From June 9 to June 14, 2025 Odette and Jerry rode out of Winthrop and Chelan
Early in 2025, as we were planning a ride down the Danube and looking further out to the Agean, I told Odette that I wanted to do a ride east of the mountains in the Spring – and she said OK. What I really had in mind was a ride in the Okanagan or the Selkirks, but I decided to strike while the iron was hot and booked a stay at Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop. We hadn’t been to Winthrop since 2022 when we discovered that there wasn’t any place to get early breakfast and vowed to stay at Sun Mountain the next time we went there. Winthrop is familiar territory for us after a bunch of visits for hiking & climbing, biking, and x-country skiing. I mapped out a couple of old favorites (Chewuch and Carleton) and then worked out a down-sized version of the ride to Grand Coulee we’d done two or three times a decade ago. The basic idea was to ride a couple of days in Winthrop, drive over to Chelan via Grand Coulee – stopping for a ride on the way – and then do a couple of rides in Chelan. I couldn’t figure out how to book Campbell’s on line so I settled for a couple of nights in an AirBNB.
A week before we were scheduled to go to Winthrop we did a ride on the tandem and discovered a broken spoke on the front wheel when we got home. I rode to Recycled Cycles and got told that it would be $40 in labor but a three-week wait to get the spoke replaced. (They also pointed out that the rim was pretty beat-up and likely due for replacement pretty soon.) I went on down to Polkadot Jersey where I’d gotten the wheels and they quoted me $80 and said they could have it done by the weekend. On Friday, the day the work order said it would be ready, I stopped by the shop to remind them that I was leaving Monday morning. They hadn’t started yet but promised me it would be done the next day and it was.
I loaded the tandem on the roof of the car and we (or rather Odette) drove to Marblemount with no complications other than seeing a bear just before Rockport. The lack of complications was not guaranteed since it was the first time using a rebuilt tandem carrier. After Odette ran into low overhead pipes, I took off the Yakima bars and attached the carrier directly to the factory rack. I removed it in February to mount a ski case and when I put it back together, instead of a longitudinal bar to clip the strut to, I mounted a regular bike carrier with a U-bolt through it about midway. I also drilled a couple of holes in the tandem pivot plate so that I could put bolts through and entirely lock it out. I was scared the wing nuts I used on the bolts would loosen up and I was scared that the holes I drilled in the channel for the U-bolt would wallow out. It actually tightened down very nicely and 100 miles later the wing nuts were loose but not in any danger of coming off and the bike was not swaying enough to bother me.
We rode down Rockport-Cascade Rd from Marblemount to Rockport and took SR 20 back. Here’s the map. It was only 20 miles but it was fun – the forest was lush, the day wasn’t too hot, the traffic on SR 20 wasn’t too bad. I saw a wild turkey but no bears. We had a nice lunch in Marblemount and then Odette drove another 100 miles to Sun Mountain Lodge outside of Winthrop. The scenery over Washington Pass was as spectacular as ever. We stopped in Winthrop and walked the main street and visited a bookstore – not much had changed. At the lodge we loaded our stuff onto a cart and checked into a nice room on the third floor. (It was a big room with a nice shower.) We looked out over the pool and up the valley to snow peaks. The air conditioning made too much noise but worked quite well. We had dinner there and liked it well enough to eat breakfast and dinner there the next two days as well. The restaurant never had more than a half-dozen diners and at each meal there was something the kitchen had forgotten or that they were out of. They also surprised us with a minimum wage surcharge.
The next day breakfast wasn’t available until 7:30 so after a late start we left the car in town and rode out East Chewuch River Road to the end of the pavement on Forest Service Road 51 and back on West Chewuch River Road. Here’s the map. It was almost 50 miles, but I had mapped a 35 mile route in RWGPS. (I couldn’t find the stream crossing where we’d always turned around and stopped where RWGPS showed an end to the pavement.) It was hot and the last couple of miles on the way out were brutal. The side hill traverse that you do on West Chewuch on the way back wasn’t much better. There was a cable team running wires with flaggers stopping traffic and Odette cried out to them in sobs, pleading for them not to stop us on the grade. We got back to the car at the community barn and collapsed in the shade on the grass. We stopped at the Thriftway and bought grapes and cold juice.
For the third day of the trip we left the car in town for another late start and rode out East Twisp-Winthrop Road to Methow Valley Highway and down to Carleton. We rode back on the other side of the river on Twisp-Carleton Rd to SR 20. We left the highway at the river bend after Twisp and rode the river road to Twin Lakes Rd. and back to the car. Here’s the map. The way out was pretty much all down hill and we got out before the heat of the day so it was a good ride and we did well. On the Twisp Carleton road segment we slowed down (I’d forgotten that there always seems to be a headwind there) and stopped in the shade a couple of times because of the heat. After we left SR 20 we took a long break in the shade and Odette decided that she would walk the rest of the way. Eventually she got back on the bike but by this time she had decided that she had heat exhaustion and would likely not survive. The climb away from the highway on Twin Lakes Rd. wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined but it offers very little shade – we finally pulled over to avail ourselves of a patch on the left and we must have looked like we were on our last legs because a driver pulled over when he saw us and asked if we were ok and if we needed a ride back to our car… We made it back in due time (but without seeing any deer in the fields near the lake where we’ve seen lots of deer in previous years.) We missed the sign to Sun Mountain and ended up driving all the way to Twisp looking for our turn. Odette declared that she wasn’t going to ride Grand Coulee the next day and I realized that whether it was physical or psychological the chances of her enjoying that route were pretty slender, so I didn’t argue. The shower that afternoon was great, the restaurant was fine (although the server didn’t know from Porter) and we slept well.
After a final late breakfast at Sun Mountain we checked out (where they surprised us with a resort charge) and drove to Twisp. We parked at the city park where we had parked the last time we opted for an easier ride. We did an out and back on the Twisp River Rd., turning around at the 15 mile point . Here’s the map. The forest was dense (but an east-side pine forest instead of the rainforest we usually ride in.) We saw several deer. There was a Cascade Bike Club gravel bike event that we encountered on the way out. It was much cooler than the two previous days and I wondered if we couldn’t have ridden Grand Coulee successfully – and felt some regret in that I’m unlikely to ever ride that agin now.
Odette drove about 50 miles to Chelan and we checked into an AirBNB pretty close to the center of town. The room didn’t compare to Sun Mountain but It was just about right for what we were doing. We had dinner at Campbell’s and the NY Strip was frankly much better than anything I’d eaten at Sun Mountain. The next morning we got an early breakfast at the Artisanal Bakery (which we carried back to our AirBNB.) We rode out US 97 A to Navarre Coulee Rd to S. Lakeshore Rd and back on US 97 A again. Here’s the map. It was another 30 mile day but with enough climbing to make it interesting. It started out cool but warmed up as we climbed up the coulee. On the highway descent (after the tunnel) I swerved to miss rocks on the shoulder and got honked at by an SUV. Odette kept looking for the steep part but didn’t seem too disappointed when it never materialized. After our ride we walked around downtown visiting another bookstore and the riverfront park and then had dinner at Campbell’s again. Impressively, the waitress from the previous night recognized us.
For our final day we got an even earlier breakfast at Starbucks and Odette drove 60 miles to Leavenworth. We parked at the ranger station and rode out Chumstick Valley Highway to Plain. From Plain we took Beaver Valley Rd to SR 207 to Coles Corner and then rode back to Leavenworth on US 2. Here’s the map. It had been a decade since we had ridden this loop but it was still about 40 miles and is marred only by the traffic and deteriorated pavement on the shoulder of US 2. It was cool at the start and below the crest we met a group of sports cars that wanted to play chicken with us. We stopped at the crest for a clothing adjustment and after Plain we encountered another bike event (Tour de AlpenFlüsse) going the other direction. I wore my Cascadia jersey with the idea of joining the No Kings demonstration in Leavenworth, but in the end we decided it felt too much like carpet bagging and we opted not to. Odettte drove about 120 miles back home taking US 2 over Stevens (noting about a five-degree difference in temperature as we went over the crest) and taking SR 522 and 405 North to Lynnwood as suggested by Google.
Overall it was a lot of time in the car and not enough time on the bike. The tandem carrier held up to all of the driving and bouncing around. After a couple hours, though, I need to check the wing nuts. The bike performed very well. We have some squeaks in the brakes but I was pleased. I’m disappointed about the Grand Coulee route but I’m glad we made it back over to the Methow and Chelan is always fun.
