Cyclists pedal to Ashland on RABA’s weekly Saturday morning ABC ride. (Photo by Jay Paul)
It’s 8:15 on a Saturday morning in April, and cars begin streaming into the Laurel Park Shopping Center parking lot in northern Henrico County as cyclists gather for the Richmond Area Bicycling Association (RABA)’s Ashland Breakfast Club (ABC) ride.
I grab my bike off the bike rack, fasten my helmet, sign in as a rider and introduce myself to Gregg Hillmar, my RABA ambassador and ride leader.
The club’s longest-running ride and one of its most popular, the ABC ride travels 10 miles on rural, mostly flat roads to Ashland’s downtown and back to Laurel Park after cyclists take a break for coffee and camaraderie.
There are longer return routes available, and this morning, once our group of about eight riders regroups and refuels in Ashland, we decide to extend the return trip and ride 30 miles total. We average 15 to 16 miles per hour (a solid “B” pace, according to RABA’s pacing chart), with a faster group leaving Laurel Park first. Many Saturdays, there are slower groups, too.
This week’s ride attracts fewer participants than the average of 50 or so weekly cyclists because RABA Foundation’s annual Icicle Bicycle Ride fundraiser to support its Bikes for Kids program is taking place across town at the same time.
The ABC ride started in the 1980s, when the area along the route was much less developed. Considered a signature RABA ride, it’s popular with newcomers and is a great introduction to group riding because of the easy terrain. Until the pandemic forced an alteration in its schedule, the first ABC ride of each month from April through October was geared toward new riders.
The ride has departed from Laurel Park since its earliest days, but the aging shopping center will soon be replaced with a 350-unit mixed-use project, so RABA is looking for a new place to meet, with hopes of returning to the original site once construction ends.
Kim Moore, RABA’s weekly ride director, was introduced to the organization, and to road cycling, through the ABC ride in 1993. “I was a complete couch potato,” she recalls. “I did not exercise one lick.”
Her boyfriend was an avid cyclist who told her she could learn to ride or find something else to do while he was out pedaling because he would never give it up. She decided to give it a try and completed her first ABC ride on a date with him from the back of a tandem bike. “He said it was a 10-mile ride,” she recalls, laughing. “He lied to me because he did not want to freak me out.”
She was hooked and has been involved in RABA ever since. She’s still riding with her boyfriend, who is now her husband, trading the ABC ride for a longer, faster ride out of Centreville on Saturday mornings.
As we ride toward Ashland, there is little traffic on this cloudy Saturday morning. The group follows safety protocols, traveling single file in a pace line, calling out obstacles — Gravel! Hole! Car up! — and stopping periodically at quiet intersections to make sure everyone is accounted for.
“Most of people’s fears about road cycling and the things that intimidate them are mitigable with training and experience,” says Hillmar, who is a League of American Bicyclists safety skills instructor and certified coach. “People are very scared about riding with traffic — but there’s a way to do that that is safe.”
Hillmar and the others make me feel welcome. Unlike some rides, this is a competition-free zone. I’m encouraged to take the lead at one point to head the paceline, and we joke a bit while ascending the ride’s one hill as we approach Ashland.
Hillmar joined RABA in 2010 after rediscovering the joys of bike riding as an adult. He was seeking routes outside of his neighborhood and friends to ride with. RABA’s route library, available to all at raba.org, first drew his attention. “It became very apparent very quickly that [RABA] really was about the people,” he says. “I managed to connect in those very early days with a couple of folks who solidified that this is something I wanted to do. It became about the people and building on riding more and riding longer with people I liked being around.”
He served as RABA president in 2015 and is currently the director of the annual Heart of Virginia Bike Festival, a ride with four routes, from 11 miles to an English Century (102 miles), scheduled for Sept. 18 in Hanover County. By the time we return to Laurel Park around 11 a.m., he’s nearly convinced me to train for the 102-mile ride.
The ABC ride reminds me of all that I love about riding a bike: the camaraderie of a group ride, the feeling of freedom on an open road, the low-impact heart-pumping exercise and the beauty of Virginia in the springtime.
