The Virginia Capital Trail now traverses this handsome bridge over Gillies Creek in Richmond.

I went for a bike ride with a friend on Sunday that took me all over the city. We were on our mountain bikes, so we hit a few trails, but they were pretty muddy. Eventually we hopped on the road and tooled around downtown, ending up on Dock Street and then the Virginia Capital Trail near Great Shiplock Park. I hadn’t been out that way in a while and when we reached the Intermediate Terminal building and the Lehigh Cement silos, I was in for quite a surprise: The Capital Trail has been paved! Not only that, but the bridge over the Gillies Creek outflow is finished as well; and work has begun on the trail between Great Shiplock Park and Ash Street, where the silos are.

We rode the trail past the Boathouse and Conch Republic restaurants and Rocketts Landing, where the pavement ends. There, however, the crushed gravel has been tamped down and you got the sense the pavement will go down at any moment.

The last time I wrote about the trail, I wondered openly if it would be done in time for the UCI World Cycling Championships in mid-September. From what I saw Sunday, that seems much more likely now than it did two months ago.

This image shows Dock Street between Great Shiplock Park and the Lehigh Cement silos. The newly paved trailed begins just west of the silos between them and the river.