Gran Fondo bike ride this weekend
The annual Gran Fondo bicycle ride, an 80-mile excursion that begins and ends in Winthrop, will take place on Saturday (Sept. 17), starting at 8 a.m. from the Winthrop Barn and finishing at Pine Near RV Park.
Riders will be escorted out of town with lead and follow vehicles. Organizers, who expect about 150 participants, stress that the Gran Fondo is not a race. The route takes riders out East Chewuch Road and back again, and includes U.S. Forest Service roads as well as paved roads.
The ride will start before the Winthrop Vintage Wheels Show parade which begins at 11 a.m., and is not expected to interfere with that event.
Riders are expected to start showing up at the RV park around 2 p.m. There will be a post-ride meal at the staging area from 2 – 5 p.m.
Every Kid Outdoors
Back-to-school season means a new class of fourth graders will soon be eligible to enroll in Every Kid Outdoors, a federal program which provides up to a year of free access to national forests, national parks and other public lands for fourth-grade students and their families.
Fourth-graders, parents and educators can visit the Every Kid Outdoors website at https://everykidoutdoors.gov and learn more about how to obtain free entry to all federal lands.
Students can obtain passes individually by completing a brief online activity. Educators who work with fourth graders can visit the site to download an educational activity guide, after which they’ll be able to obtain vouchers for their students. Once printed, students and their families can also redeem the paper voucher for a durable, plastic pass at any Forest Service office where passes are sold. Passes and vouchers are valid for the entire school year.
