I’ve featured a couple of cycling related events and news items in my recent Times-Dispatch columns that I want to highlight here also. First the news, and this is a big one: Pocahontas State Park is in line for an extreme makeover –mountain bike addition. If a public/private partnership comes together as hoped, the state park in Chesterfield County will be the site of 35-40 new miles of singletrack. What’s that, you ask, doesn’t Pocahontas already have some serious singletrack? It does, but the new stuff will be IMBA-built “mountain bike optimized” trail. And if it goes through, it, along with Richmond’s downtown trails, would give the area a good chance to become an official IMBA “Ride Center.”

The governor (pressed by aide Jasen Eige, a trail runner and biker) got the process rolling, by adding a $50,000 budget amendment that recently made it through the General Assembly. To those funds will be added $50,000 more from Dominion Resources. The $100,000 will get the ball rolling on what could be a project costing north of $1 million. Click here to read more.

As for events, I recently featured the Virginia Capital Trail Foundation’s Cap2Cap ride. This year will be the eighth annual Cap2Cap, the ride day that has grown from 150 participants to over 2,200 last year. What once was an event for hardcore cyclists, is now a party (in both Richmond Williamsburg, depending on where you start your ride) with some riding mixed in. It’s also the group’s largest fundraiser, bring in over $110,000 in 2012. This year’s event goes off on May 11. Click here to learn more.