Dave’s Bike Adventures

Last weekend I returned to Pisgah for my second shot at the Double Dare. The weather was looking great - Bruce and I were psyched for a full weekend of racing in Pisgah. Eric and the volunteers put on one awesome event - very much on the “down low” with no entry fees, no prizes, but tons of fun! It’s a 2 day Mountain Bike stage race with a twist.

The soul of the Double Dare is all about epic Mountain Bike racing. The race is staged out of White Pines group campground which makes for a great backcountry feeling to the event. But the format is what makes this one really unique: back to back 12 hour days of racing with no set course. Each day brings a separate set of 10 checkpoints – and the goal is to get as many as possible within the 12 hour time limit. It’s run in teams of 2 (gotta have someone to share in the pain … er uh I mean fun with!). Oh, and one other kicker – it’s all self-supported – so you’re packing everything you’ll need for an epic day on the bike.

The weather has been really dry in the NC mountains and tall tales of swarming bees on the trails were filling the message boards. I went to grab a picture of the pre-race scene and surprise - hopefully not an omen of things to come …

When the Noon start time rolls around Eric announces that instead of handing out the passports (with the checkpoint list) here at the start of the race, we’re going to be doing a “time trial” to Farlow Gap to get the passports! Yep, one of the longest and steepest fireroad climbs in all of Pisgah to start day #1 with a bang. Here’s my partner Bruce climbing up Pilot Mtn. Road towards Farlow Gap – looks like someone lost their muffler.

Later on the climb I had to stop and take in the view towards Looking Glass Rock – we’re at about 4000’ elevation at this point. What’s a few minutes out of 12 hours to stop for some pictures, right?

We rolled into Farlow Gap at about 1:45 into the race and 2000’ of climbing.

At this point I’m stoked because all the biking trails from here head downhill so I’m thinking we’ll get some payback and head downhill to knab a few checkpoints. But that would be just too easy. After getting the passports I realize that Eric’s definitely upped the ante this year. The 10 checkpoints are spread way out and there is a mandatory one at Ivestor Gap (almost 6000’ elevation) – so much for downhill.

Bruce and I put together a plan that should knab 8 or 9 checkpoints but it involves hiking our bikes UP the Art Loeb trail to the Parkway!

Here we are taking our bikes for a nice stroll up the Art Loeb trail. After about 45 minutes we get to the parkway – then take a short ride on the parkway to FR#816 and more (surprise) climbing up towards Ivestor Gap. The views up here were amazing! At this point we’re feeling like we’re on top of the world - here we are looking down on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We then get to the gate at the head of the Ivestor Gap trail and Bruce comments that if we keep climbing the next one we come to will be the Pearly Gates! Well it turns out the Ivestor Gap trail is only a slight climb but it’s basically one big continuous rock garden. Luckily it’s all very ridable and a ton of fun with some great views of the Shining Rock Wilderness. Here we are almost 4 hours into the race and just getting our first checkpoint – Ivestor Gap at the edge of Shining Rock Wilderness.

After a quick break we’re on the bikes again and heading back out the rocky Ivestor Gap trail - thanks Brado for snapping this one!

So now that we’ve climbed up to almost 6000’ we can’t go any higher, right? Yep – time for some downhill action. We headed down the Flat Laurel Creek trail and snagged our 2nd checkpoint. Flat Laurel is a fun downhill – fast and flowing and some nice payback after all that climbing. The next set of 3 checkpoints were clustered near Courthouse Falls so we did a short climb on 215 back up to the parkway and then bombed down the other side of 215 to grab checkpoints 3, 4, and 5 at Sumney Cove, Courthouse Falls, and 5003/140A. We roll up to where we thought Courthouse Falls would be, but no waterfall. So we’re looking around for a bit and luckily Clay and Beth rolled up on their way to the falls so we followed along. Thanks for letting us mooch on that one! After that it was just a quick doubletrack climb to checkpoint #5 at 140A/5003. Bruce is getting a bit delirious at this point and picking a fight with the camera

Next up was the climb back up and over Gloucester Gap, then an out and back on Daniel Ridge trail to get checkpoint #6. Daniel Ridge is a great trail – pretty scenery and some fun technical rocky sections. It reminds me a lot of the rocky stuff up in the NY Adirondacks.

At this point it’s 7:30, the sun has just set, and we have 6 checkpoints. While we could push the pace and fit in 3 more I remind myself that there’s still another 12 hours of racing tomorrow so best to just take it easy and grab 2 more checkpoints (Club Gap and Buckhorn Gap). Next up was an hour of fire road on 475B and then some more sweet Pisgah singletrack! We climbed the Club Gap trail to Checkpoint #7. Then we rode the ridge line on the Black Mountain trail to our final checkpoint of the day – the Buckhorn Gap shelter. While we’re cruising along the Black Mountain trail ridge line and I see a bright light up in the distance. Is it other riders? No too bright. Maybe a welcoming crew at the shelter? No. It’s the MOON! An almost full Moon is just rising above the ridge and we’re riding straight for it! Here we are at the Buckhorn Gap shelter for checkpoint #8 (looking a little tired, eh?).

After that it was an easy ride down Clawhammer fireroad and we rolled back into camp at 10:50 PM. It’s time to fuel up, restock the gear for tomorrow, and hang around the fire trading stories of the days ride.

Here’s the elevation plot for the day. Nice little 4000′ climb to start the day! The GPS didn’t pick up the first few miles - ended up being about 70 miles for the day.

Day 2

5:20 AM came all to quick as Eric rolled around the campground clanging the cowbell to get us up for the 5:45 racers meeting. Thanks to whoever started the fire that morning – luckily it wasn’t too frigid (high 40’s). So we’re all hanging by the fire in the dark pondering what surprises Eric has in store for us today.

Eric announces that we’ll be starting day #2 with a time trial to Yellow Gap to get our passports. The moon is still high in the sky as we set out for Yellow Gap. In last year’s Double Dare I struggled a bit on day #2. But this year I kicked up the training a notch and also got the endurance race fueling down much better – so I was anxious to see how the legs would do. Turns out the legs fealt great – I was ready for another full day of epic riding! We rolled into Yellow Gap and scoped out the checkpoints for the day.

No easy route here – Eric spread us out pretty good again today. Now the smart route would have been to hit the mandatory checkpoint at Turkey Pen gap as an out and back then loop around to get most of the other checkpoints. We didn’t do that Maybe it was a lack of sleep or just a desire to fit in more singletrack on Squirrel Gap. So we headed down FR 1206 to grab Bear Branch and then up to the top of Trace Ridge for our first 2 checkpoints of the day.

My original plan was to continue up Trace Ridge and take the Parkway to the 2 checkpoints near the top of the Laurel Mountain trail. While we were on Trace Ridge we saw a few other teams starting to go that route also but when we calculated the times we figured it would be cutting it too tight for the 6 PM cutoff. At this point I’m recalling that I conned Bruce into doing the Double Dare on the understanding that we were just going to “have fun and not kill ourselves” pushing a race pace for 24 hours in 2 days, so we decide to head back down the trail and go for the mandatory at Turkey Pen Gap. We should still be able to get 5 checkpoints for the day. After some more sweet singletrack on Laurel Creek, Squirrel Gap, and Mullinax we hit the Turkey Pen checkpoint (actually on South Mills near Mullinax).

Our next checkpoint was at Buckhorn Gap so my plan was to take South Mills -> Cantrell Creek -> Horse Cove -> Squirrel Gap -> South Mills -> Buckhorn Gap. I’ve never ridden most of those trails before so I figured it would be a great chance to explore more Pisgah singletrack. As we set out on South Mills I was surprised how flat and wide it was in parts

Then we came to a bridge over the river

And then the remnants of the old lodge at Cantrell Creek

We were having fun exploring new trails at this point and headed up the Cantrell Creek trail. It’s pretty technical and I’m enjoying navigating the loose rocks when crunch! Uh oh that didn’t sound good – let’s check out the damage.

Yup – the single speeders are laughing about right now! The wheel kicked up a big rock into the rear derailleur and snapped it right off. Hmmm … what to do? I had a spare hanger but unfortunately the derailleur snapped rather than the hanger. And my rear shock doesn’t have a lock out so if I rig up the bike as a single speed I risk destroying the freehub (from all the tension on the chain / freehub body). So I decided to go without a chain. I took the derailleur off the bike, taped up the cable, and packed the chain away. I hiked/ran with the bike up to the Horse Cove / Squirrel Gap intersection then hopped on for a fun ride down Squirrel for a ways. I was railing the corners to keep as much momentum as possible for the hills – anything to avoid running the bike! This worked great for a while until Squirrel turned uphill again and back to running and bashing the shins on the pedals. A short while later we got back to the flat/fast South Mills River trail and I decided I had enough of running my bike! Bikes are meant to be ridden, right? And we were also getting short on time and didn’t want to miss the 6 PM cutoff. So I broke out the chain tool and rigged up the bike as a single speed. The only combination I could get to stick was big ring up front and middle of the rear cog – but it worked for the South Mills River trail. We headed up the Buckhorn Gap trail to the shelter to grab checkpoint #4. At this point we just have to descend Clawhammer FR back to the campground – but there’s one catch – we only have < 20 minutes left until the cutoff time. So we’re hammering down Clawhammer when I misjudge a rut in the road and take a hard fall (I later realized I cracked the helmet). I take stock of the situation – good news - other than a bloody nose I’m OK and the bike is in one piece. So I hop back on and hammer for the finish. Bruce was up ahead when I wrecked and I pull in to the finish with about 2 minutes to spare! We finished day #2 with only 4 checkpoints – but not bad considering the mechanicals – I was just glad to finish on time. Next year I’ll definitely consider carrying a spare derailleur.

More of my pictures from the race are here