We left Ellensburg on day 7 of or journey hoping to ride two segments of the WABDR in one day and finish the day in Chelan instead of Cashmere.
The day started well and we made it to the beautiful town of Cashmere around lunch time.
We stopped at a place called "Weeds" for a quick sandwich and then headed for Chelan.
Things started to unravel up on Chumstick Mountain when we zigged instead of zagged and headed down the mountain on the wrong trail.
The trees were overgrown as we moved deeper into the canyon when we finally realized we were on the wrong road.
Turn these bad boys around and expedite! We smoked back up the hill but in the process, I punctured the rear tire on the GSA.
With only 9 pounds of air left in the tire, we managed to remove the panniers and get the bike up on the center stand.
15 miles from nowhere half way up this mountain it was clear that we needed to find the puncture, plug the hole and get our shelves of this mountain ASAP.
Luckily the puncture was on the bottom of tire so a plug was possible if the carcass wasn't cut to badly.
We plugged the tire and aired it up using a portable electric pump.
No time to fool around checking for leaks we headed up the mountain hoping to get down before dark.
The hope of getting to Chelan today were abandon, now we were just trying to get off this mountain under our own power any kind of way that we could!
We limped into Entiat, a little town along the Columbia River at about 6:00pm.
After an exhaustive search attempt the closest lodging was 70 miles north in Omak WA.
Long day but we made it!
At dinner Rhys and I formulated a route to finish the second half of our aborted mission and complete the segment into Chelan then loop back up to Omak for the night!
This is the right size bike for the WABDR!
Time will tell!
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