What do you get when you put together lederhosen, polka music, brews, and a whole lot of bikes? No, not a bratwurst induced coma! You get Bavarian Bikes and Brews, die besten Bike-Rennen der Welt.

Interstate 90 stretches out like black paint spilled on a tan canvas. The lush greenery of the west slope of the divide well behind, yet the salted air of the pacific ocean still far west over the edge of the horizon. Another kind of ocean abounds with it’s tips of wheat swaying in the never ending wind. The highest structures to be seen are mills; some for wind, some for grain, both churning faithfully in the undying breeze. After driving over a few rollers, flowing across the earth like ripples in a sheet, you’ll see the faintest cloud on the horizon. At least it looks like a cloud, but after a moment it looks fake, in the way that it looks too real. That cloud is Mount Reiner, and it means soon you’ll be turning off this road to one of a bit more culture- a few more bikes.

It doesn’t take long after turning on highway 281 that the vineyards and the orchards start replacing the wheat and the dust, but wait a few more miles and roll onto highway 2, north of Wenatchee, that’s when the land gets creative. Every shade of green and yellow overflow from terraces at various levels on the surrounding hills. Rivers begin to trickle, then tumble far below the precarious two lane into Leavenworth. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend taking a second to realize that in the span of a hundred miles you’ve driven from Nebraska into the Black Forest of Germany. Willkommen to Bikes and Brews.

My own drive through the European canyon brought on mixed emotions. At first glance, I looked in awe at the colossal mountains high above me and thought with sparks of excitement, “There’s single track up there and I get to race on it?” However, it didn’t take long to realize exactly how tall those mountains were, at which time I found myself thinking, “There’s single track all the way up there, and were going to try to ride it?” Yes, we are. That’s all you can really tell yourself, then you just start riding.

It’s true, the climb on the course at Bike and Brews is challenging, but only if you just look down. Look up for a spell and it’s hard not to become distracted by the beautiful landscape ironically causing the suffering. Switchback after switchback, headwall after head-aching headwall the dirt road contours up the canyon. While the soil looks rich and fertile to the sides, this road has been ground up and powdered to a lunar dust. It’s a moonscape under your tires, if only gravity would shut down for a while too. Perfectly timed near the top, your patience for the beautiful distraction of nature is finally crushed. The hallucinations show the road cut miles further; thousands more turns twisting up the brutal mountain. That’s just when the single track starts.

How shall I put this? The single track is confusingly good. You bolt through the forest, whipping around corners, bashing through branches, and all the while your mind is running nearly as fast as your wheels are turning. How long can this go? Look at that view! Don’t look at the view, you almost crashed. Water bar coming up- compress, absorb, pedal. Wow, I’m going really fast here. Am I going too fast here? I am definitely going too fast here! Wait… I’m still alive? Shut up. Pedal. Repeat.

That’s pretty much how Bikes and Brews goes- or at least the bike part. From the innocent eyes of a minor the brews part seems to follow quite quickly… and in abundance. Where there’s bikes, brews, and a few want-a-be Bavarians the party is sure to be rocking. I don’t know if it was the groovy dancing, the blue grass band attempting Jimi Hendrix, or the fact that the whole event was staged on a small, organic farm, but the longer I sat there listening to the music the more I realized what this event really means. For a mountain biker, this is Woodstock. This a place where for one night a year nothing exists outside the fencing of that glimmering beer garden. Nobody has a job, nobody has bad races, and nobody has good races. Everybody’s legs hurt, too much to dance, but we do anyway. Everybody’s throats are dry and cracked from exertion, but we talk mystically about where we’re from and what we do as if it was a dream last night and this is reality. Though in the back of our minds we all know, this the dream and for this one night every year we get to live it.

It’s bitter sweet to crawl back into my tent and wait for morning to come. With it will came the long drive back down the canyon of highway 2, the slight right onto 281, the vineyards to 91 then a glimpse of Reiner as the wind blows me home. Bittersweet because while Bikes and Brews maybe coming to an end this year, I can still dream of next year and the years to come when it rides around that calendar again. And as I lie with no desire to sleep, I think I hear a drum circle outside just over the faint clicking of a cassette.