Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally In June-uary

HCMR – “Showers” in downtown Baker City

I’ll get right to the point. 

This year the Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally (HCMR) was hit hard with the “Gore Effect.”

Huh?  You may remember this as the phenomenon that whenever Al Gore discusses Global warming it leads to unseasonably wicked cold temperatures, driving rain, hail, or snow mix whenever he visits an area.  I’m not exactly sure where Mr. Gore was located last weekend, but I’m darn sure he had to be thinking about the northwest, because Baker City, Oregon got slapped hard with a cold wet rag right to the face!

If you’re unfamiliar with the rally, it’s located on the border of Oregon and Idaho and Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon in North America.  Motorcycle riders come from all over to ride the Devil’s Tail, visit Historic Baker City, Oregon and then travel along the various Hells Canyon Scenic Byways.

So, here is the ASK of Steve and Eric Folkestad, (organizers of the HCMR rally):  Send Al Gore a letter asking that he never think about the northwest or better yet, after attending this rally 4 previous years and having some portion of it significantly disrupted by poor/bad weather let’s move the date! 

HCMR – Temperature kept going down, and down!

This past weekend was the straw that pushed me over the edge.  Unless the date of this event moves out to later in the month/year, I don’t plan to return!   And if the random survey I took with several other riders was any indicator,  there are a number of motorcycle enthusiasts who plan to remove HCMR from their list of early summer (“June-ary”) rides. 

Hey we’re a hardy bunch, but clearly riders would like to guarantee improve the odds of better weather for this great event.  And just because the Sunridge Hotel had the largest crowds in the city huddled around two patio warmers don’t think I’m railing against Global warming. 

Nothing could be more fun in my book – sarcasm alert – than holding a cold refreshment in 40 degree rain while standing six people deep around a patio warmer trying to catch a little bit of  heat.

Don’t make us start a Facebook petition to move the date!

Photos taken by author

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I Hear Sleigh Bells Ringing

It’s been a pretty busy year at Northwest Harley Blog covering the various motorcycle rides that the posse went on, events and industry news along the way and the occasional rant about the Occupy protests, Wisconsin sit-ins as well as highlighting Harley-Davidson’s trouble spots around the world.

As you know, I write about this stuff from the comfort of my living room.  Investigative journalists who get paid to report the news for a living don’t have the same conveniences afforded me as they are on the front lines producing first-person accounts of the stories that motorcycle enthusiasts care about.  Yet the forces of modern society have placed the newspaper reporter on the “endangered species” list.  Stat’s from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook 2010-2011, indicate a whopping 4,400 reporter jobs will disappear by 2018 (out of 69,400 total in 2008). That’s more than three times the number of newsroom employees at The New York Times.

It can be summed up in a word: Internet.

But, that techie thing that Al Gore “invented” is a double edge sword for me.  Thanks to the internet, I no longer use Cling Wrap in the microwave because it causes seven different types of cancer.  I limit the times I drink in a bar to only daylight hours because I fear I’ll wake up in a bathtub full of ice with my kidneys gone.  And the most helpful internet tip convinced me to keep my toothbrush in the living room, because I was told by multiple e-mails that water splashes over 6 ft. out of the toilet.  I know this is true because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor’s ex mother-in-law’s second husband’s cousin’s best friend’s barber…

We’re not going back to the heady newspaper days of yore.  But, I’ve digressed.

That tick, tick, ticking you hear is the march of the impending Christmas holiday deadline. So, before the gift-buying is done, family-visiting, eggnog-sipping chaos reaches a tipping point, remember to take some quiet — YOU time.

 

Merry Christmas everyone.

 

P.S. if you’re the there ain’t no party like a polar bear party type and planning to drink, please don’t get behind the wheel of a vehicle or attempt to ride a motorcycle.  I don’t want to lose you as a valued reader of this blog, but Governor Kitzhaber proclaimed December as “3D Month” which means significant increases in officer roadway presence and very agressive enforcement of DUII. 

Photo courtesy of Al Gore.

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