Saturday, October 3, 2026 · Brevard, NC

Ride the Pisgah 111K on a plan, not a hunch

Seventy-two miles and nearly nine thousand feet of Pisgah, most of it singletrack. Here is what the course asks of you before you line up for it. Redline Athlete forecasts your finish time from your own weight and fitness, prices every climb against your reserve, and puts the plan on your head unit.

No card. No account needed to try it.

01 · The course

Seventy-two miles, nine thousand feet

72.1 miOne loop, one day
8,909 ftTotal climbing · 124 ft per mile
4,807 ftHigh point
80%Singletrack

Low point 2,155 ft, so the course spends its whole day between two thousand and five thousand feet, and the climbing is the honest kind: long, rooted and mostly unrideable to sit and spin on. Figures from the MTB Project route (72.1 mi, 8,909 ft) and Pisgah Productions. When you load the course file, the app measures it for itself.

80% singletrack20% fire road
02 · What it asks of you

A day that is decided by what you have left, not what you have

A hundred and twenty feet of climbing per mile is more than Leadville. The question the 111K asks is not whether you can climb, it is whether you can still climb at mile fifty.

Climbing per mile

At 124 ft per mile this is among the steepest endurance courses in the country by density. Your fatigue curve will not be a gentle ramp; it steps up on every big climb and gives little back.

Singletrack for most of it

Roughly four fifths of the distance is singletrack. On rooted, rocky trail the handling ceiling caps your speed no matter your watts, so the plan finds where extra fitness pays and where it does not.

Long, unbroken efforts

Pisgah climbs run for miles without a flat shelf. The plan measures your longest stretch over threshold, which on this course is the number that decides whether you ride the last descent or survive it.

The 55.5K option

The same day runs a 55.5K described as nearly all singletrack. Load that file instead and the physics is the same; only the answer changes.

03 · What the plan tells you

What the plan tells you about the 111K

Your finish time

A forecast from your weight, fitness and the course file, with a pace target you can hold rather than an average someone else rode.

The climb that empties you

Every climb ranked by what it takes out of your anaerobic reserve, not by how tall it looks. On a course with this much climbing, the one that empties you is rarely the tallest one; it is the one you reach with the least left.

Fuel that covers the effort

Carbohydrate burned against what you can absorb, hour by hour, with a warning when the plan runs short. Eight-plus hours in the forest is a fuel problem before it is a fitness problem.

Markers on your head unit

The longest climb, the hardest one for you, the recovery window before it and the technical stretch late in the day, sent to your Garmin, Wahoo or watch as waypoints.

04 · Proof

Fitted against real race files

The model is fitted against recorded races, not lab assumptions. On a Chequamegon 40 validation ride it predicted 2:24:28 against an actual finish of 2:24:20.

Predicted finish2:24:28
Actual finish2:24:20
Difference8 seconds

Your prediction comes with a confidence range, because honesty beats a single flattering number. The Pisgah courses have not yet been run through the model on a recorded file. When a rider shares one, this page gets its own numbers.

Three steps before race morning

  1. Load the course. The Pisgah 111K route is on MTB Project and Trailforks; the organiser publishes the current year's course before race week. Export the GPX and upload it.
  2. Say what the ground is. The trail’s own corners suggest where the ground changes; you name each section or describe the course in a sentence. Worth 13 to 17% of a finish time.
  3. Set the pace and get the plan. Weight and fitness once, then one slider drawn on what each pace costs: finish forecast, reserve at the line, fatigue curve, a fueling schedule, and the markers that matter sent to your head unit or watch. No power meter required.

Pisgah 111K questions

How long does the Pisgah 111K take?

The winners are out for around six and a half hours and much of the field rides ten or more, with cutoffs that matter. That spread is why an average is useless: the calculator forecasts your time from your own numbers.

Does it handle the 55.5K?

Yes. Upload the 55.5K course file instead. The physics does not care which start line you pick.

Is it really free?

Yes. Run the full analysis as a guest, no account. Pro ($9/month, or $59/year) adds saved rides, a saved athlete profile and the head-unit export.

Other race plans

Same model, one page per course.

Every race on the calendar

Find out what mile fifty is going to cost

Same course, your fitness, your pacing. Two minutes of setup now beats seventy-two miles of guessing.