River Valley Cycling

Supporting Cycling In and Around Fredericton

RVC’s Woolastook 4 MTB XC event Presented by Trailway Brewing

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This long-running favourite event is about having a good time, solo or as a team, at a hammer or chill pace, on a great, flowy course that suits a wide range of abilities. Again this year, we’re excited to be showcasing some new trail in this year’s course! Racers complete as many laps as they can in the allotted time, solo (must be 19+) or as relay teams of 2 or 3. Or just do as many laps as you feel like riding, and hang out at the start/finish cheering and socializing. It’s all fun.

As usual, there will be refreshments, cool swag, and podium stuff from Trailway Brewing, a BBQ and snacks, plus great draw prizes.

Categories are:
Solo Men (must be 19 or older as of December 31, 2024)
Solo Women (must be 19 or older as of December 31, 2024)
Open Team (team members may be any age and gender)
Women’s Team (all team members must be women/girls)
Youth Team (all team members must be 16 or younger)

Here is this year’s course.

Want to stay at the park? Ask us about unserviced camping at the Fox’s Den loop adjacent to the course. As in 2023, Race HQ, parking, and the start/finish will also be in the Fox’s Den. You won’t find it on Google Maps, as it’s not normally open to camping, but HERE are directions to the Fox’s Den from the 102. Basically you’ll follow the campground road all the way around to the campground loops. You’ll pass a set of gates and then a little garbage trailer and then turn left where it’s signed “Fox’s Den.” Race day, it will be signed from the park entrance on the south side of the highway to the start/finish and parking.

Event Day Schedule
9:00-10:30 am Registration and plate pickup
11:00 am Race start
3:00 pm cut-off to begin final lap
3:30 pm awards and draw prizes

REGISTER ONLINE (below) for $40 until 6pm on Saturday, August 24 or on site race day for $50. If you are not a Velo NB member, there is an additional $10 fee for a day license.

Please note:
(1) There is no potable water on site. Bathroom facilities are a rustic outhouse and a Port-o-John. We’ll have some bottled water, but do yourself and the environment a favour and plan ahead.
(2) There’s also not a lot of furniture on site. If you prefer to sit somewhere other than on the grass, bring a portable chair of some sort.
(3) The event runs rain or shine.
(4) Parking is in the campground loop near the start/finish. Pull into a site or clearing or pull up on the side of the road where there’s room, don’t block people in or park on any tents.

2023 RVC Strava Race Series Update

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RVC’s second Strava Race Series segment saw 42 riders tackle a seemingly innocent, but ultimately challenging climb before their fun descent. Despite following for years what has been a popular route both the all-time K & QOMs were established in June 2023, congrats to James and Melissa for those efforts! It was great to see 17 riders from the Woolastook Shoreline challenge last month make their way to MVP to test their mettle again.

For the month of July, from 1st to 30th, will have the race series taking us to the Penniac trail network to tackle a relatively new trail, Spin Cycle. This is a multi-directional trail, which the race will descend, that will test a rider’s ability to keep momentum on flatter corners as it rides more in a cross-country style than downhill.

This is a multi-directional trail, so we encourage riders to be courteous and remember that climbers have the right of way if they happen to cross paths. The RVC Summer Trail Crew will be on the ground in Penniac in the next few weeks to help with maintenance on a great trail system.

While you’re there be sure to also spin the legs on local favourites: Uptimizer, Learning to Fly, Numbers and Dozer.

https://www.strava.com/segments/30719154?filter=overall

Remember, every segment for which you log an effort will get you into our year end prize draw.

RVC Trail Crew – Summer Start-Up

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Say hello to Ivan and Dexter – our 2023 RVC summer student trail crew!

Back in June we started our search for the right people and we’re very lucky to have signed up Ivan and Dexter. Both of these young riders showed a lot of motivation to tune up trails and make our singletrack the best it can be. We got to know Ivan and Dexter a little bit and found out they were both emerging racers with some previous building experience. Yesterday was their first day. We spent some time talking about our safety policy and going over the types of projects we want to accomplish in the next 8 weeks. These guys are going to learn a lot working under the supervision of Bev Bunker – who is volunteering his time and energy to making this crew a success!

We think you’ll notice these guys making an impact. They’ll be getting started at MVP this week with the brush saw knocking back vegetation, getting progress made on a big signage project, and working on some drainage improvements. After that we’re collecting project ideas for Penniac, Islandview, Odell Park, and they may also spend a little time in Woolastook. You might see them out on the trails if you ride during the day. If you see a ‘trail work ahead‘ sign on the trail please slow down and be sure to say hi. If you see a ‘trail temporarily closed‘ sign please head the other way.

Now we need to make a few big thank-you’s!

First of all we need to acknowledge the Canada Youth Employment Strategy that provided RVC with a grant that allowed us to make this happen! Programs like this that support students through grass-roots community organizations like ours are amazing.

We also want to send a huge shout out to Paul and the team at Explore Velo. Last year we had a great discussion and Paul indicated to us that he wanted to support trail maintenance around Fredericton. Explore Velo covered the cost of all of the trail crew’s tools and safety equipment (like first aid kits, eye protection, fire suppression packs, etc) that we needed. Thank you Explore Velo!

We will rely on volunteer trail builders and maintainers for as long as the club exists. Ivan and Dexter are going to really accelerate things over this summer but we’re still going to have trail days and we want members to come forward with projects they want to take on!

So, lets say welcome to Ivan and Dexter and wish them a safe and productive summer.

Business Community Support: Thank you Radical Edge!

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You’ve probably heard by now that we have big plans for Woolastook Park. Maybe you’ve already seen some of the action on the ground like our new trail that just opened after Dig-In Trail Building & Design finished up their work last week? We have an entire summer of updates coming and we’ll be announcing more exciting builds coming from both volunteer and professional trail builders. This is all enabled by our amazing grant from the Canada Community Building Fund that we received in support of our trail plan.

This post isn’t about what you already know though… it’s about what we haven’t shared yet.

Unless you are one of the members who attended our AGM this spring to get the inside-track you probably haven’t heard of another key link in the chain that is allowing RVC to pull off this mega-project: a critical infusion of cash-flow provided to us by our incredible partners, Radical Edge Bike and Ski!

We realized early on in our project that without financial back-stopping, the club wouldn’t have been able to bridge the periods between when our large bills come due, and when our grant money shows up. The Radical Edge told us that this was something they wanted to help with – and we were off to the races.

We want to express our gratitude, and the gratitude of the entire community of trail users at Woolastook to the Radical Edge Bike and Ski, for their invaluable support and contribution to our Woolastook project. Thanks to this partnership, we have been able to start turning our master plan into a reality! What a dream!

We also want to express our gratitude to our wonderful community. Without your continuous support, volunteer work and belief in our mission, none of this would have been possible. The Woolastook project is a testament to the power of partnerships and collective action. It is through collaborations like ours with Radical Edge that we can bring about real change and make a positive impact on our community. Thank you, Radical Edge, for being our partners in this incredible journey. We are beyond grateful for your support, and we look forward to achieving even greater milestones together. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to make progress on the Woolastook project!

Solo STRAVA Race Series ’23

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Just for fun we’re going to host a couple of self-directed races this spring and summer. The idea is just to have a good time, direct some traffic onto our trails, and celebrate riders who are pushing themselves to go faster.

Here’s how it works. We’ll create a segment on Strava with our new RVC Race Bunny account and we’ll post it as open on our social channels. You go chase the bunny on your own time, and we’ll keep track of both the men’s and women’s leaderboards. We’ll keep each segment open for 3 weeks and you’re welcome to try it as many times as you want. At the end of the 3 weeks we’ll post up some big kudos to the fastest men’s and women’s time. We’ll also keep track of participation over the entire series… and there may be a few prize draws at the end.

What do you need: basically a Strava App working on a GPS-enabled device and your RVC membership!

Now a few tips:

  • Safety first – we know some riders like the competitive angle of Strava and we expect to see people pushing hard. Just ride within your limits!
  • Pre-ride – we know that short distance segments can do some squirrely things with GPS so most of our races will be a few kilometers. That means there may be some intersections and the potential for wrong turns. Pre-ride each race so you know where you are going.
  • Mind your manners – a Strava race is not an excuse for poor trail etiquette. If you ride the segment on a busy weekend with beautiful weather expect to encounter other parties on the trail. Share the trail! If that means you lose your speed and need to do another lap look at it as a bonus.
  • Over-shoot – you may not want to take a big break just before or just after your push on the segment. Speed up before the digital start line and overshoot the finish by a healthy margin. GPS can do frustrating things and this is your insurance policy.

A note about bikes… we don’t mind what bike you ride. This is just for fun and we’re not taking things too seriously so we’re not keeping track. We anticipate the question: “Can I use my fatbike / gravel / singlespeed / e-bike / etc”. The answer as far as we are concerned is yes… ride the bike you have… but if you’re on an e-bike you’re just doing this for fun… e-bike times are not going to count towards the leaderboard.

Solo Strava Race #1 will start at Woolastook with a route that captures all of the work over last fall and this spring on the Shoreline trail. Have a look at our map, and be aware of the turns you need to take along the segment. The remainder of the races over the season will be posted on our social feeds. This segment opens today and we’ll look at the results on June 1st. Have fun!

Join RVC Now!

Proud Members of: Velo New Brunswick

Canadian Cycling Association

International Mountain Biking Association