Bikepacking the Cross-Washington Mountain Bike Route (XWA) || 684 MILES
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
- A short video of the ride across Washington bikepacking trip with my friend Rob.
Route Details:
bikepacking.co...
ridewithgps.co...
Dates: June 12 - June 23 2019
Days Riding: 9
Miles: ~685
Elevation: ~48,000
Freaking Rob is a total boss 💪 this is one of the best bike packing adventures on TH-cam. 👍😀
Chris, I met Rob at the top of Tabor yesterday he mentioned this ride and told me and my buddy to check out this trip. Looks like y'all had a lot of fun! Happy riding!
Great music to go along with that fantastic ride. Makes me want to do it too!!
Great video! I appreciate the story telling along the way, it kept me interested.
Chris and Rob, awesome ride!! Excellent filming, editing and music! I was searching for xwa videos and this is the best one by far!! Can't wait to do this some day! Cheers and have thanks for sharing this!
Ok so I watched again Gents! Are you interested in riding the XWA with a third wheel in 2024????!!! Let’s go boys! I will bring the whiskey and cans of wine!!
Just wanted to wish you and Rob a very Merry Christmas and a happy and safe New Year! Your content has been an amazing part of my life. Thank you both!! CHEERS!
Awesome! I'm an Eburg native so it was fun seeing some of the route I ride almost every day. I may have to do this route if I can talk my buddy into more than an overnighter lol. Great video (and I've watched a ton of them) Thank you for taking the time to make this.
I have watched this video probably a dozen times and still find something new and get a laugh from watching you and Rob having fun. Looking forward to this ride with occasional “wine walks”! Thanks for the great content fellas!
Glad you enjoy this video Fred. Rob and I had a ton of fun on this ride and we also like rewatching the video to relive it a little haha.
Thank you for all your content. You have been a big part of re-igniting the spark for getting back in the saddle. You and Rob remind me so much of my buddy and I when we used to cycle together. Comedy act that keeps the pedals going. Cheers brother!
Hey Fred, thanks for the comment, that means a lot to me! I put a fair amount of work into these videos and try to capture what the trip was actually like. Rob and I have a great time riding together... When you find the right partner to do these types of trips with it makes such a big difference!
Watching it AGAIN!!!!! Keeps drawing me back. “Konkas Maximus” and “We’ve only gone 9 miles!”
One of these days I am going to ride around Vancouver/Gresham/Hood River/Mosier/Deschutes area until I see you guys! Would be a blast to ride and sip a beer or whiskey with you guys!
Great tour guys. Nothing beats fresh air and activity to keep our immune systems jacked!
What an awesome video. This can inspire anyone to do a few days of bikepacking.
Thanks Jason, glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for putting this together! Awesome video. Can't wait to try the route.
Thanks Matt! Have fun on the route!
Looks like a great adventure. Thanks for sharing!
Cool video Chris. Thanks for sharing your experience of the XWA! Looks like a great adventure.
Thanks Matt, happy to share our experience!
Dang it!! Watching it again boys!! Have a great week Gents!
Keep pushing on the channel, man! It's cool!
I’m so bad!!! I wanted to wish you both a Very Merry Christmas but totally dropped the ball. I hope you both had a good Christmas and wish you two a very safe new year!!! Oh by the way……..you have it correct, this is my 27th time watching your XWA video! ❤️ IT!!!
Man, you guys make that look fun. What great companions!
That was a great video. Thanks. Rob and you bring a fun vibe to bikepacking.
Thanks Jason! Sometimes the suffering can get in the way of the reason we are doing this. We are grown men riding bicycles on a mini adventure, filming the whole thing for one reason. It’s FUN!
Even when it’s type 2 fun!
Thanks for watching Jason. You don't even get to see half of the shenanigans either! 😂
@@pnwbikepacking Well it is a PG network, so that's ok. Leaves thing for ones imagination.
Heading out on the XWA next week! Loved the video man, got me stoked for the trip, keep up the good work!
Hell yeah! Have a great time Alec!!
Amazing! Hadn't heard of this route but definitely adding it to the list!
Excellent video and music. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Matthew!
Wow. Great video. I love the diversity of the scenery. You guys look like you are great riding partners. Thanks for posting. Kenny in Arkansas.
Thanks for watching Kenny! Yeah the Cross Washington Ride is really cool in that you move through so many different ecosystems!
Really pretty views of my beautiful state thanks
Great video! Just got done with the Idaho Hot Srings Route. This is the next one. Looks like you had an amazing ride. Good work boys!
Awesome! I really want to do the Idaho Hot Springs route!
We had to bail on it, so much harder than I could possibly imagine, and I was undertrained, AND it was the year of the washout. What a shit show. 🤣
Thanks for taking us along!!
Great vid! Very funny. Thinking of doing this summer but I only have a 40mm gravel bike haha
Thanks for watching Darragh, glad you enjoyed it. Good luck this summer!
Great adventure. Fun guys. Thanks
Glad you enjoyed it
Hello from France, locked down for now, but wish we have the same .... keep going
From 22:15 on, you guys were in my neck of the woods. It was good to see familiar scenes on your footage. Nice work
Amazing. Thanks for sharing your adventures! Rich and Rebecca from Council Crest
Hi Rich and Rebecca,
It was nice to meet you!
I’m glad you enjoyed the video. Chris and I rode down the hill yesterday after we met you and gorged ourselves on Thai food. Drunken Noodles! So good!
Cheers!
Late to the show, loved it!
The worst part of that trail is the climb from north been to the top of the pass. It’s so fun to watch you do the journey!
Thank you for watching. I think both rob and I thought the last bit of the iron horse trail was the toughest!
@@pnwbikepacking Im hoping to finish the trail this summer. Your videos are inspiring, thank you
This was some really nice riding and you fellows are a real gem. I appreciate you posting this trip. I have ridden up to Olympic NP and the San Juan Islands but I like the road but I am starting to get interested in single track and gravel. I did ride inside the NP from Hurricane Ridge to the coast and back to Port Angeles. Really great stuff fellows and carrying only one tent for two people is genius. Cheers and wishing you both many great adventures. Tell Rob to try bourbon at night after the camp set up. Much easier to carry in smaller quantities. That is what I did two years ago on my cross country trip from Vancouver WA To Portland Maine and down to NYC. Be well fellows and got yourself a subscriber.
By the sounds of it, you've done quite a bit of riding! Riding on those roads up there can be super scary! Once you hit that gravel and singletrack and you don't have to worry about getting smashed by a car, its such a huge stress reliever! If you get into gravel and singletrack, I think you're going to love it! Cheers!
Yeah, I don’t really enjoy sharing a road with cars anymore. I think you’re going to enjoy the gravel and single track more and more.
The bourbon idea is a good one but my last experience with hard alcohol was on New Years 1995. It didn’t go well for me and everyone else that night.
Thanks for watching our videos!
Cheers!🍻
Great video guys!! Job well done!!!🚴🍻👍
Great vid. Don't know how you guys managed to pack so light for a 9 day trip!
I like the way you guys roll 🚲🍕 🍺🚲🍺🍺
That was super good I got to go back to work I'll be back in a minute
Congrats
I leaving in two days to do this ... except route is now 700 miles ... GAME ON!
Hell yeah! Have a ton of fun! Stay hydrated!
What a ride!
Fantastic video, loved the music and the edit
beautiful scenery and a good friend. can't beat that. great video, thanks for sharing!
22:54 That looks suspiciously like Breeden Falls, just past the CPT. Nice riding!
You are right. That is Breeden Falls. It took me a little research to see where we were. We didn’t realize that was a named spot, only that it was so cool we needed to stop and enjoy it.
Ride on!
Rob
Check that....Chris probably knew it was Breeden Falls. I had no idea where we were the entire ride! So fun! :-)
@@RobParker8 I made maps of the PTCT and figured it might be a nice camping spot, seems to be on BLM land. www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1XnImpVTz48Hhr4vuHA1KSLFvmuGuYZ3R&usp=sharing
@@rideswithscissors We were only there briefly so I can’t really speak to that. But when I’m on a multi day hike or bike ride wherever I lay my head is home.
However, we always respect all local laws and private property owners rights.
Awesome!
Thank you! Cheers!
Fuckin love you guys. Makes me want to ride!!!
I'm back couldn't wait any longer.
Such a great video, you captured the fun and adventure perfectly! What bikes were you riding?
Thanks Luke,
Rob rode a Surly Krampus (29 inch tires). I rode a Surly Karate Monkey (27.5 inch tires). I think these were the perfect bikes for the route.
😂 looks like hellava time
Would love to know more about how you're set up.
Great video. Thanks for not using drones to make it.
I'm looking to do yo-yo the Peninsula portion of this route this June. How much of the route is on busy roads with no shoulder?
Thanks for watching! I've used drones before on some of my other videos, I understand why people find them extremely annoying. I am conflicted every time I use one! Turns out, they are such a pain in the ass to schlep around and fly that I don't use it much anymore hah.
I don't really remember much riding at all on busy roads with no shoulder. The route is predominately on gravel roads with a little bit of singletrack.. Rob and I are actually planning to do the route again this May... Once I get a refresher ill give you another update.
Lastly, a new iteration has been posed for the 2024 XWA Route: ridewithgps.com/routes/42774412
Good luck on your ride in June!
This was a great video! This ride is definitely on my bucket list. Any chance you would share the route?
Here is all the info:
bikepacking.com/routes/cross-washington-xwa/
Thank you! Here is the route that we followed. ridewithgps.com/routes/29996580
May i ask why y’all didn’t do the mountain trail from Cle Elum to Wenatchee? Just wounding. It’s very inspiring and i also am training to do this trip at 53 now. Anyway. May i also ask what tent y’all used? Thanks and great job
Hey! Rob and I were just following the XWA Route that was created for 2019 without really any meaningful deviation. We shared a Zpacks Duplex which worked out great. Good luck with your training, you're going to crush it!
@@pnwbikepacking thanks so much for the info
Hell yes that was awesome. I stayed at that old house in Tekoa. How did you get home.
We lucked out and Robs wife picked us up! That is a great little house in tekoa! What year did you do the ride?
I didn't do the cross wa ride I did a palouse gravel ride while my son was doing a tour of WSU back in 2019
Looks like a hardtail is the beat bike for this route? I'll have to bring my yt izzo regardless when I do this.
Hmm I think you’d be fine on a fully rigid… I’ve converted to always run front squish though. The John Wayne trail has some pretty frustrating gravel at the end, was happy to have wider tires for that section. If I did the route over again, I’d bring hardtail with 120mm front sus and 2.4 inch tires. Have fun!!!
Hey do u have the route on any gps file for this trip ? Or marked out anywhere ?
Hey Steve, it’s on bikepacking.com.
Hey I know this is an old video but I was curious about the route, and the ride with GPS link is broken.
Hey! Check out these sites for GPS tracks!
crosswashington.weebly.com/
bikepacking.com/routes/cross-washington-xwa/
Like a lot of these big rides, they get re routed slightly year to year and you're probably better off following the most recent iteration.
Hey Chris,
Enjoyed this. Is it possible to get a map or link to your route?
Thanks in advance.
Chris
Hey Chris, this is the track that Rob and I followed pretty closely: ridewithgps.com/routes/29996580
We may have deviated from it ever so slightly.
@@pnwbikepacking
Fantastic. Thanks so much. You guys were a great duo on your ride across the state.
Smith Karen Johnson Thomas Thomas Edward
How did you get to Forks again? I.e. the issue is always how to get to the origin of the ride when public transportation is crappy.
Hey jot, I totally hear that. We got lucky and robs wife drove us there and dropped us off. There is an XWA Facebook group. You may be able to get some ideas on logistics for getting to the start of the route there.
Would you tell me what model is your GPS ?
Hey Chan, I use a Garmin edge 530. It's a love hate relationship. If I had to buy over again, i'd choose something else. In my experience the battery life is MEH, the buttons are HORRIBLE. Like... I really hate them. They are sticky/mushy and don't provide much tactile feedback. The device randomly turns off every now and then... Every time I use it I am annoyed by it. BUT, once I have the route up, It can just look down and follow the route. If I have to do anything besides just see if I am on route... I am guaranteed to be frustrated. Let me know if you have any other questions.
I couldn't catch what bike that was - Surly ECR?
I rode a surly karate monkey. Rob was on a surly krampus
@@pnwbikepacking Nice - ogre myself but thinking of getting one that can accommodate the wider tires. They both looks great.
@@brindlebot Looks like the Ogre can run 29 x 2.5 and 27.5 x 2.8. Just FYI, if I had to do this specific route over again i'd probably use 2.3/2.4 inch tires. For most of the riding I do I find that that to be the sweet spot. For desert/sandier stuff ill throw on my 2.8 inch tires. The entire Surly line up is pretty awesome, hard to go wrong!
@@pnwbikepacking Thanks for tip. I'm an old school adventure tourer but on road so new to the bike packing on gravel/dirt thing. Tire sizing throws me so appreciated. It's amazing not seeing a car for days.
Hey, glad you enjoyed the videos!
The karate monkey is a great bike you're going to be stoked. I run a 27.5 wheelset. On a small running 29 you may find the seat bag clearance is challenging. I am 5'6.5" on the medium. I am sure I could have gotten away with a small but the extra frame bag space factored into my decision making.
If you liked the medium but just can't find stock, try calling universal cycles in beaverton. Last time I was at the shop I saw a few in stock.
I am happy you are learning the perils of drinking cause that stuff will kill you so your either a drinker or an athlete but you can’t be both
Could you link the route?
bikepacking.com/routes/cross-washington-xwa/