Richmond is quickly becoming a hotbed for endurance athletes. In addition to the upcoming 2015 UCI World Cycling Championships, Richmond also boasts an international-caliber off-road triathlon (XTERRA, happening June 15^th), one of the nation’s largest 10k races, a top-notch junior elite triathlon event, the immensely popular Dominion Riverrock, and countless other running, cycling, and multi-sport events.

Fortunately for this great community, the Richmond area also boasts some great spots to train for the above races. Below are a few of my favorite training spots, and how I use them to build fitness. Whether you’re a cyclist, runner, adventure racer, or triathlete, you’ll likely find that one or more of these venues provides you with some worthwhile (and fun) training options.

A group ride can be a good way to up the intensity of a workout. Credit: Endorphin Fitness

Belle Isle

What/Where: Most Richmonders have been out to Belle Isle for one reason or another. It sits in the middle of the James within sight of downtown, making it a quick and easy getaway for city dwellers. The footbridge on Tredegar Street (near Brown’s Island) provides access.

How I Use It: One time around the main loop on Belle Isle is almost exactly a mile and features forgiving packed gravel and a small climb on each loop. When I’m training for a half marathon, I do a workout called “Belle Isle Miles,” which I structure as a fartlek workout. Fartlek IS a real word, and usually refers to any workout where a runner is alternating between faster and slower running in some kind of structured manner. I do my fartlek on Belle Isle by alternating one loop of the island at half marathon race pace (“tempo” effort) with a loop at steady, everyday running pace. This workout allows me to pile up a good chunk of mileage and practice race effort in manageable pieces.

Old Gun Road West

What/Where: On the south side of the river, Cherokee Road eventually turns into Old Gun road if you head west. The west side of Old Gun provides cyclists with a 2-3 mile climb of varying steepness.

How I Use It: Working against gravity allows many riders to reach an effort level that is difficult to achieve on the flats. To that end, I like to do 5-6 minute repeats up this stretch of Old Gun at a relatively high intensity, then spin easy back downhill as recovery. Start with 2-3 trips up the road for the duration of your choice. As you build fitness, increase the number and length of the repeats. Old Gun is relatively narrow and has a couple of sharp bends near its bottom, so ride heads-up and be considerate of other riders and drivers.

Robious Landing Park

What/Where: Robious Landing Park is just off Robious Road, near James River High School. The park hosts the popular I Love the Tavern Triathlon late in June each year. The park has river access and a network of shaded gravel running trails.

Credit: Endorphin Fitness

How I Use It: The park is one of the area’s most popular spots for open water swimming because the river is relatively wide and the current is usually weak. Nevertheless, swimming a certain distance upriver usually takes twice as long as the same trip downriver. I make this work for me by turning this into another “fartlek” effort: I swim hard upriver for an interval of 5-10 minutes (choose a time with which you are comfortable), swim back to my starting point, and repeat. This workout replicates the conditions I face in open water swim races, where I am often forced to go between hard efforts and recovery efforts. ALWAYS be safe when swimming in the river. Never swim alone. Ideally, have a friend alongside you on a kayak or paddleboard. Wear a brightly colored swim cap so you are visible to boats and from the shore. Avoid swimming after heavy rains or when river levels are too high for your swim ability.

The James River Park Trail System

What/Where: We all know it’s there, most of us have been on it, and you can access the James River Park trail system from anywhere between downtown and the Nickel Bridge, on both sides of the river.

How I Use It: Every time I run Northbank Trail, I reach the spot where you can see the Richmond skyline, and think how lucky we are to have such a beautiful and extensive trail system in Richmond. I’ve literally never had a bad run on the trails. If you’re tired of plodding through your neighborhood, make a trip to the trails, enjoy the peace and quiet, and explore. You can run as long as you want to run without having to see the same thing twice. Alternately, pick a route, make it your own, revisit it often, and test yourself. When I’m feeling my oats, I hammer my favorite loop of Buttermilk/North Bank and see how fast I can cover it. The feeling of running fast on your favorite stretch of trail is like nothing else.

These are just a few ideas to try. Explore on your own and see what your neck of the woods has to offer. Always be safe, and always be courteous of your fellow athletes, other vehicles, and your environment.

What are you doing tomorrow night? If the answer is, “Hmmm, not sure,” here’s a thought: See a sweet movie and give to a good cause.

Our good friends at Richmond Cycling Corps — a local non-profit that provides leadership and personal development to Richmond’s urban youth through the sport of cycling — are putting on an outdoor movie night and party at their Scott’s Addition. The party starts at 7:30 p.m., the movie at 8:30, and the price, which includes popcorn, is just $7.

What’s the movie, you ask? The RCC crew will be screening Singletrack High, “a one of a kind film about high school age mountain bike racers competing in National Interscholastic Cycling Association events.” All the proceeds will help fund the Armstrong High School cycling team. Started by RCC in late 2013, Armstrong’s is the nation’s first inner-city high school cycling team. These funds will help supply equipment and travel expenses as the team takes part in the NICA league this fall.

The party is BYOB, but Isley Brewing Company is literally right next door to the party. Kind of works out perfectly, no? So bring a picnic or ride your bike over and make it a ride-in movie. Good times. Good cause.

Click here for more info and to register.

home page

Brandon Montijo can do some really cool things with a drone. The local multimedia producer, and owner of Tijo Media, will, from time to time, put short, outdoors-focused videos he’s worked on up on our Facebook page so others can see our trails, waters, and what people are doing on them from a completely different angle. They’re all great, but Montijo just came out with one, Riverrock ’14 — From the Air, that I thought deserved a wider audience. It really captures the huge crowds, the athletes doing their thing, and power of the James River on a perfect weather weekend.

National bike month continues through May, but that doesn’t mean June deserves no bike love. Luckily the Sports Backers have June’s back.

Bike Walk RVA and members of the Richmond bicycling community are thrilled to present Dinner & Bikes, an evening with Elly Blue (author of Bikenomics) and her team of filmmakers and chefs on Monday, June 16, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the Robinson Theater in Church Hill.

“We are very excited that Elly will be coming to Richmond for the first time this June,” said Max Hepp-Buchanan, Director of Bike Walk RVA for the Sports Backers. “Her book, Bikenomics, is a very insightful and well-researched look at the real transportation costs of families and individuals, and how investing in bicycling can help people, businesses, organizations, and cities thrive economically. We are looking at significant dollars in the City’s 2014-2015 budget to start building family-friendly bike infrastructure, and Elly knows better than almost anyone what a difference this can make.”

City Council and the Mayor’s office have introduced amendments to the City’s budget that include $4.5 million to build new bike lanes on Richmond’s streets and bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure along the riverfront, pending approval next week by City Council. The City is also finalizing its first Bicycle Master Plan, which plots out a full network of lanes and paved trails to be built in the coming years.

“Momentum is building in Richmond,” Hepp-Buchanan said. “Building bike infrastructure is one clear way cities are making progress on issues of economic opportunity, competitiveness, and neighborhood revitalization. Elly’s research in Bikenomics showcases how this can work for Richmond.”

The annual Dinner and Bikes Tour, a multimedia roadshow of food and bicycle enthusiasm, will be putting on events in 28 cities in twelve states from Portland to Miami. June 16 will be the first time the Dinner & Bikes tour has come to Richmond.

This event will come on the heels of the Better Block project in Church Hill North the weekend before (June 13-14), which will temporarily transform a two-block stretch of N. 25^th Street into a walkable, bikeable, and economically healthy place to live, work, and play for the weekend. The Dinner & Bikes event just a couple of days later will tie in those themes and explore how other cities have made the temporary improvements of the Better Block permanent.

For just $10, attendees of Dinner & Bikes will enjoy a gourmet healthy buffet while participating in an interactive presentation about how to effectively make a compelling case for bicycling, equity, and transportation activism. The tour is traveling with a food- and bicycle-themed pop-up bookstore. Authors will be available to chat and sign books after the event.

Tickets can be purchased in advance by clicking here: http://bit.ly/dinnerandbikesRVA. The $10 entry fee includes dinner, and seating is limited to the first 75 people who purchase tickets. The event is expected to sell out, so people are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance.

Starting tomorrow The Frontier Project, in conjunction with Bike Walk RVA and the Sports Backers are rolling out a brand new contest called “Business for Biking.”

The idea behind Business for Biking, a friendly contest among Richmond-area businesses, is to promote active transportation habits and work environments. Tomorrow, May 16, is National Bike to Work Day, and the Frontier Project is asking for RVA companies to participate by signing up their business and as many employees as they can encourage to join and pledge to donate a decided upon amount, at the discretion of each company, to Bike Walk RVA.

The way it works is relatively simple: Employees log their round-trip commutes by bike into a system The Frontier Project provides each company each week through the end of June. Each commute equals a dollar figure donated to Bike Walk RVA on behalf of the company.

And as with any contest worth its salt, there will be prizes for the winners. Giant Bicycles will be awarding one men’s and one women’s bicycle to the leading bike commuters at the end of June, and for the business that has the highest percentage of employees biking to work, the Sports Backers will award a new bike rack. Couple those with a special blend of Blanchard’s Coffee and free professional development workshops from the Frontier Project, and you’ve got a real competition on your hands.

Every year, it seems like, the Sports Backers dream up something new for Dominion Riverrock — the outdoor sports and music festival that returns to Brown’s Island next weekend. This year is no different, except that it’s Red Bull that did the dreaming.

The energy drink company, and promoter of insane outdoor physical feats, is bringing “Berm Burners” to Riverrock Saturday and Sunday (May 17 and 18) for its world premiere. The individual head-to-head pursuit, dirt-cycling competition, as a press release said, will test riders  “core abilities on a dirt cyclone of moto whoops housed between two fast, steep berms.”

Thirty professional riders will compete in the qualifying round, in a five-lap heat. Sixteen riders with the fastest heat times will then compete in the Red Bull Berm Burners Pro Finals, in a head-to-head format. In addition to the professional race, the Red Bull Berm Burners open amateur race will take place on May 18. Cyclists from all age groups and classes are welcome to enter. Race format for the qualifiers and finals will follow the same format as the professional race.

Red Bull has hired renowned pump track builder Dave King to construct the track. When I caught up with King working on a project in Pennsylvania last week, he described the concept as “pretty simple.”

Credit: Red Bull

“It’s gonna be an oval pump track….with pretty close to vertical berms and then to connect the berms there will be a series of rollers. (The) rideable surface is probably about 90 feet long, 30 feet across. It’s gonna be real tight. That’s kind of the whole point.””

King said the 150 tons of dirt he’ll need to create the track will be dropped off above Historic Tredegar this weekend, and he’ll get started on the construction on Sunday.

“I’ll just use a Bobcat and lay it out, then I’ll hand shape it,” he explained. “Then I have a plate compactor and an ATV with car tires. That helps roll everything in, makes it real smooth.”

The build will take about four days, he said. So be sure to check our Twitter and Instagram accounts. We’ll be out there starting Sunday taking pictures and checking on King’s progress.

Back in February we reported on the progress of the fundraising efforts for the Richmond Regional Ride Center, a mountain bike trail-building project at Pocahontas State Park. Funding has and will come from many different sources — private individuals, foundations, grants, governments, etc. The effort needs over $800,000 just to put in the mountain bike-specific trails. A fully tricked out trailhead facility will be over a $1 million.

In a couple of days, trail-loving Central Virginians will have the opportunity to contribute to the pot without giving a dime. Bell, the helmet manufacturer, is giving away $100,000 total to three separate trail-building projects in the United States. The Pocahontas trail project is one of five East Coast finalists for a third of that $100,000. And the money is awarded by voting, which runs today through May 18th. You can only vote once from each email address you have, so be sure to use up all your votes — and tell your friends to do the same.

Click here to vote.

(Monumental Consulting put together the above video to convince people to vote for Richmond.)

Bike Walk RVA announced this morning the launch of Connect RVA, a multi-year, regional campaign to make Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico, and Hanover better places to walk and bike for everyday activities. Connect RVA is gaining traction in the city of Richmond and has recently become an official legacy project of the Richmond 2015 UCI Road World Championships.

The goal of Connect RVA is to help produce more of this in Richmond.

“The Connect RVA project is a perfect example of the kind of legacy that we had hoped would emerge as a result of hosting the World Championships and a benefit for the entire community for years to come,” said Tim Miller, COO of Richmond 2015, in a press release.

In the City of Richmond, Connect RVA is a targeted effort to build 20+ miles of new family-friendly bikeways – protected and buffered bike lanes through the heart of downtown, safe river crossings, paved trails, and comfortable connections to and through surrounding neighborhoods – by September of 2015, in time for the UCI Road World Championships. This effort will require dedicated funding at the local and federal level, as well as close coordination with the City of Richmond.

“We are pleased to be working closely with our local leaders to ensure that we show off a bike-friendly region to the rest of the world in 2015, and to create a network of bikeways that allow Richmond area residents to get where they need to go without requiring the use of a car – whether that’s to school, work, church, or the grocery store,” said Jon Lugbill, Executive Director of the Sports Backers, which runs Bike Walk RVA.

To further celebrate May as Bike Month, Bike Walk RVA is coordinating a month of grassroots, community bike events. Bike Walk RVA Director Max Hepp-Buchanan wrote a piece for RichmondOutside about those events. Click here to find it and a schedule.

“We wanted to do something unique for our region this year, and at the same time make sure our Bike Month was community-driven and inclusive,” said Hepp-Buchanan. “So, we pulled together our most active community volunteers and starting putting small-scale but fun events on the calendar, and came up with a packed month of activities for everyone to enjoy.”

This May is National Bike Month, a nationwide celebration of bicycles and bicycling. Every city and region celebrates National Bike Month differently, and festivities range from rallies at City Hall, to rides with elected officials, to bike parties, to bike commute contests. Which got us thinking at Bike Walk RVA: “How big can Bike Month be in greater Richmond?”

So a few weeks ago, we brought together our most active community volunteers and starting putting small-scale but fun events on the calendar. As the evening progressed and the beer was consumed, the calendar began to fill and pretty soon we had a packed month of activities for everyone to enjoy.

View the full calendar here!

Richmonders ride through Monroe Park during Bike to Work Day 2013. Credit: Phil Riggan

The idea wasn’t to take ownership of events all over the region, but rather help facilitate and empower community members to think creatively and come up with one or two small-scale events that they could pull off in their own backyard. Our collective focus was on inclusivity, family-friendliness, and most importantly, FUN. The events range from morning rides to local coffee shops, “Kidical Mass” group rides for children, a Mother’s Day ride, a women’s only scavenger hunt, and even a “donut crawl” to visit local donut shops. National Bike to Work Day, May 16, will feature five commuter coffee and snack stations throughout the city of Richmond.

The full calendar of the month’s festivities can be viewed online and includes all the various large-scale bike events planned for May as well, such as the USAC Collegiate Road Cycling National Championships (volunteers needed) and the Virginia Capital Trail Foundation’s Cap 2 Cap Ride (volunteers needed for this, too). Anyone who is interested in hosting an event and adding it to the calendar is encouraged to contact Brantley Tyndall, Community Engagement Coordinator for Bike Walk RVA at Brantley@sportsbackers.org.

Every month is bike month in Paris. Credit: Wikipedia.org

Also notable on the Bike Month calendar is a regional series of post-work, social bike-commuting seminars targeting dense employment centers in Henrico, Chesterfield, and the city of Richmond. Employees of area businesses are encouraged to come meet others interested in riding to work who may share a similar commute path, learn some tips and tricks from those with riding experience, and get plugged into the development of bike-friendly projects in the region. Snacks and beverages will be provided.

Local employees are encouraged to sign up for any of the following seminars:

May 7 at The Boulders in Southside, 5:30 p.m.; May 8 at Innsbrook for West End riders, 6 p.m.; May 21 at MeadWestvaco in Downtown Richmond, 5 p.m.

Finally, Bike Walk RVA is working in conjunction with the City of Richmond to conduct Richmond’s first-ever Bicycle Documentation Project, where bike riders will be counted by volunteers over a three-day period at 22 locations all over the city. Why are we doing this? Because new bike lanes often start with good documentation about what streets are used – or not used – by bicycle riders. And it’s our job to count them, so we know how much bike traffic a corridor gets pre- and post-bike lane, and help make the case for future bikeways in our region.

Interested people can sign up for one of the following shifts: Tuesday, May 6, 5 to 7 PM; Wednesday, May 7, 5 to 7 PM; Thursday, May 8, 5 to 7 PM

Participants will be assigned a location in central Richmond that is convenient to them and supplied with all the materials needed to be an excellent and prepared bike count volunteer.

There’s a lot going on for Bike Month this year! It might not all be high-profile, but hopefully there’s at least a little something for everyone.

Attention dirt jumpers, cyclocross racers, and mountain bikers — the challenge is set. On May 17, world-class fixed gear rider Addison Zawada will be among 30 professional cyclists from all disciplines to compete in Red Bull Berm Burners, a first-of-its kind, individual head-to-head pursuit, dirt-cycling competition taking place during Dominion Riverock.

Red Bull Berm Burners’ stripped-down pump track presents a unique challenge to all disciplines of riders, ultimately testing their core abilities on a dirt cyclone of moto whoops housed between two fast, steep berms. Influenced by BMX racing, track cycling, and motocross, the completed 100’ by 25’ oval course will feature pump track-style rollers leading into two nearly vertical six-foot berms. The race is open to 20’ BMX and 26’ and 29’ mountain bike wheels with both rigid and suspension frames, along with all other bike disciplines.

“You gotta be smooth on a pump track to go fast. How smooth are you when your best friend is breathing down your neck? Red Bull Berm Burners condenses the pressure and need to keep your cool and maintain your flow,” said fixed gear cyclist Austin Horse, whose expertise was crucial in advising the design of the unique track.

Thirty professional riders will compete in the qualifying round, in a five-lap heat. Sixteen riders with the fastest heat times will then compete in the Red Bull Berm Burners Pro Finals, in a head-to-head format.

In addition to the professional race, the Red Bull Berm Burners open amateur race will take place on May 18. Cyclists from all age groups and classes are welcome to enter. Race format for the qualifiers and finals will follow the same format as the professional race.