Summer at Richmond Cycling Corps stays BUSY! Once the school year is wrapped, it seems like we never stop moving. With our youth’s slightly more flexible schedules, we increase practice to five days a week with the team. We get a quiet month off from school programming, then are back to it in July with the AJC Lions Summer School. It’s a little bit of a give and take - busy time with the team, then Summer programming kicks in and we take on additional youth four days a week while we give the team a couple rest days per week. The wheels never stop turning, and we find ourselves hustling to stay on top of planning, filling up the gas tank more often and maintaining bikes and equipment after every ride. More broken derailleur hangers, snapped chains, flat tires, but more miles ridden between different aspects of our programming. While it’s more expensive for us, what it means is that our youth get drastically increased time on their bikes and exposure to even more activities.
While it’s more expensive for us, what it means is that our youth get drastically increased time on their bikes and exposure to even more activities.
We like to set a Summer goal for the team: Riding all 60 miles of the Virginia Capital Trail on their road bikes. Starting small, we incrementally work our way up in mileage until we go for the big push. Our crew gets comfortable on road bikes at longer and longer distances, learning about drinking water while riding, nutrition and snacks on the bike, and setting their own endurance paces.
We incorporate swimming into our rides, with river exploring and nature time such a valuable bonus feature of living in Richmond. Not everyone feels comfortable in the river, but this year, our team has LOVED it. Nothing beats a dip in the James after a hard ride - so when we session Buttermilk and work through tough obstacles, we head down Reedy gravel afterward to find a good spot to swim and cool off. Showing our youth ways to unwind is so important, especially when they can access those places and memories by bike.
Recently, we were lucky enough to enlist the help of the Richmond Toolbank with funding and volunteers from CarMax to make a fun goal of ours come to fruition. Winter is tough with our clay-based trails: freeze thaw cycles and cold, grey days mean that we see way more closed trail days, and finding engaging activities for our team after school can be really challenging. We drew up plans for a little quarter pipe ramp that is a great learning height for our fleet of bmx bikes, and the great folks at the Toolbank helped make it happen!
We had a fun double header day: priming the outside of our headquarters for a new piece of artwork, and building the ramp inside. Several of our regular team riders wanted to come help work, so we picked them up and taught them some of the finer points of painting and using power tools. Big day all around, and a huge THANK YOU to everyone that came out to volunteer and make this project happen! The ramp will be such a great tool for learning new handling tricks this winter.
In the coming weeks, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for a handful of fun events that benefit RCC!
On Friday July 19th, we’re hosting our THIRD installment of our Goldsprints series, with a “golden oldies” theme. Join us at Vasen Brewing Company from 6-9pm, we’ll be projecting the race stats on the big screen while riders face-off on stationary bicycles below - aiming for the fastest spinning legs in a 15 second interval. Enter the race for a suggested donation of $15 - and remember: it isn’t a competition for the most powerful rider or watts produced, but for the nimblest legs! Prizes will be awarded for the fastest competitors in each category, AND for the best costume: dress up like your finest ‘senior’ self and come see us!
Saturday July 20th, Henrico County is unveiling its newest recreation space in the East End, Taylor Farm Park. We’ll be partnering with another nonprofit we love, RadShare, to help provide access to bikes and helmets for riders to try out the brand new sessionable areas: a concrete pump track, bike skills park, and two areas for skaters to enjoy. Find us in the active areas in the southern end of the park between 3-6pm, we’ll be passing out free high fives all afternoon.
Just a short week afterward, find us on July 26th at Pine Camp after work hours for a fun short-track format mountain bike event on the .75 mile long singletrack loop near the Northside YMCA. Find more information at the sign up on Bike Reg here. You can always donate to one of the Pledge Reg fundraisers if you can’t make it but still want to support:
Then, on Sunday the 28th, we’re hosting another hill climb contest: this time on the recently closed-to-cars Government Hill. An event named with a head-nod to a former Richmond punk band, riders will find themselves pushing their limits as they climb up from a dead stop at the bottom of the hill. Snowing in Space coffee has generously gifted us Nitro Coffee for finishers, and we’re upping the ante by bringing ice cream to make coffee floats. Sounds like a welcome treat after a tough ride!
Sign up here, and join us on the hillside on the 28th for another fun event with proceeds helping keep our programming rolling along! We even added a category for folks that wanted to try their hand at RUNNING the hill!
As we approach August, keep your eyes peeled for a dispatch about two MORE fun events coming your way - our annual “Pedal for Purpose” weekend long mileage challenge and “RCC night” at the Tuesday evening Bryan Park Road Races.
Happy riding, looking forward to seeing you outside!
We recently had the opportunity to take our team on their very first camping trip, so we lined up a reservation at Stokesville Campground. Stokesville is one of our favorite places to visit with great mountain bike trails, beautiful forest views, and a local swimming hole in cold creek water - we couldn’t think of a better place to experience your first time camping. In preparation for the trip, we increased our mountain bike time, talked about the ins and outs of sleeping outside, and generally tried to prepare the team for what was coming. We made packlists for everyone, made sure our tents and sleeping bags were all ready, and took the gang shopping with us as we bought our groceries for the weekend. Morning of, we knew we were in for a hot weekend, but had otherwise great weather on deck. Perfect for swimming and a nice morning ride, cooking s’mores and enjoying time under the stars.
The start of the trip was a little wild, unexpected travel time to pick up youth in places where they normally aren’t, a no-show, and the chaos of seven children all excited for the unknown. We settled into the drive and arrived at a good time to go for a ride, cool off in the creek, make dinner together, set up tents and start a little campfire. Here’s where it starts to get a little tough. Our squad is used to living in dense housing, where yelling and rough language is the norm. When you scream in the expanse of the wild, your voice carries so much further than it does in tightly spaced concrete buildings. The campers around us were noticeably upset. We talked to our squad, gave warnings, and asked politely for cell-phone-free time and reduced cell phone volumes. The arguing in the group of youth intensifies. We break it up, put phones away. Go for another ride. Back to camp but the volume increases again as night falls. We explain quiet time, talk about the implications of being too loud and issue warning after warning. Finally, at 10:30 at night, after more warnings than you can imagine and a day spent in negotiation and chaos-detangling, we’ve hit a wall. Setting firm boundaries is such an important part of life with this group, and we announce that we’re going home.
We reach out to parents, break camp while seven youth protest in anger, watching them roll through the whole range of emotions. We drop them off at home, have necessary conversations with parents and guardians, and head back to headquarters. We have to laugh, one of our vehicles is completely blocked in by folks using our parking to go to the nearby nightclubs in Shockoe Bottom - just a sprinkle of insult to injury. I get home at about 2:30am, I’ve been up for almost 24 hours, and I can’t stop thinking about something that one of our youth said. This particular team member can be a real challenge, and he certainly accumulated his 2 out of 3 strikes before the final blow. We were in the car on the way home and he asked if “we could please try it again, but with the group of kids that REALLY wanted to go.” Of course we said YES, part of the CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP mantra is that we never give up on our youth. But it just sits with me, ringing in my ears.
The next morning I’m looking back at the photos and videos I took during our short stay and I realize that I could make such a fun and pleasant compilation reel about the trip. A glowing portrayal of a nice looking camping trip. If I put music over the vocals during a clip where our squad is cooking hot dogs over a fire for the first time, you would never notice the cursing and arguing in the background. It wouldn’t be real though, and show the actual temperature of our attempt at camping. It’s a good reminder to not just highlight the good parts of our days: there are a lot of really unpleasant and tough moments, right beside the great ones. This is the reality, so easy to forget in today’s social media sunset selfies and “best life ever” moments. This is the grit that makes it all worth it, that defines our relationships and growth with our team.