A few of us intrepid skaters ventured out in the Seattle showers on Sunday May 16th, 1999 to participate in the 4th annual RedHook Haul Ash. A 40 mile ride along the Burke Gilman/Sammamish River Trail from RedHook Brewery in Woodinville to RedHook in Fremont and back to Woodinville. This is normally a bike (only)event. This year it was a bike/skate event!

Eight skating participants rode with the roughly 200 strong bike force in sweet harmony down and back. The participants were: Steve Metzner, Eric Parch, Paul Hedrick, Chris Ramko, John Berks, Dave Rhoades, Hugo Piottin and Ken Russell. Thanks to the wet and other trail obstacles, a few of us became a little too intimate with pavement and have some healing to do. Being a tough bunch, that didn't stop any of us from continuing our participation. We were very well received by the bike riders (which we all know is not always the case). Some were very impressed by our performance and enjoyed our participation (the rest we beat!). Due to successful integration of skaters in this years Haul Ash event, I think we can look forward to continued skater participation in future years.

Live music, lunch and inevitably a few beers followed. Prized were awarded for various categories and we skaters won for "Best Team Spirit"!!! Yea team!!!

Comments from Steve:
Ken, Thanks for the invite to skate the Haul Ash. The partially wet 40 miler even though flat was a challange this early in the season. Two days later, I have sort of recovered from the beer, the bounce and the babysitter's bill. My skin seems to be still intact but successive layers of stuff underneath is groaning. My hydration pack looks like it was shot out of a cannon. I'm sure the cyclists that witnessesd the "crash test dummies" demo team won't be renting skates any time real soon. Can't wait to get my hands on the Red Hook beer mugs. Smells like team spirit.