PMBAR 2026

Long story told in incredibly short form...

I got what I wanted, much needed time with my good frand.

Longer version:

I was able to get up to Pisgah in time to knock out a Lower Lower Black and Sycamore loop with Nick before meeting up with Watts at The Hub for a beer or two. From there, we had so much free time that we stopped at Ecusta Brewing with enough daylight left to get over to Oskar Blues to hook up with Dr Mike and get back to the hotel before dark.  That's some kinda record for us.  Then there was the delight of four mostly grown men in a hotel room crowded with bikes and gear trying to prepare themselves for a solid day in the woods.

I can only choke down one tiny pie with my coffee before we roll over to the start.  The predicted rain seemed to have went away, and there's a palpable excite in the air... although rumors that Eric "PMBAR Honcho" Wever has decided that last year's checkpoints were too easy, so...  

The mad scramble for the passports begins at 8:00am sharp.

all photos: Icon Media Asheville

Contemplating my approach to the passport scrum... if only there was a better way.

Open it up, and... it's just a fake passport with the location of our actual passports, oh... some twenty five miles or so away.  That means we will be at least two and a half hours of going up and down from knowing where the five checkpoints are exactly, so lots of time spent with Watts with not much to do except ride and talk but not have any in depth conversations or contemplative soul searching.

I haven't had enough quality time with Watts lately.  We'd fallen into quite the rhythm of PMBARs and Mountain Cats and Watts Fappenings and Horny Cats and occasional van life trips over the past few years.  With Watts having a lot on his plate lately, bike cycling has taken up the whole back row of a passenger van.  He promised he would be present for PMBAR this year, and I promised four checkpoints and low expectations.  I just wanted to hang out with him for a weekend.

Suffice to say, we got a lot of "quality" time together.  Long story made less short, the passport and checkpoints that it revealed in tiny font lived up to the hype.

Me telling Watts "we need to go here and here and here and here," and him saying "what, where... what does that mean... whatever... fine."

Just quitting right then and there when the little book gave you all the information needed to push you into giving up meant close twenty one miles back to your car if you left the forest and headed down highway 280.  I couldn't come close to extrapolating the anticipated mileage or time for four checkpoints, but we have an excellent ride hitting some premium condition trails in the North Mills area trying to make the most of it before heading down into the Pisgah Butthole.

Whence there, we experience all the PMBAR classic hits.  Getting passed by one of the fastest teams who's obviously one checkpoint ahead of us already.  Taking a wrong turn, but for an all new reason.  Seems like nobody's used to going that way on Bradley Creek, and the trail marker that said we went off track was hidden behind some mountain laurel.  Ha ha and also tee hee.  Then the always incredible but never expected trail fairies that delivered to us vast quantities of pizza and beer and some reprieve from the sadness that we're only two checkpoints in after more than six hours of time in the woods.

Watts and I beginning our joyous exodus from the clutches of the Pisgah Butthole.

I decide to switch my computer to maps only so I could no longer mark time or mileage.  Doesn't matter at this point.  We have to do what we have to do. 

After our third checkpoint, we took the Wheelchair Ramp (proper) to Buckhorn Gap leaving the Pisgah Butthole in our rearview mirror.  I gave Watts the breakdown.  It was going to be a four mile out-and-back with a fair amount of hike-a-bike on Upper Upper Black to get the fourth checkpoint AND the climb up Maxwell Cove AND the descent down Lower Lower Black to finish... or we could just fly down Clawhammer to beer, burritos, warm dry clothing and a big, fat, hard-fought DNF.

"I'll be fine."

Me at our fourth and final checkpoint getting our passport stamped asking, nay insisting not to be told what time it is.

Watts was correct.  He was fine.  Not like that dog drinking coffee in a room consumed in flames tho.

These images were not taken towards the end, as I no longer had arm warmers, but I'll be diddly dong damned to tell you where we were.

In the woods, riding on some rocks, before some roots... I guess.

Eleven hours after we had been handed a passport-not-passport, we crossed the line.

My annual "thanks for playing the game" moment with Eric.

I don't know how Watts managed to pull off an 80+ mile PMBAR with almost 10,000ft of climbing essentially off the couch (relatively speaking, for a guy who normally has crisp bike dork tan lines in April), but he did.  Our conversations might have been limited to "how you doing?" and "I'm fine" for the last few hours, but there's no one else I'd rather have that conversation with.

Good times (sorta).

Lorb willing and the creeks don't rise (literally), we'll be back with great'ish anger and flurious vengeance in 2027.

That's twenty two PMBARs for those keeping track*.  I know Yuri is, and I apologize for not being able to answer that question at the finish line in my addled state.

* The real question is, how many more to go?