Pedaling into the Unknown: Bikepacking the 330-mile Pinyons & Pines Race
Pedaling into the Unknown: Bikepacking the 333-mile Pinyons & Pines Race
Nico (they/them) is a Product Design Associate at Kahtoola, born and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona. Along with bikepacking, Nico is a rock climber, river runner, boat builder and artist. Pinyons and Pines is an underground self-supported bikepacking event that starts and ends in Flagstaff, AZ (6,910 feet). Throughout the race, riders will be rewarded with a magnificent tour of Northern Arizona.
In May of this year I completed my first bikepacking race, Pinyons and Pines. The course changes every year, and this year’s version was 333 miles with about 30,000 feet of elevation gain, consisting of a southern loop, a northern loop, and features two mandatory summits (Elden Lookout Tower and O’Leary Peak).
I’m relatively new to bikepacking; it was through my friend & coworker, Chris (fellow Kahtoola Product Design associate), that I was first introduced to bikepacking. In May of last year, he took me on my first bikepacking trip and I was immediately hooked. I had a lot of experience with both backpacking and long, fast day hikes, but bikepacking fused aspects of these two activities together. I found it captivating to combine the physical challenge and the ability to travel long distances under my own power. On the drive back from our second bikepacking trip together (this time on the Arizona Trail section north of the Grand Canyon), Chris was following the 2024 Pinyons and Pines race and thus planted the seed in me to attempt it. I set a reminder on my calendar to sign up for it as soon as registration opened. On April 15th at 8:00 am, I registered for the race… and immediately started doubting the decision.
As the race grew closer, I became increasingly intimidated. Aside from the Kahtoola Uphill I had never taken part in any sort of race, and the prospect of taking part in a public, competitive event was terrifying to me. More and more I felt like I had no business attempting this race. My friend (and the only other non-binary rider) was an accomplished rider, with a coach and a clearly defined strategy for each day of the race.
In contrast, I had no idea how many miles I would be able to do a day, how much food and water to carry between resupply locations or how much sleep to plan for. To top it all off, I was still nursing an overuse injury to my knee that I had sustained on my first ambitious self-supported bikepacking trip that I’d done last September, on a 230-mile section of the Arizona Trail from Pine to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. That was physically and mentally the hardest multi-day trip I’d ever done, and I didn’t know if my knee would hold up to that many miles of riding. Needless to say, when I lined up with the 70 other riders at Flagstaff Bike Revolution the morning of the race, I felt like I was going to puke (I think my heart rate was higher at the starting line than during the climb up Elden that day). Once I was on the trail, my anxiety eased as my priorities simplified: don’t crash, don’t miss any turns, eat and drink enough, and (most importantly) KEEP RIDING. I succeeded at the goal I set for myself on the trail that morning, completing my first century ride (100 miles) and camping on the rim just above Sedona.
The second day was the most brutal—starting with a sub-optimal resupply at a gas station/Filiberto’s, challenging technical trail (not my strong suit), and a hot hike-a-bike up Casner mountain (while being swarmed by bees, as an added bonus). By the end of the day my bike refused to shift, and I’d gotten a gnarly smokers’ cough from inhaling the fine dust kicked up by passing vehicles on Woody Mountain Road—I didn’t make it as far as I’d hoped, camping hilariously close to my house (within a mile).
The next morning, I fixed my derailleur and “rode” (i.e. mostly pushed) my bike up Big Bang trail, summiting Mount Elden (9,301 ft) for the second time, and then up O’Leary Peak (8,919 ft) for the last mandatory summit on the course. The end of day three turned out to be a highlight for me as the route weaved out into the cinder hills and Babbit Ranch, a landscape that is particularly resonant for me as I grew up in this area of Flagstaff. I also made an awesome connection with another rider, Angie (aka “Fabulous Freckles”), who kept me company as we pedaled against the notorious Babbit Ranch winds. We camped together near an Arizona Trail cache box as bad weather moved in, burrowing into our bivvies as it rained throughout the night.
Angie and I rode together for much of our last day, leapfrogging with another rider, John, all the way to Parks, AZ. With the finish line near, I decided to crank out the last 40 miles (knee pain be damned) and with energy to spare I pedaled across the finish line, hosted outside of the local coffee shop, Sosta—time elapsed: 3 days, 12 hours, 12 minutes
Reflecting on the race, I’m glad I did it—I have always struggled with taking up space as an athlete, and finding success by prioritizing my own pace was a great experience. I’m deeply grateful to the race organizers, Dana Ernst and Dylan Turner, as well as all the kind people I met throughout the event. If you had asked me during the race if I would do it again my answer would have been a resounding “no”, but as soon as I crossed the finish line? Maybe…