PARKS GUIDE 2019
Photo by Jeff Saxman
The Richmond area is designated by the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) as a Bronze Level Ride Center, meaning it’s one of the best places in the country to experience a variety of mountain-biking terrain. If you’re just getting started as a mountain biker, here are some parks where you can ease into pedaling.
Pocahontas State Park
10301 State Park Road, Chesterfield
At nearly 8,000 acres, Pocahontas is Virginia’s largest state park. In recent years, as part of the Richmond area attaining designation as a Bronze Level Ride Center, volunteers from RVAMore, a local mountain biking advocacy group, along with the Friends of Pocahontas State Park and the park itself, added 24 miles of mountain biking trails to the Swift Creek Trail system. The trails include a 7-mile trail for beginners and disabled riders with “big, wide, smooth roly-poly stuff that kids love and paralyzed veterans can use with hand cycles,” says Clark Jones, RVAMore board member and mountain bike trails manager at Pocahonatas.
Biking trails within the park, and elsewhere, are marked with either green circles (beginner), blue squares (intermediate) or black diamonds (advanced), much like ski slopes. Jones says it took more than four and a half years to construct the new trails. “I get so many families who come and thank me,” he says. “They are so grateful to have somewhere for the whole family to ride together.”
Luke McCall rides past Richmond’s wastewater treatment plant on the Poop Loop. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Poop Loop
Ancarrow’s Landing, 1200 Brander St.
Named for its proximity to Richmond’s wastewater treatment plant, the 2.5-mile “Poop Loop” is a relatively new downtown trail that provides a great entree for beginning mountain bikers and also makes a nice extension to nearby trails in the James River Park System’s extensive network.
Located next to Ancarrow’s Landing, the relatively flat singletrack snakes around the wastewater treatment plant, passes through woodlands and meadows, and offers views of the James River.
The trail was originally cut by individual riders as a “pirate” trail, but is now part of the official James River Park System and is a great option for beginning mountain bikers in this otherwise challenging trail network. “It has a lot of rollers and bumps you can play with.” Jones says. “It’s almost like a pump track.”
Be warned: This area stays wet longer than other trails after a rain. And, depending on the direction of the wind, it can be a bit malodorous.
Image courtesy RVAMore
Deep Run Pump Track
9900 Ridgefield Parkway
This fall, RVAMore hopes to open a pump track at Deep Run Park, where the group built the park’s original network of trails in the late 1990s. Initially set for completion by mid-August, construction on the track has been delayed by Henrico County, but RVAMore’s Jones says hopes are that the pump track will be completed this fall. The 950-foot track will be the first suburban paved bicycle skills course in Central Virginia. RVAMore raised $50,000 for the project, which features a dual slalom course so that two riders can race. The track, which will be topped with asphalt for easier maintenance, will provide an opportunity for novices and kids to develop off-road bike-handling skills, Jones says. “It teaches you how to pump through rollers without pedaling if you learn how to ride the bike correctly,” he says. “This skill will transfer to mountain biking. It’s a great way for kids and adults [to learn how] to use weight and momentum to control their bikes.”
