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Welcome! This post begins the journey of our band of gravel bikers. We are 8 middle aged guys that have been brought together by our new found passion for gravel biking. Everyone in the group are experienced riders, although the range of experience and skill is quite varied. Almost everyone has ridden more than one century and about a third have participated in one or more full Ironman competitions or rode the Seattle to Portland (STP) 200 miles in a one day. I am one of the least experienced and the most behind on conditioning. In later posts, I will share how I was able to close the gap. This trip will be new experience for all of us. Previous endurance rides/races were supported with food and water stations. On this trip, we will carry our own food and supplies needed to complete our 6-7 day trek. Follow along with us as we evaluate equipment, train and plan for this summer’s epic ride across Washington.
Last fall with masks on and scattered around a large meeting room we discussed Rolf’s brainchild to travel across Washington primarily on gravel trails and forest roads. Don’t get me wrong. It won’t be the first time gravel bikers have crossed Washington. As a matter of fact, we were partly inspired by an epic 700 mile cross State race. You can learn about their official race route at http://crosswashington.weebly.com
Why the switch to gravel bikes?
It was a unique situation for all of us to agree to the trip given only two riders actually had a gravel bike! We had all experienced and loved road cycling and mountain biking and saw gravel biking as the best of both. It wasn’t just avoiding traffic (definitely a factor), but it was also the ability to travel into areas often reserved for mountain bikes with the comfort and speed of a road bike. A gravel bike setup allows a person with the appropriate gear to “comfortably” travel 30-70 miles a day through back country. The freedom and challenge of the cross state ride just seemed like the perfect answer to coming out of the pandemic for this group of cyclists.
The starting line
Our route will be a 375 mile cross State challenge, starting in Everett and ending in Spokane. Just in case you are not familiar with Washington geography, the route will take us through a mountain pass and across the Columbia river gorge. One of the characters on this ride is Shawn of Shawn O’Donnell’s American Grill and Irish Pub. You may have guessed that he owns a restaurant, in fact, he operates four locations in Washington. We will start our ride at his Everett location and finish in downtown Spokane with Irish food and beverages. Our goal is to ride as much of the route as possible on gravel roads and forest roads. We are fortunate that the https://www.railstotrails.org/ projects in Washington have been outstanding. On an early August morning, we will start out on paved roads from Shawn’s and make our way to Carnation and jump onto the Snoqualmie Valley Trail (SVT) from there we will join the Iron Horse trail then the John Wayne trail which is officially part of the Palouse to Cascades trail (PTC). The PTC trail is a fantastic trail that spans from west of the Snoqualmie pass to the Idaho border terminating in Tekoa, WA. It still has a few gaps due to private land and missing bridges. You can learn more about it at https://parks.state.wa.us/521/Palouse-to-Cascades Our route will diverge from the PTC east of Ritzville and take a northeasterly route to Spokane on the Columbia Plateau trail.
In coming posts, I will share more details about the riders and how we chose our equipment, trained and planned our trip.
