* - Large Reinforced Heavy Duty Trash Bags - the park staff will have our garbage removed from a central location.

* - Beer - I just didn’t want to list beer first.  Soda can also be subsituted for beer if that’s the way you roll.  Or maybe even those fancy little vitamin waters all the kids are drinking these days.

* - Beer for the Beer Pot-Luck. Bring a 6-pack of your favorite local brew to toss in the kiddy pool.

* - A dish to pass at Saturday’s feast and cook-off.  Vegas Style.  Please also make a small card indicating what it is and major components/ingredients (beef/gnome/dairy/nuts/veg/vegan/etc).

* - Your other food for the weekend.

* - $12/night/tent payable directly to the site in those drop envelope thingies.

* - Beer to enter in the Homebrew contest.

* - All your car camping stuff, especially the camp chair~stratolounger~loveseat arrangement, with cupholder.

* - Your bicycle silly and those nifty clip in shoes, oooh oooh oooh…and aero helmets.  Mexican wrestling masks aren’t quite as protective.

* - Night riding gear - Don’t forget September can either be really warm, really cold, really wet, and sometimes all 3 at once. Also, it gets dark out there, so don’t forget your lights!

* - A costume for the mini-bike death race. It can never hurt to sway the judges with some flashy duds fully of sequence and fluffy boas.

* - But most importantly bring a swimmingly good nature attitude pill.

 The clock just went tick tock.

So I got an email this past week from a fellow gnomer asking if he could bring a keg a beer?  What??  Really?  Twist.My.Arm.  Yes, please; of course you can.  Make a point to find Tremendo and give him the great big hug that he deserves for sharing his love with all of us.

Our long time friends at The Prairie Peddler are continuing their years of support to the GnomeFest cause and will once again be back with demo bikes.  But not just any old demos; Singular Cycles (http://www.singularcycles.com/US.html).  The Prairie Peddler is your only source in the United States to get your very own Singular Cycle and they are going to be onsite with demos!  You can read about current Prairie Peddler happenings here: http://theprairiepeddler.blogspot.com/. Stop by and take one out for a spin.

New Jersey is now finally represented and will be making their presence known at GF7.  Look out!

1 week remaining to pre-register at reduced rates!!!

A few have inquired regarding family registration for GF7.  As you’ve probably have noticed it has already sold out!!  That’s right, GF7 is just that good.  If you are part of a family, whether by choice or not, and all members are riding the trails, all members must register.  However, if your husband is pregnant and will be acting as your your sober and presumably better-half and not riding the trails, for insurance purposes, etc we still need to register your husband, however, it will be at a reduced rate of $15.  As such your husband will not receive any of the GF schwag such as t-shirts, etc, but extras are still available to purchase during the normal registration process should he really want some…..and why wouldn’t he; they are undeniably awesome!!  If you are one of these situations, or perhaps something similar, please contact us at gnomefest@gmail.com so we can add each of those non-riding members to our list with a note saying the additional $15 for each will be paid on site.

“What about my kids?”  If your children are going to be riding the trails they must register through the normal procedure.  If your kids are attending, but not riding the trails, and are not of cage-driving age they are FREE!!!  If your children are of driving age and are not riding, tell them they have to ride and go register them.  Ok, ok, ok, they too will be $15, but no schwag and we’ll probably volunteer them for a variety of tasks, like helping us find that left-handed smoke shifter.  Oh yeah, please email us at gnomefest@gmail.com so we can add your children to the list that are not riding.

Stay tuned for another entry on what to bring…….

That’s quite a bit for 6 weekends, but if you really want to look at the amount of money that goes directly back to maintaining the properties and trails you could add in all the trail and camping fees as well.  Unfortunately I don’t have records of the early events since it was up to the users to make sure they filled out and deposited the appropriate funds, but if you take GF6 as a sample year approximately an additional $2,000 went directly into the trail system.  Amazing?  Yeah I think so.  With that logic it’s not hard to reckon that GnomeFest has generated over $10,000 in funds since we started in 2004.  Little did we know exactly what GnomeFest would grow into and become bringing riders together from all across the country (even a few international attendees), but anyone that has ever participated in our events should be proud to know that your attendance is helping to promote these local systems.

Levis Trow Mounds trail steward Steve has been busy this past year cutting in some new reroutes which I know I’m looking forward to riding.  In 5 weeks GnomeFest 7 will once again set up camp at Levis Trow Mounds so don’t forget to register today (fees go up on Sept 1st!), and in the meantime support your local trail system by going to a trail work day. 

Cliffhanger (By Greg).

For those traveling to LTM there’s also some road contruction due to a bridge out. 

From the south:
…Hwy 12/27 is CLOSED (bridge out) about 3 miles south of Merrillan, WI
Take Co. Hwy E just north of Black River Falls to Hatfield, then take
Co. hwy J to Hwy 95 & Fisher rd, which goes to Levis Mound.

Enjoy the final two months of riding before GF7 and we look forward to seeing everyone soon.

$30 until May 31, 2010.

$35 until August 31, 2010.

$45 on site.

 See you soon!

To get you in the mood, people are talking about Gnome-Fest here: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=587911