Bike Park Blowout Set for September 21st

Kids and bikes.

Spectacular crashes during the free-ride session.

Free lunch. Cowbells. Bikes, bikes and more bikes.

It doesn’t get much better than this. Everyone is invited to attend this year’s Bike Park Blowout at the Castle Rock Bike Park on Saturday, September 21st.

We had 350+ people at last year’s event and we are looking to surpass that total. Adult riders will have plenty of time to session the park. And if you enjoy seeing kids have fun, you are going to have a smile on your face that will stay there the entire weekend.

We’ve added approximately a dozen new features of varying difficulties in the past year. Here’s your chance to check it out. Bring your kids, grandkids, the neighbor kids. or stray kids. If they have a bike and a helmet, this is the place. And if they don’t have a helmet, we can supply one.

We will have 12 to 15 kids’ challenge stations. We found out last year that kids love stickers, and we will have them again. Anyone who accumulates 15 stickers will be awarded a Champion medal, courtesy of PNW biking legends Jerry and Andrea de Ruyter.

I realize that some of you would prefer to be riding at the mountain. Please keep in mind that this is our opportunity to show the local community - and by that, I mean everyone in Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon - that people are passionate about bikes. Your presence at this event, as well as you willingness to spread the word and recruit others, would be greatly appreciated.

We’ll set aside 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. so that all volunteers and other adults can have full free-ride opportunities. The kids will starting showing at 10 a.m. and we will get the stations going then. Please keep in mind that a number of more technical features will not be used for the kids’ stations and will be open for adults. In addition, adult riders can jump in and hit any of the features at any time.

It’s all about sharing the vibe. Let this be the warm-up to Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day.

As you can probably guess, we are going to need volunteers to make this work. I know people are busy, but without your help we can’t pull it off. These people are on board. Let me know if you can make it.

1. Katie Ahrens
2. Scott Ahrens
3. Preston Antisdel
4. Krissy Brunsman
5. Andy Crump
6. Andrea de Ruyter
7. Jerry de Ruyter
8. Barry de Semple
9. Tom Eilertsen
10. Tana Gutzka
11. Tuuli Hakala
12. Kim Hanley
13. Ann Hinkle
14. Kelley Hinkle
15. Andrew Holder
16. Nic Khajevi
17. John Kowalski
18. Rob Larsen
19. Chris Laughlin
20. Chelsey LeMonds
21. Dave LeMonds
22. Diane LeMonds
23. J. LeMonds
24. Sherry LeMonds
25. Jeff Lipton
26. Denise Livingston
27. Vaughn Martin
28. Brandon McNew
29. Karen McNew
30. Cristina Mihaescu
31. Juntu Oberg
32. Shane Oberg
33. Greg Ogden
34. Mike Patterson
35. Nicole Peterson
36. Steve Reed
37. Kris Siewell
38. Randy Toney
39. Jon Van Natta