Tracklo-Heaven

Riding your bike in Richmond is, unavoidably, an exercise in underbiking. There is a sublime mix of techy singletrack, hidden gravel cut-throughs, steep cobblestone climbs, and shitty pavement, guaranteeing you’ll inevitably feel out of your element no matter what you ride on. I have the good fortune to be able to ride great flow trails nearly from my front door, after a quick mile of pavement to take me to Dogwood Dell. 

Riding in Richmond is special because there’s such variation in terrain — I always fight the temptation to add more singletrack into every pavement ride. The city parks have dense and exciting trail systems, and the parks themselves are often a short ride from each other. Any ride through Reedy Creek is improved with a Forest Hill hot lap. 

The Steamroller I ride to grab groceries has some wide, backswept Simworks bars and 38mm Gravelkings because I want to be able to pop up onto a curb or grind over uneven pavement. You could call it a tracklocross bike because of these features, but it sees 95% asphalt and maybe 5% dirt. I’d been looking to improve that ratio, so I was thrilled when my buddy Jack came down from NYC with his Geekhouse looking to ride a little. 

I planned a little excursion out to Bryan Park, home to a moderate amount of easy to shred singletrack tucked away along the main loop of the park. It took a bit of surface street riding to get there, mostly flat and featuring protected bike lanes along Brook Road. After a short hill bomb and climb right at the Bellevue entrance, we cruised around, scarfed Swedish Fish, and looked for something fun to ride.

We ended up repeating the same short sections of relatively flat, relatively simple singletrack several times. It was fun as hell to pick up the speed on repeated segments as I learned the terrain. Skidding through corners to shave off speed and fishtail the turn had a funny parallel with pumping through a hairpin downhill to gain momentum. Several times, my rear tire lost contact with the ground entirely when coming over hilltops. The entire experience had a sort of madcap excitement. There was just enough traction and control in the bike to carry me through the singletrack, but none of the comforts a hand brake or high stack can give.

Riding home, we briefly linked up with the Broad Street Bullies before stopping by Jack’s parent’s place for some leftover pizza. The sun was still up at around 8 pm as we sat on his front porch and discussed gear ratios and old friends. My right knee hurt. You might as well ride tracklocross in Richmond. It’s fun as hell and what’s the worst that can happen, anyway?