events - The Gorge is my Gym

Good morning,

It’s time for the summer sponsorships and the weekly (kinda weekly) giveaways on the email forecast. Your sponsor this week: Dirty Fingers Bike Repair and bar!Let’s start off with the convenient location on 13th and State with lots of FREE parking. That’s right: no meters. Talented bike mechanics. Great brands: Kona, Transition, Ellsworth, Moots, Cervelo.Bikes, schmikes. Dirty Fingers has beer. Yes, it’s the only combo beer-and-bike bar inthe world(?). Pints are $4, or $3 if you’re at Happy Hour from 5pm-6pm. Dirty Fingers.Years and years in the Gorge. Grand opening party Saturday night with food, music, beer and a watt bike competition. We’re giving away a free Full Monte bike tune. Support the report with a paypal donation of $10 or more if you’d like a chance to win!

First off this morning is a shoutout and congratulations to Tonia Farman, director of the local charity Athletes for Cancer. She just won Self Magazine’s Women Doing Good award for 2012. If you’d like to learn more about her charity, check out kb4c.org, and once again, congratulations Tonia, and thanks for doing such great work!

Next is the wind forecast, or actually, the not-much-wind forecast. There’s just enough gradient this morning and just enough high off the coast to support 13-15 in the Central Gorge today. Tomorrow starts off light, but as a low pressure system swings through, bringing clouds, we’ll see gusty 17-21 in the afternoon. On Monday, we’ll see more gusty west wind coupled with (gasp) rain. The first few days of next week continue with the cool, showery pattern.

In mountain bike news, there are more trails open: someone cut out all the trees that had fallen on Surveyor’s, but there’s still some snow on the section that parallels the road. You might want to skip that mile or two. Knebal is open, the Da Kine trail is open, but Bottle Prarie has some snow and about 10 downed trees.

In road news, Lost Lake Road is plowed and open as of yesterday, so head on up there for some fishing and great views, or just for the sufferfest of road rides, with no loop option at this time. The resort is not open, but will open next weekend.

In fun s**t news today, there’s a kids fishing clinic from 8am-1pm at Middle Fork Pond in Parkdale. There’s a river cleanup on the Lower Hood at 10am, meeting at the Lower Hood pedestrian bridge. There’s a Hatchery wok party from 9-noon at, duh, the Hatchery, and there’s the Grom Bomb Gravity mountain bike race for kids at the Hood River Skate Park from 9am-noon.

Coming up tonight, the Dirty fingers grand opening party from 3-8 and the 2nd Wind season opener party starting at 8pm at the British Pub. Also tonight, Smudgepot, composed of cool people from Meadows and elsewhere, plays at Volcanic Bottle Shop sometime after 8.

Don’t drink too much, as there’s a swap meet at Windance tomorrow.

Have an awesome day today!

Temira

p.s. If you find this report useful, entertaining, or just want to recognize all the hard work that goes into it, please take the time to make a donation by clicking on the link below. For a suggested donation of $10, I’ll add you to the email version of this list for a year, putting you in the running for cool prizes donated by the weekly sponsors during the summer season (and the winter if I get off my bum and get some!). If you don’t PayPal, you can send a donation to PO Box 841 in Hood River, 97031.

Enter “Temira” as your referral code

Good morning,

It’s time for the summer sponsorships and the weekly (kinda weekly) giveaways on the email forecast. Your sponsor this week: Why choose Dirty Fingers Bike Repair and bar? Let’s start off with the convenient location on 13th and State with lots of FREE parking. That’s right: no meters. Talented bike mechanics. Great brands: Kona, Transition, Ellsworth, Moots, Cervelo.Bikes, schmikes. Dirty Fingers has beer. Yes, it’s the only combo beer-and-bike bar inthe world(?). Pints are $4, or $3 if you’re at Happy Hour from 5pm-6pm. Dirty Fingers.Years and years in the Gorge. Grand opening party Saturday night with food, music, beer and a watt bike competition. We’re giving away a free Full Monte bike tune. Support the report with a paypal donation of $10 or more if you’d like a chance to win!

If you like wind, get some today, and if you don’t like wind, breathe a sigh of relief, because the wind is going away for the weekend. The gradient as of the time of this report was .09/.09. Combine that with clouds all the way to Stevenson for another windy day. I’m actually surprised it isn’t windier this morning. Anyway, as it warms up today, we’ll have 24-27 at the Hatch and Doug’s by mid-morning, filling in pretty much everywhere at 22-25 this afternoon, and probably becoming a bit gusty as flow swings more northerly. For tomorrow and Sunday, we’ll have nearly no wind, but the wind will be back by Monday. Someone asked me yesterday about the current at Maryhill. I keep hearing that it’s very strong current with very little swell out there, but maybe people are misleading me and keeping it to themselves. It’s kinda like the biking report:

We have an update on Surveyor’s Ridge. I have three reports: one says it’s totally open. One says 10 trees down and a little snow, and one says 50 trees down and lots of snow. So, ride at your own risk. A non-risky ride is the 13-and-under gravity grom race at Hood River’s Skate Park tomorrow at 9am.
Free. All groms welcome.

Also tomorrow, there’s a Hatchery work party from 9am-noon and there’s a cleanup on the Lower Hood River from 10am to 1pm – meet at the Hood River pedestrian bridge for that one.

Coming up tomorrow night, Dirty Fingers Bike Repair celebrates their new shop with a party from 3-8 with food, music and a watt bike competition. Also tomorrow night, there’s a family friendly mountain bike ride at Cascade Locks’ easyclimb trail at 6pm, and finally, there’s 2nd Wind’s season opener party at the British Pub at 8pm. And one last thing, don’t miss out on Smudgepot, playing at Volcanic sometime after 8pm.

And then there’s the swap meet Sunday at Windfest and Victoria Day (eh) on Monday. I think, from what I hear, that Canadians celebrate Victoria Day by drinking Scorpion Bowls all weekend?

Have an awesome day today!

Temira