Last night was the end to another great season of “Short Track” mountain bike racing out at PIR (Portland International Raceway, adjacent to Delta Park and north of the Kenton neighborhood). About 300 people of all ages and abilities found their way to the venue for some good, old-fashioned, elbow-to-elbow racing action.
Bummer news… One of our great local races, Kruger’s Kermess, has been cancelled. It’s usually held in mid-May at Kruger’s Farm Market on Sauvie Island. Looks like the warm temps this year have bumped up berry picking season and the farm will be in full swing.
Check out the details from race organizer Kris Schamp of Portland Racing:
Last week, I received a heads-up by Don Kruger that berry picking season at Kruger’s Farm is expected to kick off super-early this year (due to the exceptional weather of the last months) and that for business, logistical and safety reasons they wont’ be able to host a bike race on the farm while they have a large number of customers (incl. families with kids) running around the field picking berries. I’ve been going back and forth with them for the last days to try to find a solution, but it doesn’t look like we can make it work. So, no Spring Kermesse this year 🙁
The summer edition of the Kruger’s Kermesse Farm Crit (on Sunday August 30) will take place as planned.
If you’ve attended a cyclocross race in or around Portland, you probably noticed that there are nearly as many dogs as bikes. For some reason, there’s a huge cross over between dog lovers and ‘cross lovers.
Now, one local race organizer plans to make the dogs part of the action.
Kris Schamp, owner of Portland Racing, said the idea came to him after watching the Cross Crusade up in Astoria over Halloween Weekend. “Seeing all the dogs out there sitting on the sidelines, I just thought ‘Hey, why don’t they get to race and have fun?'”
Comment of the Week: The Tillamook traffic circle controversy