Three Days of Pisgah Mountain Biking (and Why Day Two Will Wreck You)

Three of us rolled up to Brevard last October for a long weekend. Goal: ride the three Pisgah classics back-to-back-to-back. Here's what we learned about pacing.

Day 1 — Black Mountain

Shuttled up. Ten miles, 2,300 ft of descent, technical from word one. The opening rock garden ate two derailleurs (not ours; we saw the carnage). Rolled out feeling great. We had drinks at Oskar Blues and slept hard.

Day 2 — Heartbreak Ridge

This is the day. 26 miles, 4,500 ft of climbing, then a descent that has actual cliff bands beside the trail. We were on Yetis with proper enduro tires and it still felt like we were under-biked in places.

Owen led the descent and bonked at the first apex. Jake didn't — Jake snapped a chain. Mia kept going for both of us. We finished but only because the parking lot is downhill from the last creek crossing.

Day 3 — DuPont

This was the recovery ride and it was perfect. DuPont State Forest is what you do when your forearms are still cooked from Heartbreak. Big rolling flow, waterfalls, a brewery five minutes from the parking lot.

Bottom line

If you're going to do all three, do them in that order. Heartbreak in the middle gives Day 1 to learn the local rock pattern and Day 3 to spin the lactic out without surrendering on a technical line. The reverse order — DuPont first, Heartbreak last — is what most groups try and most groups don't finish.