Supporting Cycling In and Around Fredericton
Update: Ticket sales are now closed. Tune into our social media on Dec 20th for the draw and good luck!
Our friends at Back Trails have put together a big Yeti package to raffle off prior to Christmas in support of our winterbike grooming efforts. Tickets are on sale now ($15) and we plan to have a live-streamed draw on our social channels on Wednesday the 20th.
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We are rolling heavy towards another winter season and we are ready. Behind the scenes the club exec and our volunteers have been working away to get prepared for a great season of grooming. What have we been up to?
Our volunteer groomers put in a lot of time even before the first snow flies. A lot of time is spent planning the grooming routes, and making sure that our fleet of hard-working sleds are well maintained. Dan Breau and Tim Dine have both spent time replacing old worn parts. There’s time spent setting up our parking lot plows and clearing trails of late fall blow-downs. You may have also seen the slick new winterized RVC logo that Christina Tracy did for us! The exec has worked to flip our membership registration over to winter mode (join for 2023/24), and prepare a budget.
Early this spring we set a goal for ourselves – a new sled for our longest-serving volunteer snow-sculptor: Dan Breau. For those that don’t know Dan, he is our groomer who has been looking after MVP since winterbike first evolved beyond early experiments. We’ve come a long way since Wilson’s Loop was kept open by running a leaf blower through the first few snowfalls. The thing is that our fleet of sleds that pull the grooming gear are old, and the maintenance is high. So – we set out to find the money needed to buy RVC’s first brand new sled. With the help of long-time volunteer Kelly Murray we applied to the City of Fredericton’s Community Grant program and we just got word that we were successful! They’ve agreed to put forward $6,500, about half of our target, if we can find the other half. We think we’re just about there. We had some money left in the piggy bank from previous fund raising and we think we can sell some of our older assets to make up the rest. All without raising membership costs. We’re excited.
Riders – River Valley Cycling is really excited about winterbike for 2023. It’s been 10 years since the first fat bikes started rolling around town. We’ve just rolled out our winter memberships so go ahead and join RVC for the winter season!
To celebrate, we are sharing a winterized redesign of our logo from the talented volunteer Christina Tracy!
Great news today – while we are hearing that Hurricane Lee did down trees across Fredericton’s singletrack it doesn’t seem as bad as Arthur was in 2014. Phew.
The other fantastic news is that after a long wait and a lot of planning – Kodiak Trail Works has arrived in Woolastook and has begun construction of ‘T-24’ a climb trail that will be the main conduit for accessing the Woolastook backcountry by taking riders to the top of the ridge behind Mountain Road.
Kodiak will be working at Woolastook all fall and our master plan for the area includes a lot more than just this climb trail. We have reached an agreement that will see Kodiak build almost 7 km of new singletrack for us. Stay connected for updates and volunteer opportunities as we get going. This company brings an impressive resume with work in places including Wentworth, McIntosh Run, and Poley Mountain. We’re psyched!
We want to send a huge thanks to the Radical Edge who’s generous financial backing of this project made it possible for us to take advantage of our huge Canada Community Building Fund grant. The Radical Edge has always been a top supporter of this club!
So check out the conceptual location of the T-24 trail and please respect any barriers and signage around the job-site. Stay connected to our social feeds and watch out for more exciting stuff this fall.
T-24What a month for RVC races!
The return of Short Track and debut of the Enduro Series were both met with fantastic enthusiasm and the Wooly 4 was a huge success. Over on the Strava Race side things were hot as well with an excellent month-long back-and-forth between Mattias and Alex for the KOM (the lead changed hands multiple times). For the women Melissa captured her second MVP crown of the series and Tara, not far behind, kept her perfect season record intact. We’ve been inspired by the Short Track and Enduro with their series standings and cool trophies so we’ve gone back and now have Strava Race standings as well. We also intend to award a trophy to the top male and top female racers when we conclude in November. The prizes, however, will still be a random draw based on segments completed so if you haven’t got your name into the hat yet, there’s still cause to do so.
For the Women Tara leads the way, combining strong results with perfect attendance. On the Men’s side, the podium is also filled by folks with perfect attendance but has seen some jockeying for position in recent months. Best of luck to those in the hunt for the trophies, keep the rubber side down!
Clicky here for the full standings.
The next segment runs from September 1-29, 2023 and is once again back to Woolastook where exciting things have been happening all summer and will continue to do so late into the fall. We’re going to utilize the new flowy trail built by Dig-In Trail Building, the new connector built by intrepid volunteers Bev and Norm to finish on Shoreline East by the picnic table for a quick rest. Be sure to check out the revamp to the length of Shoreline done this season and the Summit Deck built last season as they have both been fantastic additions to the system made possible by our partnership with the Canada Community Building Fund.
