We Bikepacked 100 Miles into the Wilderness | Day 1

It's a cloudy one. You think the rain's gonna hold out for us, Ruth?

I hope so.

What do you guys think? Is the rain gonna hold out or is it gonna be adventure from day one? It's gonna rain on you occasionally. All right, day 1 of 5, 100 miles bikepacking in the heart of Pisgah epic mountain bike country. Come on, do it again. Oh, we gotta make out for the camera. What happened?

I know it's sad.

You don't have to run, Austin, for camera placement. We gotta pace ourselves, boys. This is a new kind of riding, okay? Especially those who have been riding before. This is not like, oh, we see this cool jump, let's send it. Yeah, let's try to get up this Rudy section until we do it. No, it's just get off the bike and walk it up the Rudy section. Okay, Jonah, because bikes are too fragile. You know what will be happen? We're not going to give out physically. Our bikes would give out. So far our skies are looking good, a little wet looking, but okay, maybe we can get a couple hours in without Rain, what do you think?

Yeah, I think we're good.

Pit stop. One more thing to buy. Bananas? We're not gonna cramp, are we? No, monkeys never do. Monkey never cramp because monkey every day bananas. I speak too soon, boys. Oh yeah, there's the clouds. The more north we go, the uglier it's getting. Rain or just intense fog? I can tell you I don't want to start in the rain. I don't want our bikes to be soaked at mile zero. We are there at the start and finish. Pack our bike. Hopefully that rain holds off. Excited, I'm nervous. This is the feeling of just before going on, on a beach or before a race, and the only way to get over that is to start. So let's get going. The goal today is to get some experience. How long is it going to take us to go 20 miles? You know, we're going to take our time, we're going to be more conservative. We're probably going to try to knock it all out just as soon as we can. We'll have a feel for how the rest of the journey is going to go. That's what today is. You never cramp. Lucky Monkey don't cramp. Monkey don't cramp. Because monkey eat banana. You are literally packing a banana. What's the weirdest thing you've packed? I packed a notebook. Anybody pack a book? I did.

Oh, I was about to.

Did you? A reading book?

Yeah.

What's the name of it? Uh, How to Think Like an Emperor. Rubik's Cube? Okay, that would have won though. What's the most useless thing in a survival situation? Uh, these gloves. We're about to start. We're gonna get a grand start with Austin. Hopefully we're gonna beat these clouds. Hey, we got some double track here. Let's— Josiah, 3 in a row, Papa, Jonah, good friends. This is— well, first obstacle, and I'm thankful for this GPS. We should have went right at the horse stables. It's not a big mistake though, thankfully. Stay there, Austin. It's not a big mistake. We gotta get a video for Lily. She would love to do this. I could take her riding in Piscis sometime. Oh yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah, end up being a very minor mistake, 400 feet maybe. Yep, we are back on track. Climb. I can feel my heartbeat in my head. Folks, we've started the real piste. It's cool.

Almost to the top, I think.

At the top, we'll set up and get a shot of us summiting. Okay, first time hiking a bike. They stopped midway up a hill. It takes a lot of energy to get it going back again on a hill. I'm going to conserve that energy. This is a better place to start. I feel like all the boys put as much energy just getting on the bike and going right there as we did climbing that whole hill. It's old and wise versus young and energetic. Become a wooden rod. Yeah, how did you get into this old man's group? You could swing either way, Austin. I know, it wasn't long ago before I started— people started recognizing me as the adult in the group. Your setup looks pretty good. Yeah, look, we did it right. We look like we know what we're doing. What's going on? A bolt came off. Okay, did you find it? Yeah, it was right here.

We need the nut.

It's probably right— oh, that probably fell back off.

Yes, a long time ago. We better have brought that extra kit. Decided we bring extras.

We brought the kit, it's just a matter of where. Trucking on, trusting a carabiner until we can search Austin's bag at camp. Really anxious not to waste any time, but to See how quick we can get to camp and have idle time there. These young guys definitely have one over on us. This 8-mile mark, been nothing but climbs. I'm feeling it. Drank almost a whole Nalgene. Or am I beating you in endurance? Are you wearing yourselves out? Oh no, no. I'm glad we only committed to 20 miles a day because I can see us getting done and getting a lot of rest, hopefully. Maybe we'll go, what, another hour and eat lunch? Behind the scenes cameraman. If you ever want to know what the cameraman's doing on the adventure, he's hauling all the gear, he has all the extra cards, he goes ahead of everybody and gets the shot. How's your banana holding up? It's looking a little— getting a little brown.

A little brown.

Get a little brown, doesn't travel very well. Yeah, a little brown. All right, let's go one more hour, we eat lunch. We're at the top. All right, you guys ready for some single track? Let's see how our bikes do. This way, guys. Silence. Oh, we go this way, but I could tell we're already walking. If she had a backpack right now— where's the backpack? All right, that's pretty rough. It's rough. Endless climb with logs and rocks. It'd be totally useless to try to ride it. We just climbed some crazy singletrack— stumps, rocks— felt like a mile. It was probably 300 feet. I hear the boys, they're just full of energy. Could it be? We got some rideable trail? Here's the thing. At this rate, we're looking like— hope we get in by dark because we're having to hike this thing. It's too technical. Mike could do that on a regular bike, but not with 30 pounds on my back end. Okay, how'd you guys do? That was about 3/4 of a mile, mile of just— who rode it? 3/4? No way.

Oh, I rode the one part of it. But only like the flat part.

I got bad news. My rack is bending and it's rubbing my tire. Jonah, we have to figure out how to put this rack on right. I think it's— yeah, this has to be taken off and switched. Anybody had the salmon stick yet? It's so good. Is it good? Lunch of champions. Carnivores. Roam stick, just a pork stick. Salmon stick. You saved yours for last. Yeah, these things are awesome. Fruit strip. Fun, it's over. It is starting to rain. We got to get ponchos on, get moving. Everybody got ponchos close by? I don't have one. Okay, that's bad news. Everybody, everybody else got their poncho? Well, never mind, we're folding up the ponchos. That was a false— Y'all feel energized, ready to go? It's got to be downhill. Nobody's listening to me. It's got to be downhill because our campsite is at a creek and we're on top of the mountain. 10 miles in and you're gonna eat the banana? Yeah, well, it's getting pretty rough. I don't want it. Might as well. Bananas don't travel well. It's not an apple. Are you gonna down it? You're probably killed for that banana day 5. All right, boys, it's got to be downhill from here. Is this the top, boys? Yes, I think there's 10 miles up Well, we probably should get about 8 miles downhill. 10 miles up, 8 miles down. Does that sound like good math? Don't try any daredevil stuff. Our bikes can't handle it. It is downhill. It's downhill. It must— it might be up and down. We got one more mountain peak in 4 miles, so if we go down, we got to go back up. I kind of hope we just stay level. We just had a nice smooth run there. That'd be really nice if that continued for our spirits. We're all out of water and we're 6 miles from water. 8 miles from camp. Better be fixing your bike pad bag. There you go. Fix. I was riding up that hill, got stung 1, 2, 3 times. Yellow jackets. I'm going to stay here and warn Austin. They're in the ground right there. They're mad. Austin, there's, there's a yellow jacket's nest in the trail. You might want to run when you get some get some speed on that as soon as it starts climbing. This is the guy who tends bees without a bee suit. They hurt like yellow jackets. You just peacefully go around them. But this says this is difficult. That other one was most difficult. This was most difficult. And what are we about to go on?

Difficult.

Heck yeah! Where we're going? Difficult. I've never been so excited about difficult, because how did you know this one was rated most difficult? The one we just did was most difficult, so don't get no harder than that, guys. Pretty nice riding. I, I'm so tired, I really need to rest, but I'm more thirsty than tired, so I'm gonna push on until I get some water. 4 miles to water, 6 miles to camp. It just got real. It started to rain. We're feeling pretty defeated. Or how you feeling, Josiah? You feeling pretty good? I'm feeling pretty defeated, huh? You gotta make it for this water. I am parched. We're pretty much having to walk up anything uphill. I am, whether it has roots or not. Just so tired. We're getting beat up. We are carrying a bike, but we're running out of strength. You can see the horizon. It's still ways up there. It's 4 o'clock. We've been at this almost 8 hours. This wasn't supposed to take so long. Holy smokes, it's a good water source. Oh my gosh, Jonah, I've never been so thirsty. We are not going to make it if I let us get this thirsty again. I ain't gonna let that happen again. I've never been this thirsty, I guess. Holy crap, so thirsty.

That stuff looks so good.

No, keep going. I'm trying.

You gotta release it. You don't see how it works? Hey, where's Sam? Oh, Sam's the little brother.

Is that good water?

Austin, you don't even care.

Do you need to stop, Austin? No, I mean, I don't know.

It's not gonna be this hard.

Every day's like this. We don't know when the next exit is.

His gear is falling apart. I just rode down that whole thing with the backpack on. Way easier.

We are setting up camp. A little anxious. I haven't filmed much because I just wanted to get it up. I feel like we got enough up. We just hammocked. Hammock camping. Well, this is a community tent that hopefully we won't need because maybe it won't rain anymore. I thought I had the best hammock spot, and then everybody pointed out to me that these, these trees are dead. Hopefully the trees don't fall in, and hopefully the limbs don't fall on me. The rain tarp might save my head. Cool little rain guard over this. Didn't account for how much setting up and now tearing down is going to be. Oh yeah, I think I did it perfect. Heck yes. Do you have our thing filled up with water yet? All right, let's put it on there. Yeah, go ahead, put a lid on it so we don't waste our gas.

Go ahead.

All right, here we go, camp cooking. Go ahead and put your corn in there— I mean, your rice. We're gonna see how this works. We didn't have time to test it, so we're gonna constitute that rice, and then you're gonna add your meat and chicken. It can be as is, so any kind of warming up is a bonus. This is rough, isn't it? We have got to get to our site much earlier. We are mixing in cat food. Smells like that, doesn't it, guys? Not to me. Don't pour the juice out, you're going to attract the bear. We're eating just before dark. We'll be cleaning up in dark, but At least I'm not cooking. Wild Planet grass-fed beef, organic chicken out of the can. We're hanging packs in dark. Hopefully tomorrow we can get up at first light, get going, and maybe it's not so intense and we can do this before, um, before dark. Happy day, y'all.