PMBAR 2021: Pre-dumble

I left work early on Friday to get a head start on traffic, but someone musta got the word out.  My two hour drive was extended by a saddening amount, but eventually I got there in time to hang with Eric "PMBAR Honcho" Wever and lend a halping hand until Watts showed up.  Then we rode over to the Pisgah Hub and Tavern where registration was, and Ohio Josh offered us a beer, so beer.  Then we rode over to Oskar Blues to meet up with Nick and Dr Mike for our last supper.  Unfortunately, there was some kinda class reunion bash, and it was crazy busy (and loud).  We jumped in the beer line, and I talked Watts into placing a double-fisted order, being that the wait for food stuffs was something like forty five minutes.

That was forty five minutes after you waited in line and placed an order, so we lost one beer just waiting to get our food needs requested.  At that point, we decided to divide and conquer, so I left the food line to jump back in the beer line so mebbe we'd still have one beer left when we actually had burgers in front of us.

It takes teamwork to make the meme work.

Eventually we had food and mebbe we ordered another beer (which I might have spilled some of)...

and Nick and Dr Mike left our company to go set up camp and then Watts and I had to ride back to the forest and mebbe one of us had a small wreck trying to navigate the Estatoe Trail in the dark. 

Pretty sure we ended the night around 11:30 after a nightcap and mebbe something to watch on his iPad.

We're up at 6:30 with very little anxiety.  We had two hours before the start, and the coffee was ready in ten minutes.  It wasn't raining, and it wasn't gonna rain, so what's to fear.

Eric started calling for a racer meeting at 7:45, and I thought that was a little early for an 8:30 start, but I'm no race promoter.  Everyone was walking around looking very kitted out, and I strolled over to Eric...

"The race starts at 8:30, right?"

"No, 8:00 just like it always does."

*flashback to the draft of the official email that Eric sent me to proofread and remembering it saying that the start would be later than normal and flashback to a time after that when the official email came to my inbox and I didn't wanna bother reading it because I thought I had already*

Doh.

Where's Watts and why do I feel like I've been here before?

Fortunately, I see Watts returning from his fourth trip to the port-a-potties.

"WATTS!  WE'VE ONLY GOT FIFTEEN MINUTES TO GET READY!"

Watts, still in his pants and t-shirt gives me that look that says "what?" while also saying "well, of course that would be what's happening now."

So, fifteen minutes to get dressed, pack all our required and essential gear, and whatever else we could do in a panic.  We're ready just in time for me to head over for the passport pickup.  Although it would put a sea of bikes and humans between us and the start, I told him just to stay at the van, and I'd come back to him... no sense losing each other ten seconds into the race. 

8:00 and the passport feeding frenzy begins.  I'm the third or fourth person to get one in my hands, but when I turned around to go back to Watts, it was like Black Friday at Walmart.  I'd make some forward progress to only get pushed back to where I started.  It was a wall of rabid humans all wanting to get at that all important passport to see what lies in store for them this day.

Finally get back to Watts, scan all the checkpoint location, toss them around in my brain, and I think I have a route just like that.

Let the real race begin.