Mountain Bikers
For your next race or day trip: Find some of the best trails and share resources and stories with other bikers.
NRVBA is a one of over 750 bike clubs worldwide that are members of the International Mountain Bicycling Association. The work of local bike clubs is essential in keeping trails open for mountain biking. By joining NRVBA, you’ll support grassroots mountain bike advocacy, meet other mountain bikers, and learn about great trails to ride that are close to home. Click here to join today!
There are many great rides and ideas for 2011. Please come to our January meeting and hear what we have in the works. We want more ideas as well! Keep checking back for details on 2011. Big rides and good times.
Local Ongoing Trail Work – We Need Volunteers!
We all love our local trails and would like to have even more. The good news is that we can! Our trails, whether they are in the National Forest or private land, are maintained by volunteers. There are just too many miles of trail for our friends at the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to take care of, so we need to lend a hand. We always need volunteers and the efforts below are just the beginning. Trail work is a constant battle and the more time we put in, the better our current trails will be plus greater opportunities for new trails. We will keep you posted of volunteer days and we hope to see you out on the trails!
Mountain Lake
Right now a new trail is nearly complete connecting the Bald Knob Trail and the Homestead Connector Trail. We spent nearly 200 hours of workingon this project alone and finished it the summer of 2010 in time for the Six Hours of Dirty Dawg. The other 20 miles of trail at Mountain Lake constantly need work, and we’re always looking for volunteers to clear dead fall and over growth.
Pandapas
We have been constantly trying to tackle small rehab projects on nearly every trail in the Pandapas Trails system. The more dedication and man hours we show, the greater our negotiating power will be to add new trail. We have met with USFS and seen the proposed trails, and it will be worth the work if we can prove that we have the volunteer base.
Dragon’s Back (North Mountain)
Every spring we have a big push to clear and brush the long ridge of Dragon’s Back. In 2010, we logged 75 hours of clearing just in time for the Dragon’s Tale race. This is always an all day epic, but is well worth it when you ride the 12 miles of continuous ridge and all of the miles of downhill.
Local Trails and Rides
Six Hours of Dirty Dawg
Dirty Dawg is a 6-hour endurance race at Mountain Lake in July. Riders will try to complete as many laps as possible before the bell tolls six. For those of you who have yet to experience the trails at Mountain Lake, you are in for a good surprise. Nearly all the trails are above 4000′ with waist-high ferns and old growth Hemlocks towering above. The summer time temperature is nearly 10 degrees cooler than Blacksburg and the nights remain cool. It is truly a summer time hide out.
Rowdy Dawg
The first Rowdy Dawg mountain bike race was run in 1988 and has improved each year in October. A longstanding tradition in Southwest Virginia, the Rowdy Dawg is renowned for its excellent and GRUELING race course and typically draws a large and diverse field of participants.
Southwest Virginia & Jefferson National Forest Mountain Bike Trails – From Trails.com
Mountain Biking in Virginia – From the Official Tourism Website for the Commonwealth of Virginia
Blue Ridge Biking- From BlueRidgeOnline.com
