By Fran Smith, RABA Public Relations Director
It is the last week of August and the increase in cooler temperatures are ushering in a hint of how wonderful the Fall season can be for cycling. As one glances across the Friends of RABA and the Richmond Area Bicycling Association Facebook pages, there is clear evidence that club members are busy accumulating training miles through the Heart of Virginia (HOVA) training team, joining our monthly New Riders rides, or adding miles to their own Bike Journal tabulations. The cycling energy across Richmond is contagious!
Speaking of the HOVA event, if you missed it, President Andrew Mann was captured on Channel 6 early this month promoting this important event. Kudos to Andrew! Beginning efforts with the Bike for Kids charity has been underway this past month as well with partners at CarMax (http://www.carmax.com) helping with some assembly – and test driving these “vehicles”.
A special jersey has been received for the HOVA event and a featured “Century Ale” craft brew is aging at the local Three Notch’d Brewery (http://threenotchdbrewing.com) is in the works! So, if you’ve yet to sign up for our annual HOVA cycling event, http://www.heartofvacentury.org/ —-you still have time!!
The month of August has been a busy one for the good works of RABA. The club’s annual summer picnic ride hosted over 80 individuals that included a number of new RABA members. A great series of rides were planned and for this C rider, several rides along the VA Capital Trail. At least in my group, I heard some very positive comments about how much fun that ride was for newcomers to the club.
In mid-August, we received a surprising email from Chandler Ebeier, Public Relations Specialist with the Lidl grocery chain. Apparently this European grocery also carries a line of cycling products in their Crivit line. In the linked article, cyclists describe this company’s cycling support around the world, https://www.outsideonline.com/2197326/need-cycling-kit-go-grocery-shopping
As they planned to add this to their Richmond stores they also wanted to share some product samples with RABA. We received that generous donation on August 22nd and some of your board members will be trying out the clothing. More importantly, numerous bike locks, bike pumps, socks and gloves were also received and will be added to the Bike for Kids donations later this year. We’ve yet to hear if Lidl will also be a sponsor at HOVA but remain hopeful and appreciate their generous donation. Check out this product line in your local stores!!
Also in August, board member Kim Moore confirmed that RABA member Chuck Brodersen and INFOTEL Telecom & VoIP Specialist will be donating the www.textyall.com service during the HOVA ride this year. What will this provide? TextY’all is a cell phone contact that a user can text or call. This provides an additional line of service for users to text or audio call during an emergency at the HOVA event that can be relayed to RABA.
“Infotel Systems provides hosted VoIP phone systems with focus on the 804 area code. Our advantage: We provide backup Internet links to your existing Internet to insure 100% Internet connectivity and thus outstanding voice quality”
TextY’all will be especially helpful in those geographical areas that tend to have limited internet and cellular service. A great safety measure that will only enhance this important cycling event! A huge thanks to Chuck and the INFOTEL team for this donation.
As this newsletter goes to press, we hear from our Girl Scout Claire Bonney that she has received kudos from the Girl Scout council on her evolving cycle helmet safety video project. She is completing the final script for the video on helmet safety and video production will soon be underway. We anticipate a full report in the Fall and including a link to this video on our website. We have also heard that the annual Anthem Moonlight Ride attracted over 2000 registrants. Several of our RABA members were serving as volunteers and ride marshals and our RABA tent received a number of visitors. Thanks to all the RABA membership for the good things you do to promote and grow our RVA cycling community!