hanging clothes to dry earlier that day.

The world is a flat circle.