I didn’t plan to race PMBAR. It wasn’t even on my radar. During Pisgah Stage Race, somewhere in between stages and everything that week carries with it, Boris messaged me saying maybe we could ride PMBAR together. He had done the race the year before with his friends, what he called “party pace,” and that was his plan again this year, just to go out and enjoy the day. But his friends bailed, so he reached out to me. He knew right away what that meant and said, “I know if we ride together, it’s not going to be party pace.” I laughed and told him, “No, no party pace.” At that moment it was still just a thought.
The day after Pisgah, I was out hiking with Pax, just moving and recovering, and my phone buzzed again. Boris asked me if I had recovered yet and if I wanted to race PMBAR with him. I laughed because no, I had definitely not recovered, but I said yes anyway. And just like that, I signed up for something I hadn’t planned, hadn’t prepared for, and didn’t fully understand.
The weather leading into the race added another layer to it. Early forecasts were calling for rain in the morning and later in the afternoon, and on top of that we got an unexpected cold snap just for that day and night. We started in the low 40s, and I remember thinking this day is not going to warm up at all. In the end we got lucky and the rain held off, but it never really got warm. Throughout the race it barely reached 57 degrees, the sky stayed overcast, and there was a constant cool wind that made everything feel colder.
We lined up at 8 a.m. in that cold air, and this is where things immediately felt off. Boris grabbed the passports, flipped through them, and we both looked at the booklet and at each other and said the same thing: there are no checkpoints, it’s missing pages. He ran back to the table and started going through other booklets one by one, checking if any of them had more pages, but they were all the same. Meanwhile, riders were already heading up the mountain, and we just made a call. “Boris, let’s go.”
That’s when we started climbing. Lower Black, then Middle Black, a little behind, but already passing riders, and at the same time riding into something we didn’t yet understand. It was a strange feeling, racing hard without even knowing what the race really was yet, but we knew one thing, we had to get to Mills River to actually begin.
On that first climb I also realized I made a mistake with my clothing. I wore my mandatory rain jacket because I forgot to grab my light wind vest from the car, and it didn’t take long to regret it. Not even halfway up Lower Black I was already overheating, but I knew if I took it off too early I would be freezing. We were making so many passes that I didn’t want to stop and lose positions, so I just kept climbing, uncomfortable, holding it together all the way to the top of Middle Black where everyone regrouped and started figuring out what to do. That’s where I finally took it off, wrapped it around my top tube, and knew that decision meant I would be cold for the rest of the day.
After that regroup, we hammered down Maxwell gravel, climbed Clawhammer, and then we were flying down Buckhorn, where I even got my PR. It felt fast, smooth, and strong, honestly a great beginning to what was already turning into a big day.
From there we continued, taking the full Yellow Gap gravel road, about ten miles of it, just to reach the real start. By the time we got to Mills River, we were already two and a half to three hours into the day. That’s when the race actually began. We received our passports there, learned the checkpoint locations, and suddenly everything made sense. Five checkpoints, one mandatory at Turkey Pen, and everything else up to us.
At that moment we had some really strong coed teams right there with us, all standing around, pulling out maps, laying them on the ground, studying routes and options, but the moment you start making decisions, you realize you have no idea where anyone is actually going to go. Everyone is looking at the same map, but everyone is building a completely different race.
We climbed a bit higher and dropped into Spencer, fast and flowing and always fun, reached our first checkpoint at Fletcher Creek, which was small and uneventful and really quick, but I still said out loud, “yey, my first ever checkpoint!” and we kept moving.
Before reaching our first checkpoint, we even stopped briefly by a small waterfall and filtered water, standing there in the middle of the forest, taking a quick moment before getting back on the bike and continuing on.
From there we headed toward Turkey Pen, but first came a big decision on Yellow Gap. Do we go up to Pilot first or drop down to Turkey Pen and get the mandatory checkpoint done? Teams were splitting both ways, and for a while it felt completely fifty-fifty. At the same time Boris started running low on energy, and soon after that came his first cramps. It wasn’t dramatic, but it was enough to know we had to be smart. We decided to go to Turkey Pen first, get the mandatory checkpoint out of the way, and then figure out the rest.
Getting to Turkey Pen felt like a reward. It was one of the best stops of the day.
It was stocked with food and water, and this is where we got the hot pizza. Someone handed it to me and said, “Careful, it’s hot,” and I grabbed it anyway, took a bite too fast, burned my mouth instantly, and didn’t care at all. It was warm, real, and exactly what I needed.
We sat for a moment, drank Coke, filled bottles, looked at the map, and around us people were smiling, chatting, talking about where they were going next. It didn’t feel like a race in that moment, it felt like a shared experience.
From the moment we left Mills River, the day became a series of decisions, and this is what I loved the most. Boris was constantly giving me options as we moved. He would say this trail might have a hike-a-bike, this one has a lot of river crossings, this one will probably have more elevation, and we would take all of that and slice it in our heads, section by section, deciding which direction to go next. Nothing was ever obvious, and that made it so engaging.
One of the trails we chose on the way through those early sections turned into something completely different than expected. It was full of boulders in spots, stacked on top of each other, and Boris called them “land mines.” You would ride into one section and then another and another, sometimes for fifty feet at a time, trying to pick a line through rocks that didn’t really want to give you one, all while this beautiful river was flowing just to the left of us the entire time. And then other sections, where we thought we would have to get off and hike, turned out to be smooth, rideable climbing. You just never knew. At times we were climbing these overgrown trails with other riders, including the first female team, and we saw a few teams miss turns and have to backtrack. It was actually really nice to see so many people out there in the middle of nowhere, all trying to figure it out the same way. We were riding trails and sections we would probably never choose on a normal day, and I remember us saying to each other how special that was, that you really can’t go wrong when you’re simply out there in a beautiful forest, no matter which trail you pick. It felt like a real adventure, full of unexpected moments, challenges, and so many beautiful sights along the way.
From there the day became a series of decisions. Every direction had trade-offs, nothing obvious, nothing easy. This is where the river crossings really started, one after another. At first you try to stay dry, you look for rocks, you try to pick a line, and then you realize it doesn’t matter. The water is too deep, too wide, too constant. You step in, and cold water fills your shoes instantly, sometimes over your knees. The rocks are rounded and slick with moss, your shoes sliding, and you just move through it. Then you get back on the bike with cold socks and cold feet and keep riding until the next river, where you do it all over again. After a while you stop thinking about it. It becomes part of the rhythm.
Time didn’t make sense. I kept looking at my watch thinking how are we already five hours in, and later, seven hours, no way. I said it so many times, and Boris would just laugh and say, “No, it does feel like seven,” but it didn’t. It felt like the whole day was slipping by quickly.
We reached our third checkpoint Cantrell Creek, deep in the forest and it was one of those peaceful moments. Boris was filling bottles from the stream, I was eating pretzels and chocolate-covered blueberries, and there were other riders around us doing the same. People were smiling, talking, sharing the day, and the forest felt rich and alive, deep green, that sweet smell in the air, crickets in the background, water always nearby.
Climbing out of that checkpoint, we had the biggest decision of the day. Do we go for the last two checkpoints or just one? We were already well over seven hours in, and every checkpoint could cost another couple of hours. Boris had cramped earlier, recovered, but the pace was now more controlled. We made the call together to skip the fifth and go for Club Gap, and it felt right immediately.
The final part of the day was about holding steady and getting back strong. We had to climb Buckhorn now to Upper Upper Black, which we knew was a lot to ask when you are almost nine hours into the race. But we rode this technical climb still strong and in good spirit. The last checkpoint brought us closer to familiar trails, Club Gap, then Avery, then the connector to Clawhammer and Maxwell. I remember one of those climbs, we were both smiling, not because it was easy, but because we knew we were close and because the whole day had come together so well.
The forest stayed cool and mysterious the whole day, lush and deep green, mountain laurels in full bloom, light pink and white, appearing out of nowhere. Everything felt alive. It was so awesome to reach the top of the final climb of the day and finally descend Middle Black and then Lower Black back to the finish.
We crossed the line after about ten hours with around ten thousand feet of climbing and four checkpoints, sitting in second place at that moment. And then came the most nerve-wracking part of the entire day, sitting at the finish line and waiting for two hours, watching the trail, wondering if another team would come in with five checkpoints and push us off the podium. One strong team rolled in with four, same as us. Then another team came in with five and pushed us from second to third, and that’s when I looked at Boris and Pax and said, “I’m getting nervous now.”
It was funny because the whole day felt like bliss, relaxed, happy, completely in the moment, and now after it was all over we were sitting on edge. The last hour felt longer than the entire race. The last minutes were the worst, just staring at the finish, wondering if anyone else was still out there.
And then no one else came.
We kept our third.
And almost immediately we were already saying it, next time we are going for all five.
What stays is the feeling of the day, the cold water in your shoes, the slippery mossy rocks, the smell of the forest, the sound of water, the mountain laurels in bloom, sitting in the middle of nowhere eating hot pizza, and riding all day with a friend, making decisions, staying strong, and having an amazing time doing it.
