News – Page 4

RVC’s 2024 Membership Launch

April 10, 2024 By Chris Norfolk

We are in the shoulder season. The trails are trying to dry up but they’re not quite ready to ride. The big spring thaw can feel like it takes forever! We just wrapped up our Annual Members Meeting and we got some terrific feedback that we’ve been using to help plan our 2024 season. Here’s what we’re thinking.

If you don’t feel like reading you can just skip right to our registration page:

Join RVC Now!

Trails

There will be new trails opening at Woolastook that were built by Kodiak last year. Please be patient. We’ll open them as soon as we can without risking early season damage.
Professional build efforts as well as volunteer trail days posted through our social channels will continue to happen at Woolastook. Get involved!
We’re waiting to hear about our application to the Canada Summer Jobs program. Fingers crossed we can have a trail crew again that will focus on maintenance throughout our trail network.
We’re planning a significant tune-up at MVP including the flight-deck.
RVC will continue to advocate for access with landowners. We’ll champion responsible trail use, etiquette, and we’ll work hard to maintain relationships we’ve built. RVC has recently made some big progress at Penniac that we’ll be sharing with our members soon.

Riding & Events

We’ll continue the super popular Getting-Ready-To-Ride series, social group rides, and skills-development sessions.
Riders loved both the Enduro Series and the Short-Track races. Both are in the works for 2024.
We are aiming to offer rides and skills sessions specifically for Womens+ riders – new!!
The Woolastook 4 should be fantastic. New terrain will totally change this experience.

RVC Membership

Club membership is important. Your support keeps our singletrack in top shape.
For 2024 we’re keeping our rates the same (unlike everything else in life these days)
- Individual membership – $45 / person
- Gold membership – $125
- Platinum supporters / sponsors – $200+
All youth riders under 18 years are free with a guardian/parent membership of any level. We made this change last year to help support single-rider parents.
Many of you took out an auto-renewing membership last year. That option is still available and we encourage riders to use it. It really helps the club plan knowing we’ll have your support. If you can’t remember when your auto-renewing membership will roll over, we posted a list for you!
The experiment with plastic tags in 2023 was cool. But support wasn’t strong enough to keep that going in 2024 – so we’re going back to stickers! They’ll be available at local bike shops soon.
Gold and Platinum options are there to offer ways for individuals, families, and businesses to really give back and invest in our cycling community! These options allow you to add all the riders in your household. Last year we had dozens of riders choose these options. Incredible support!

Join RVC Now!

Notice of 2024 Annual Meeting

February 19, 2024 By Chris Norfolk

Riders – please mark your calendars and plan to join us for our 2024 annual meeting. This is your chance to learn about exciting new club developments, give feedback to the executive, and enjoy an evening with fellow riders. Grimross Brewing Co. has again offered us space in their taproom for the evening. Excited to see you there!

The RVC Exec.

Winterbike Plan 2024 – MVP

January 31, 2024 By Chris Norfolk

Hey riders. By now you’ve seen ‘Super Tundra‘ – the newest addition to our winter grooming fleet. Isn’t she a beauty!

Buying a brand new snow machine off the lot with a warranty is a game changer. Our master volunteer groomer Dan Breau has already reported that it’s changing the way he’ll groom, given its pulling power. Having this machine is going to lower our gas costs, and most importantly it will mean that Dan has to spend far less time maintaining the machine for each hour he spends shaping snow for us. We’re super psyched. We want to send a huge thanks to the City of Fredericton who awarded us a community grant that covered half of the purchase cost which we matched with funds raised from you – our club supporters and members! Thanks so much!

And here’s what we plan on doing with it…

This winter RVC plans to keep 14 km of trial open with the sled. In addition to this we are hoping that the ‘shoe-to-ride’ effort will keep the Greg’s Way loops open – which are an amazing winter ride once you find yourself at the end of the Back 40.

MVP mountain biking trails

Unfortunately, it won’t be an option to groom the flight deck this winter. The landowner is allowing his road to be used to support a nearby logging operation which we understand will start anytime in the next week with frequent trucking expected throughout the month of March. Out of a concern for rider safety and a need to respect the landowner’s arrangements trails from #Blazing Destruction to V-Fib will remain closed until spring. There’s still plenty to ride though!

So, we hope you’re as psyched as we are now that the snow is here and the weather is consistently cold. We hope you love the winter trails and remember to support RVC Winterbike with your 2024 membership!

Winterbike Plan 2024 – Woolastook

January 13, 2024 By Chris Norfolk

Riders!

It will snow… eventually… it has to! Your Winterbike membership supports trail grooming at several locations in the Fredericton area. Here’s our plan for Woolastook.

This year RVC groomers will keep a little more than 11km of trail open at Woolastook. The layout here will let riders plan out routes using stacked loops so lots of distance options will be available. You’ll want to build up to a full distance ride though because the winter lookout is worth it. We won’t tell anyone if we see you pushing your bike up the last bit of that steep hill up to the lookoff – we promise.

Woolastook mountain biking trails

Mike Hutchinson, RVC’s vice president and Tim Dine, volunteer groomer will both do some heavy lifting this winter and plan to groom regularly. From time to time he may get a little help from Andy. Give these guys a huge thanks if you are out and you run into them. Grooming snow for fatbike is a tough job and volunteering is how it all happens!

This grooming plan is what you can expect RVC will keep open for the duration but from time to time we’ll probably be able to enjoy a few other pieces of singletrack opened up by volunteer snowshoers. If you want to update your Trailforks app the winter mode map is now up to date.

Remember, you can join RVC Winterbike right now for 2024! We hope you enjoy and we appreciate your support.

Post Storm Clean-up Update: Woolastook

December 23, 2023 By Chris Norfolk

While this post is about Woolastook that’s only because it was the hardest hit trail system. We know that volunteers have been out cleaning up at MVP and Penniac and we want to send a huge thanks for that! We see you!

We now know that this unnamed storm from December 18th caused a bigger impact than 2014’s Arthur; making the worst storm in RVC’s history. Over the last two days the crew of rider/volunteers have logged 123 person hours (we’re trying to keep track) of extremely hard work in difficult conditions. It’s been heroic!

After such devastation it’s amazing to see what the cycling community can do! The pics speak for themselves.

Woolastook is on it’s way to being reborn in a lot of places. Things are going to feel different. However, some things have thankfully weathered the storm pretty well.

There is still plenty of work left. Above all else we want everyone to be safe. Wear protective gear. Have a plan. Don’t work alone. The eastern end of Woolastook still hasn’t been explored and we expect a lot of impact to our new climber and flow trails to the look-out that still haven’t opened. The map shows what has already been cleared at the point of this update. Thanks to every last man, woman, and dog who has put sweat into giving this place a second life.