River Valley Cycling

Supporting Cycling In and Around Fredericton

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!

Opening Up Woolastook For the ’23 Season

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Thank you for your patience through the soft, spring conditions. We know it’s tough to wait but riding too early during freeze-thaw cycles can really damage all the work volunteers put into our singletrack. Despite a bit of rain this week, we are happy to say that Woolastook is adequately dried up and ready to ride!

There’s more good news. You’ll now be able to ride the new alignment of Shoreline West that avoids what used to be a muddy, flow-killing section. The new alignment stays high and dry and looks beautiful. Check out Norm’s walk-through video and tell us that this doesn’t make you want to go ride right now!

Since this is the first singletrack trail network in the Fredericton area that we think is ready to go (aside from our good friends at Mountain Bike Minto) we’re expecting a good crowd out there this weekend. You may see some volunteers out there doing trail work this weekend removing blow-downs and fine tuning things. In fact, we’re looking for a few volunteers to do some leaf/debris blowing. We’ll have our fleet of blowers all on-site at 10:00 Saturday morning and if you’re willing to volunteer for an hour or two please send us a message (via FB or email) – we’d love to set you up!

Stay connected for more trail updates as other networks dry out and remember to get your 2023 RVC Membership!

RVC is Hiring a Summer Youth Trail Crew

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Do you want to get paid over your summer holidays to improve our singletrack trail network? Send us your resume!

Earlier this week we received some exciting news. Our application to the Canada Summer Jobs program was successful, and we’ve been awarded a grant that will let us hire two students for the summer. So, we’re looking for 2 young students (high school, college, or university) who love trails, have a solid work ethic, and want to help RVC make riding better in the Fredericton area. The job will cover 8 weeks from late June to mid August and we are offering pay that’s better than minimum wage. Fredericton locals have gone on to make careers out of trail building so this may be your start!

There’s nothing more satisfying that riding a trail you buffed out by hand.

We are really excited to have a youth trail crew this year in addition to the hundreds of volunteer hours that get poured into our local trails. We want to get them to focus on maintenance and upkeep across the entire riding network. We will have new build projects going on this year (especially at Woolastook) but we want to not lose sight of the upkeep for some of the awesome trails we already have. We heard lots of support for this idea in our membership survey last year.

If you see someone this summer wearing this out on a trail – stop and say thanks!!!

By the way… did you see our amazing new RVC Trail Crew Logo? We love it. Huge thanks to Christina T. for the design. You might see some long-time trail builders and maintainers showing this off on a trail dig sometime this summer.

So – please share this (it’s our version of a job ad) and if you think you are the right person – please send us your resume!

Fine print – While we’d love to open this opportunity up to anyone our funding agreement limits us to people between the ages of 15 and 30 who can legally work in Canada (international students are not eligible unfortunately).

Proud Members of: Velo New Brunswick

Canadian Cycling Association

International Mountain Biking Association