Gulevich, Brule, and Splinter - Washington and Oregon Road Trip - Part 2

Apr 8, 2008

The snow and rain of the past two days had our hopes a little low for good weather, but as luck would have it things were better in Hood River. Blue skies greeted us from the loft at Chico's pad and we knew that the days ahead where going to be good.

Check out what the crew got up to in Hood River:

The plan was to go on a photo shoot with Geoff Gulevich and Emily Johnson for Dakine's 2009 soft goods line up on Monday. We all gathered our gear together at Chico’s and tee’d up Bette’s for breakfast-take note its good eats there. After a quick stop at Dakine for a tour and to say hi to the good folks responsible for all the sweet bike products that are coming out of this building lately, it was time to grab the 2009 kits for Geoff and Emily and then we were on our way to Syncline for the day.


James and I initially thought it was a shuttle up and ride down kind of shoot-oops we were wrong. Colin and Chico were suiting up at the base and informed us that it was an easy 20+ min climb up to Little Maui and then we’d ride trails back down. Thankfully James runs a road cassette on his DH rig, so I had an excuse to join him on our 40+ minute hike up-ah big bikes don’t always make sense.


While the professionals went one way, James and I took another and made our way up to Little Moab for our first ride. After the previous two days of poor weather, it was so nice to be riding in a jersey and under a sunny sky. James was starting to get a feeling for his bike again too after being off it for around 5+ months up north.


After that first rip to get the blood flowing we decided to do another push up (yes 98% of the folks out here ride up, but really we enjoyed the hike too). This time we too headed over to Little Maui to see what the rest of the crew was up too so far on their shoot. Little Maui offered a nicer blend of XC riding over the rocks and drops of Little Moab.



On our way to the truck for lunch James wanted to put his big boy pants on and tee up this drop. The success of that first big drop of the season has really elevated James on this trip.


After lunch, I turned into the shuttle guy and dropped the crew off at the top of Syncline, where they all did their best to not find any Poison Oak-most found it though. Everyone got in a good long Syncline rip to end the end-Gully found a square edged rock to end his run, but one day he’ll put a tube in that pack.


We all ate at the best little Mexican place in the heights that night-sorry can’t remember the name but it’s really good. Ask any local for directions to the Mexican restaurant in the heights and you’ll get the same response to this place, so go and enjoy the food.

Quote of the day “I’m in shape, round is a shape!” James

All pics from the Syncline shoot.

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Day Two:

Geoff, James and I had been talking about getting a hot shave from the start of the trip and we were told that there was a barber in Hood River, so that was the plan for day two. Hot shaves and riding at Post Canyon were on the agenda for the crew. While scoping out a barber I took my bike to Discover Bikes where Eric helped me give it some love from the previous day’s misfortunes on Syncline. Colin had to hit the road for California, but stayed around long enough to see if we’d get shaves. Unfortunately the barber didn’t do hot shaves, but was more than willing to give Gully a new hair cut for the trip-odd that she never even batted an eye when he asked for a Mullet with Lightening Bolts.


After the hair cut, we headed to the local skate park and to the Jeff Johnson Memorial Bike Park to meet up with PostCanyonLoc, Carl Warren and ShovelPick. Geoff and James got their groove on at the park and then did rips of the bike course.




After the park session, we met up with Dave Bissit and Craig from Discover bikes for a few rips on lower Post Canyon. Family Guy was the first trail to get ridden and then down to Happy Meal to see the work PostCanyonLoc and ShovelPick had done to create a beginner/family friendly trail to learn on. Everyone was loving the trail conditions on Lower Post, but let it be known that Upper post is still under a few inches of the white cold stuff known as snow. Back at the base Dave and Miles were going over the new Dakine Builder’s pack:




James called it on the riding as he had a hard on to find a pub or restaurant that would play the Canucks Hockey game for us to watch. We changed and dropped off the bikes and went to THREE separate places all of which gave us blank stares when we asked about hockey. In the end we settled on pizzas for eats and then we went to visit PostCanyonLoc for a bit. While we were there, Geoff bought a snowboard off him and is ready for the snow season next year-thanks Mike!


From here we hit the town for a wild and crazy evening – ok so the three of us went to a movie. Super Hero was the movie of choice, funny little film.

-Brule

*Stay tuned as Geoff and Splinter take over the keyboard duties in Part 3*