Spike Toler before the Coqui Cyclery opening in April.

Last Wednesday a devoted member of the Richmond cycling community passed away unexpectedly. If you’ve ridden the trails or the roads in Richmond over the past decade, chances are you ran into Spike Toler even if you didn’t know her personally. More recently she and business partner Clint Kronenberger opened Coqui Cyclery on Semmes Avenue near Forest Hill Park and Crossroads Coffee on the South Side.

I didn’t know Spike well, but, as a fellow cyclist, I’d certainly spoken with her often, seen her around and shot the bull with her at Coqui. My encounters were nothing but pleasant ones. It’s a terribly helpless feeling when someone you know dies, and nothing you do will bring them back. But on Wednesday, anyone who’s interested can ride in Spike’s honor. Here are the details from local cyclist Woody Elliott:

Ride for Spike! Wed Oct 17.
For any and all that want to join in a cool ride around the JRPS. Jump in where you want…
5:30 leave from Coqui. Then we continue on to Reedy Creek by 6:00. Continue down Buttermilk to arrive at Tredegar at 6:30. Then on up North Trail to Pumphouse parking lot by 7. Finish at Crossroads and hang out.

This might be the best weekend of the year if you’re a Richmond-area cyclist/fan of cycling. On Saturday there’s Richmond’s first Gran Fondo, the Sports Backers-produced Martin’s Tour of Richmond. Riders can choose between 29-, 59- and 102-mile options. All ride distances end at the Richmond International Raceway Complex for a party, complete with band, food and drink.

Credit: Sports Backers

But wait, there’s more! Also going off on Saturday, and continuing through Sunday is the Richmond Festival of ‘Cross. On Saturday, racers in a dozen categories will descend on Bryan Park in search of cyclocross glory. On Saturday, they’ll hit the cobbles of Chimborazo Park for some more dirty fun.

If you’ve never heard of cyclocross, or you’ve have and always wondered what it is about, this is a great chance to see it up close. You’ll get a look at some of the best riders in the area. Racing starts from at 9:30 and runs to about 3:30 each day. Food and drink will be available to purchase.

If you’re in Forest Hill Park or out walking Buttermilk or North Bank Trails this Saturday, beware, you may have company. A lot of it. VCU Cycling will hold its 3rd Annual URBAN CAMO Collegiate Mountain Bike race. The VCU team was selected to host the race for the second year in a row. As Lester Brown, race promoter and alumni coordinator for VCU cycling said in a release. “[It] provides an opportunity to showcase the Outdoor Jewel of our City, our Top Ranked JRPS trails!”

The day begins with a Time Trial on North Bank from the gravel road below Oregon Hill to the Texas Beach parking lot. This has quickly become a favorite event on the Collegiate MTB schedule. The TT Race begins at 8:30am and riders go in 1 minute intervals for a fast and furious 9-12 minutes run. The afternoon race takes place on Buttermilk and Forest Hill Park for a Cross Country course using a similar loop to the Urban Assault. Riders start from the 22nd St. parking lot and proceed down Buttermilk to Reedy Creek, through the tunnels and up into Forest Hill. The XC Race starts at 1:30pm. Schools in attendance include West Virginia (consecutive 10-time Conference Champions), Virginia Tech, Appalachian State (Conference and National Champions), NC State, W&M, and our very own VCU (2010 Conference Champions).

The VCU cycling team would love to have some support out on the course, so if you live in the area or you’re going to be down that way anyway, go cheer them on.

Endorphin Fitness is offering a mountain bike clinic for youth and adults this Saturday at Forest Hill Park. What’s cool about it, besides the prospect of gaining some valuable skills on the MTB, is that the proceeds will benefit local MTB advocacy and trail-building group Richmond-MORE. Here are the details:

Where: The Stone House at Forest Hill Park, 4000 Forest Hill Ave., 23225

When:  Adults & riders ages 13+: 8 -10:30 am
                Youth ages 6-12: 9 -10:30 am

Who: Open to community. Beginner or experienced riders.

Cost: Donation of $25 for adults, $15 for youth, or $35 for parent and child. Proceeds to benefit non-profit Richmond-MORE.

Topics: Climbing, descending (efficient braking), cornering

On Friday, a friend and I drove out to Charlottesville to do some mountain biking with another friend who’d just moved out there. The newly minted C-Villian (or is it C-Villain?) had been exploring the Rivanna Trail and said it was a great way to get to know the city. We spent about three hours tooling around the Rivanna and the steep, rocky trails of U.Va.’s Observatory Hill (gotta bring the big boy/girl quads for O-Hill). It was a lot of fun, and I wrote about the adventure in my column in today’s Times-Dispatch.

Crossing Meadow Creek on the Rivanna Trail

It’s absolutely worth the drive to spend a day running, hiking or biking the Rivanna Trail. And if it sounds like something you want to check out, definitely go to the Rivanna Trail Foundation website first. They have a few different maps and some written instructions for getting around on the trail, which is not nearly as easy as you’d think.

Terrain360.com screenshot of Belle Isle

It looks like our friends at Terrain360.com might have company — and not just any company — in their quest to take camera-based mapping where it’s never gone before. Google has rolled its “StreetView” technology off the city streets and into five California National Parks. You can now get the same StreetView experience at Joshua Tree, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Redwood, Yosemite and Death Valley national parks.

There’s a difference, though, and it’s a big one between what Terrain360.com does and what Google has done in those five parks. Richmond-based Terrain360.com actually takes you onto the trails in parks all over Virginia. Google’s mapping of five California national parks still relies on shots taken from the road in those places. Don’t get me wrong, it’s very cool to get a tour of Yosemite without having to go there, but it’s also very different from what Terrain360 is planning, say, with the Appalachian Trail in Virginia (offering a visual tour of the entire length of it).

Until the Googlers gets out of their cars and off the beaten, asphalt path — and I don’t see that happening any time soon — our friends at Terrain360 will still be the only ones in the country (as far as I know) doing what they do. Oh, and by the way, you can find their trail tours right here at RichmondOutside.com. Every local destination they’ve mapped, we’ve got a link to. Try Belle Isle, for instance.

A few months ago, Rowlett’s bicycle shop, near the corner of Staples Mill and Broad, closed its doors for good. Today another bike shop goes into the same space. Pedal Power had been a Mechanicsville-based shop, now it’ll add a Richmond location. The doors open at 10 a.m. this morning, and shoppers can expect sales and deals all weekend long — 10% of all new bikes and 20% off all parts and accessories. In addition, Pedal Power, like Coqui Cyclery on Forest Hill Ave., will carry Giant bicycles. If you visit this weekend, you can enter to win a Giant mountain bike (no word on the model).

Less than two months in, Matt Perry, owner and operator of Riverside Outfitters, says the Brown’s Island experiment is going well — in some ways better than he’d imagined. In early June, Perry and the RO team opened up an outpost at the ticket kiosk on Brown’s Island where bikes, kayaks and standup paddleboards are available for rent.

They’re only open three days a week — Friday-Sunday (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) — but he said so far, signs are very encouraging. “I’m happy with what I’m seeing. There hasn’t been enough time yet to identify any trends or patterns, but we are seeing that Saturday is the busiest day.”

Perry said they’ve had a number of occasions where all seven paddleboards and all seven kayaks have been out at the same time. That was the case for two hours in the middle of the day yesterday (Sunday, 7/15), for instance.

“It really has been a mix of visitors and locals,” he added. “I would say mostly locals, and of those, most are newer to Richmond — like within the last year. [They’re] still in that getting-out-and-seeing-what-Richmond-has-to-offer mode. They’re looking for something new.”

Biking hasn’t been nearly as popular as the water options, which makes sense in depths of summer. Perry said he expects bike rentals to pick up when the weather cools.

Bikes rent for $10 an hour. Boards and boats are each $15 per hour.

Buttermilk Trail was a mess yesterday afternoon. I actually didn’t ride all that much of it — just the section from 21st St. to Reedy Creek — because it was impassable in so many places. Sadly, the worst damage I saw was to the relatively new boardwalk skinnies over the wetland area not too far east of Reedy Creek. I remember when the city trail crew and a host of volunteers built this thing. It took a ton of labor and man hours to construct it. It might be a while before it’s open again. Here are some pics.

Looking east

Looking west

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking west

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking east

This is just the second weekend, it’s been open, so I decided to take a trip down to the new Riverside Outfitters outpost on Brown’s Island to see what the set up looked like and how things were going. When I first wrote about the new venture, RO owner Matt Perry said he thought it the user base would be mostly two groups: business people who work downtown and tourists staying at downtown hotels. Well, according to Dave Fary, who was manning the new shop yesterday, so far it’s been mostly tourists taking advantage of the kayaks, standup paddleboards and mountain bikes for rent.

Farey said one out-of-town mother/son duo last weekend rented standup paddleboards then came back and took a spin on the mountain bikes. Yesterday had been slow so far (this was around 2:30 p.m.), he said, but with if the weather stays as predicted this weekend, the new RO station is likely to be a popular place today and tomorrow.

Pics below…

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