This weekend was an eye opening experience.
I’ve been off roading twice before.
Once with an experienced driver in Moab.
And then again in moab, driving a rented jeep.
I had a lot of fun both times.
But this weekend was different.
We didn’t know where we were going, vehicles were getting stuck, stuff was breaking, and
people were massacring their underwear.
Upon seeing this side of four wheeling I realized I had been missing out on half the fun.
It all started when my friends Nick and Jep came through Asheville for a visit.
They were on their way to Tennessee to use all this stuff, and tempted me to come along.
With my wife out of town, it would mean I’d need to bring the boys with me.
Bosco is a sporting pup, but Drama...not so much.
It would be interesting to see how he did.
So we set out to none other than Windrock mountain, home to every offroad vice that
exists.
Yep, this is the same Windrock that has year round downhill mountain biking, and the venue
that hosted the Pro Grt in March.
Nick and Jep rode the downhill park for a day while I followed the doctor’s orders
and stayed off my bike.
Having ridden here before, I always wondered what the other 73,000 acres of this private
mountain had to offer.
With a cabin full of like minded individuals, I’d be able to experience those acres the
best way possible.
—Interview with nick and jep—
Like mountain biking, four wheeling encompasses
a vast abyss of terms, techniques, and best practices.
Also like mountain biking, everyone postpones their repairs until the last possible second.
On most trails you can just drive and follow the vehicle in front of you.
If you’ve driven a mud puddle or mound, you’ve more or less driven them all.
But on rougher trails things are less predictable.
—almost flipped jeep—
I’ve heard it said that getting stuck is half the fun.
For
the remaining vehicles, we used a spotter.
A spotter is someone outside who works with the driver to plan a line.
A good spotter can mean the difference between safe passage and a damaged vehicle.
These instances reminded me of riding mount Fromme in Vancouver.
Each feature was so crazy that we all dismounted and coached each other one by one.
Four wheeling is more or less always like this if you’re pushing your vehicle’s
limits.
Today I’ve been using the terms four wheeling, offroading, and jeeping interchangeably, but
technically jeeping refers to the driving of Jeeps only.
On that day we were most definitely Jeeping.
Our group drove a mix of Jeep Cherokees, Wranglers, Comanches, and even a Crewmanchie?
I’ll bet you’ve never seen one of these, unless you’re already following kenny.
This is a two door Jeep Comanche pickup, built through the late 80s and early 90s.
This is a 4 door jeep cherokee SUV, built through the early 2000s.
These two vehicles smeashed in kenny’s garage, and out came a four door crew cab comanche,
dubbed the Crewmanche.
Kenny’s creation has gotten him some well deserved fame in the jeeping community, and
that was before the crewmanchie was even finished.
This was its first time offroading, and this is probably the first good video of it in
action.
In many instances it was the most capable vehicle there.
Also doing quite well was Drama, happy as a clam and cool as a cucumber.
He rode shotgun in the crewmanche for all but the gnarliest climbs while his buddy Bosco....was
not doing quite as well.
As the day wore on, I saw more and more reasons why my audience of mountain bikers seems to
have a lot of overlap with the jeeping crowd.
Besides the obvious similarities with four wheeling like being in the woods, mountain
biking is also about challenging yourself, learning new routes, and pushing your equipment
to its limits.
It’s also about having a great time with friends, and trusting one another.
But as we got deeper into the woods and continued to lose sunlight, we were wondering how the
hell we were going to get home.
We’d have to choose one of these hills and get everyone up it, or turn around and go
back the way we came.
One feature of true offroad vehicles is the ability to lock the hubs.
Notice how all four wheels of this comanche turn at the same rate, beasting it up this
muddy hill.
And notice how this wrangler is stuck in one spot, with the passenger side front wheel
just sitting there.
In these situations it’s nice to have a winch.
A winch a mechanically driven spool of cable that can pull you or someone else out of just
about anything.
One
by one, the whole troop made it up the muddy climb, and it was finally time for nick and
I
to send it.
We were still far from finished.
Inch by inch, obstacle by obstacle, we made our way up windrock mountain.
—jeeping, dialogue, montage—
By the end of the day, I had experienced real four wheeling—not the sterilized car advertisement
version where everything goes as planned.
Although I only have the time and money for mountain biking, I’ll certainly come along
on expeditions like these whenever the opportunity arises.
And of course, I can’t wait to get back to windrock for some two wheeled fun when
my wrist heals.
If you liked the crewmanche, you can see it grow and evolve on Kenny’s Instagram.
I’m sure he’ll be posting some pictures and clips from the Windrock trip soon.
Thanks for four wheeling with me today, and I’ll see you next time.