Bike-packing the Bear Bones Bash

Is it possible to ride The Bear Bones Bash on a gravel bike?… it’s ‘possible’ to ride anything on a gravel bike, just depends how fast you wana get there 😅🤪

230km, over 6000m total ascent, hike-a-bike and hilly hell 😁

So worth it – highly recommend because mid Wales is ace!

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Is it possible to ride the Barebones Bash in Mid Wales on a gravel bike? Probably should have changed these tires, not going to lie. I’ll be honest with you, this would have been easier with a mountain bike. The Barebones Bash is an off-road 230 km circular route that has over 6,000 m of total ascent, and it’s a bit of a beast. You can get the route from bikeparking.com, and it tells you it takes 3 to 4 days, which you might question, but it is the terrain that warrants the 3 to 4 days. I did it over 3 days and I did not find that easy. Oh, I’m so done. Get me a pint. But it is a hell of a route. Some of the best of mid Wales riding. Gate number 14,72. Rickety Wall. Gravel bike or mountain bike? That is the question. I was lucky enough to ride this route when the UK had just had a few weeks of dry weather. But if you know Mid Wales and its usual level of moistness, shall we say, you’ll know why I definitely recommend some grippier tires than I’ve got, if there’s been even a sniff of rainfall. Personally, I was happy on my gravel bike. And if I beefed up the tires a bit, I’d do it again on the same bike, but I’m more about the adventure than I am about being a good rider, so others might not agree. But the question was whether it is doable on a gravel bike. And in my opinion, it is perfectly doable on a gravel bike. But it depends what you’re into. I don’t mind getting off and I’m not bothered about speed on the techy stuff particularly. Uh that’s a no from me. It’s a pretty sparse and remote route, but Mahunle is your main resupply point which I tapped up early on my third day. So I ate like an absolute queen on that final third day. I was about to go to someone’s house. This is not the way. Thank you. Goodbye. I was going to try and name my favorite part of this route, but I loved loads of it. But in the north, I really enjoyed the descent down to Menle. And in the south, I really enjoyed the area before Clin Reservoir. Probably my least favorite area was going through Havin Forest and I think it was just cuz it was on the third day and it was a big section of forest. Just got a bit boring to be honest. But that was the only bit that I would say was got a little bit boring. The rest was really varied. There’s a couple of bothies on route here and here, but I wild camp for both nights. And obviously if you’re going to do that, make sure you leave no trace. If you’re interested at all in how I pack, then you can check out this video on my Instagram or Tik Tok. And if you got any barebones bash questions, then drop them in the comments.