Pisgah Stage Race: Day One and Two

When I woke up on the final day of the Pisgah Stage Race, I could feel the cold sore starting to come in on my upper lip.  Partly caused by the previous four day's 115 miles with 16,000 feet of climbing, but the finger could probably be pointed more in the direction of closing the Friday night out at the bar/Marathon station walking distance from the Airbnb.  What can I say?  Knowing that most people were gonna be headed to Splitsville after the final stage, it was the last chance to really hang with the roomies (Dylan and Kenny) and also DirtWire TV Thom and also also Buck.

Marathon drinking pro tip: Pre-game before you get there, because even if you can walk home, three beers is the limit... because rules?

Stage One:

While only being fifteen miles and change (but actually eighteen plus the additional six mile cold neutral roll-out), it managed to pack a walloping amount of climbing in a short distance.  This is the only stage I kinda sorta pre-rode, being that I'd never seen Stoney Mountain and my memory of going up Bracken was that I hated it.  Now I've seen Stoney Mountain twice, and my opinion on Bracken (the climb) hasn't changed.  I did what I could to get to the start of the ascent towards the front, as a five mile/thirteen hundred foot climb tends to put a single speeder in their place.  I rode the Vertigo Meatplow V.7 just to avoid hauling any more any more bike than I needed over Bracken.  In the end, it was an uneventful yet painful hour and a half that ended on Sycamore in a way that I didn't think it did... but anyways.

All race images courtesy of Icon Media Asheville

Ended the day fourth place single speed... which means I need to care about day two and continue "trying."

The plan was to swap to the Vassago Meatplow V.9 for Stage Two... and then as I was prepping the bike, I inflated the tires and left it in the sun... to find out that while the one plug in the rear tire's tread was fine, the hole I didn't know about at the bead started to leak when the tire heated up, so...
 

The struggle of do I race with an additional second plug or add sealant and do the shakey dance or pull off this tire that I just installed with a Tubolito insert a couple weeks ago (and it was perfectly fine for multiple rides) and mount one of my now rare, still new OG 2.35 Forekasters?

My roomies reminded me that this is a "stage race" and I had hours to kill, so stop thinking half ass and start thinking whole ass.  New tire painfully installed.

Stage Two:

This is what a kick in the dick looks like.  Six miles of paved neutral roll-out... unless you're on a single speed.  Then it's pain and suffering and getting shamefully dropped.  If the front group of "haves" were a comet, Kenny and I woulda been grains of cosmic dust clinging to the tail just ahead of the shattered debris field known as the "have-nots."  Once we turned into the the gravel on Turkey Pen Rd, I knew I had mebbe three or four miles to get back to where I should be in the field before we start the six or so miles of the infamous. very technical, Squirrel Gap.  I burned a half pack of matches passing people on South Mills and Mullinax, and mebbe the other half bursting past folks wherever I could before we got to the Wheelchair Ramp climb... where I planned on givin' 'er... as I'm normally used to being able to do.

But, poop.

Almost two hours into my day and I'd mebbe had one sip outta my bottles and nothing else.  I was either busy passing people, getting out of their way, or holding onto the edge of the trail.  I'm an empty shell at the bottom of the Wheelchair Ramp, and now my only job is to consume as much as possible before the hike-a-bike over Lower Upper Upper Black.

I downed mebbe a bottle and got a gel inside me before the walking started.  Once things turned down, I got to the business of going down Black Mountain (from Lower Upper Black all the way down to Lower Lower Black) for the millionth time in my life.

Everything was going as expected until I saw a hiker on an inside line I'm all too familiar with.  Things were going a million miles an hour at the same time the world was playing in slo-mo.  I barely recognized the hiker as DirtWire TV Thom, took an all new to me outside line, and ended up in some chunky gnar, busting outta both pedals* and riding full-crotchal style into the distance.  Enjoy the lowlight of the daily highlight reel:   

As the kids would say, "but did you die?"

No, but close.

Ended the day in fifth place single speed and also dropped back to fifth as well in the GC.

* Worth noting (mebbe).  I was on some XTR pedals I bought off the Facebook Marketplace barely used.  Did I check the tension setting VS all my other pedals before I put them on?  No.  Have I done that since then?  Last night, as a matter of fact.  I don't think I wanna deal with that kinda excitement again any time soon.