The ultra world runs on group texts
100-mile trail races are team sports disguised as individual ones. Every runner needs pacers (who run alongside them through overnight mountain segments) and crew (who manage aid stations, gear, nutrition, medical). The coordination happens on Facebook groups, group texts, and word of mouth.
That system breaks down exactly when it matters most: a crew member drops out two days before a race, a runner needs a night-segment pacer in a town they have never visited, a solo woman runner wants a vetted pacer rather than a stranger from a forum. Puber exists to replace that patchwork with a real product.
Puber connects 100-mile trail runners with pacers and crew, plus a per-race community board for coordinating rides, lodging, drop bags, and last-minute replacements. The name is deliberate: a brand-reclamation play to own its meaning in the running world.
~25
Postgres migrations
14
Deno edge functions
RLS
on every table
10 races
84 aid stations seeded
Built like a real product
Puber is not a prototype or a design exercise. It is a full-stack build: mobile app, admin/ops console, and backend, all running end-to-end on the iOS simulator against a clean supabase db reset. Three surfaces, one codebase discipline.
Mobile
- Expo SDK 54 + React Native 0.81
- Expo Router 6, Zustand + TanStack Query
- Mapbox with supercluster + GPX parsing
- react-native-reanimated 4
- MMKV + expo-file-system offline cache
- 9-step onboarding with UltraSignup import
- Stripe Identity selfie-liveness verification
Backend
- ~25 Postgres migrations, RLS on every table
- 14 Deno edge functions (push, auth, Stripe, safety)
- 5 pg_cron jobs (escalation, staleness, expiry)
- 6 realtime-published tables, 4 storage buckets
- Match state machine as a BEFORE-UPDATE trigger
- Block-aware RLS + SECURITY DEFINER helpers
Admin / Ops Console
- Next.js 15 App Router + shadcn/ui
- TOTP + WebAuthn passkey auth
- 7 roles x 28 capabilities RBAC
- Append-only audit logging, rate limiting
- 17 route handlers, Recharts dashboards
- Race-data editor with mandatory source citations
The match state machine alone tells the story: implemented as a Postgres BEFORE-UPDATE trigger walking through requested → pending → rules_acknowledged → confirmed → active → completed, with side-exits to cancelled, admin cancellation, and expiry, plus a block-auto-cancel trigger.
Safety is the architecture
Safety is a design requirement, not a feature flag.
The ultra community includes solo women running through remote mountain segments at 2am with a stranger they met online. That scenario defined the safety architecture, not a product manager's backlog.
Gender-preference matching
Runners choose who they run with
Scheduled check-ins with escalation
3-minute pg_cron sweep
"Tell a friend" live-location sharing
Safety alerts via edge function
DV-safety options
Designed for women in vulnerable situations
Stripe Identity selfie-liveness verification is env-gated and ready: pacers verify their identity before they are matched with a runner they have never met.
Offline by necessity
Zero cell service in the canyons is the baseline, not the edge case.
The “Race Kit” is a per-race offline bundle cached to the device via MMKV and expo-file-system. Race rules, aid-station data, map tiles, and the full course GPX are available with no signal. A pg_cron job rebuilds the Race Kit manifest on the server; the app syncs when it has connectivity and serves locally when it does not.
This is not a nice-to-have. Leadville's Hope Pass, Hardrock's Virginius Pass, Western States' canyons: these are the segments where crews and pacers most need accurate data, and they are the segments with the least signal. The app was designed for 3am in a canyon with no bars.
Brand system
The brand
The logomark is a stylized jackrabbit mid-bound: lean, athletic, ears swept back. Confident and a little wild, not cute, not cartoon. The hare is the pacer who sets the pace. Voice: rugged but refined, calm confidence, dawn-on-the-trail, soul sport.
Elevation Blue
#007AFF / Primary
Summit Navy
#0B1D2A / Dark base
Trail Orange
#FF6B00 / Energy
Peak Yellow
#FFC107 / Finisher gold
Alpine Mint
#00D1B2 / Success
Where it's headed
v1 is built end-to-end and running locally. Target: iOS and Android launch for the 2026 marquee 100-mile season (Western States, Hardrock, Leadville, Cocodona, Bear, Wasatch). The database is seeded with 10 marquee races, 46 source-cited rules, and 84 aid stations.
What ships next:
This is not a weakness to hide. It is the honest remaining distance between a working local build and a live product in runners' hands.
Built for the people who run through the night so someone else doesn't have to run alone.