Credit: Will Ramos. A biker crosses Swift Creek during a 2008 adventure race in Pocahontas SP.

It was a big week for Central Virginia mountain bikers. As I wrote about in today’s Times-Dispatch, Tuesday marked the kickoff in fundraising for a giant trails project in Pocahontas State Park. The project — 20 miles of new singletrack, revamping old singletrack, putting in a fancy trailhead, building a new bridge over Swift Creek, etc. — was described as a “legacy project” of the 2015 UCI World Cycling Championships that are coming here to Richmond. The state is putting up $50,000; so is Dominion. And now the hard work begins to come up with the remaining $1.2 million to have the trails rideable by the spring of 2015.

Should the money be raised in time and the work completed, the International Mountain Bicycling Association has said the Richmond region would be named an official “Ride Center.” Right now there are only 11 of those worldwide. When the project is done Pocahontas will have about 40 miles of mountain bike-optimized trail of varying difficulty levels. Pretty cool.