Valley Report - July 2024
Hi y’all!
Here is the Valley Report for July 2024
Skidmarks Grand Opening at The Driving Range
Credit: A.Carter Clark
Our friends Phil Kmetz and Hailey Sarausky opened a one-of-a-kind, double-black adaptive mountain bike trail as part of The Driving Range network! For those that don’t know, The Driving Range is an adaptive-friendly network of mountain bike trails that are part of the Richmond Mountain Trails network. Make sure to give them a follow on social media or consider donating if you can here.
Swift Campout
Credit: Nicole van der Wal
Credit: Nicole van der Wal
The weather this summer has been a bit chaotic and extremely unpredictable. We had some recent rains including catastrophic flooding of over 8 inches that led to flash flooding, damage to infrastructure, farms and people’s homes. Unfortunately, it’s the new normal and the weather is what caused us to postpone our initial date. Thankfully we were able to take folks out a few weeks later to enjoy the Island Line trail that included a ride on the bike ferry! It was a bit warm but we made the best of it as we traveled over 50 miles round trip. Thanks again to Swift Industries for trusting us to be Navigators and for sending over all the fun goodies we shared with folks who came on the trip!
BIPOC Outdoor Festival
We love our friends Unlikely Riders so when they asked if we could table at the BIPOC Outdoor Festival they were hosting you know we couldn’t say no. This was the fourth year of the festival and we look forward to coming back again next year! This event was created to allow members of the BIPOC community to get together in community to mountain bike, kayak, canoe, swim in a welcoming and inclusive environment.
The food was incredible as well as the people. It was great talking to everyone and allowed us to make more connections with BIPOC folks in Vermont. Massive shout out to all the organizers, facilitators, volunteers and Craftsbury Outdoor Center who helped this all come together. We heard the festival continues to grow every year and would love to see this turn into a weekend summer camp vibe in the future. Who wants to see a beginner’s bikepacking overnighter next year? Let us or the organizers know! :)
BIPOC Bikepacking Trip with Unlikely Riders
Credit: isa demarco
Our lovely, wonderful and amazing friends Abby and Han asked us to collaborate on another BIPOC Bikepacking trip. We are doing one of our local favorites which is a route that takes us on the local bike ferry!
For those that don’t know Unlikely Riders, they work on encouraging all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in Vermont to get outside while reducing the barriers to do so. You can learn more here or if you can donate here
BTS (Behind the scenes) at Color The Valley
We’ve got some exciting news to share with you soon but we can’t quite reveal all the details yet unfortunately. We can say that it is a step in the right direction for building out an Outdoor Gear Library. Stay tuned and we look forward to working closer with some of our local friends on this journey.
What comes next?
Bikes. Ok, that is kind of a given BUT we are cooking up a way to raise funds for our friends and local RAR Champlain Valley chapter for their RARNAR event which you should check out / donate to if you can! We love them and they’ve always been supportive of us. Go and show them how much you love them too! @rarchamplainvalley
Here is our current and most up to date list of what we plan to do before the end of the year. If you’d like to support, have ideas or any feedback then we would love to hear from you!
Bikepacking trips
Additional overnighters in September and October
Details TBD!
Intro to Bikepacking Clinics
One open to all
One that is BIPOC specific
Group Bike rides (Themes)
Single Speed Sunday potentially as well (not required but highly recommended)
BIPOC specific ride (at least once a month unless there is demand for more often)
BRB (Be Right Back) Rides (hoping to start this in September!)
Enter the bike time bubble
Bikees, swimees, creemees
Our picks
Now is our favorite part of the report…telling you what’s making us happy!
Izzy:
Here are some things I've been happy about this summer! I've recently built my first bike from the frame up! It's a Surly Midnight Special. Mike is always making fun of me for switching my setup. I'm on a constant search for the perfect ride...but I say that as someone with five different bikes all for different purposes.
And on the topic of never settling on one thing, I'm taking a timber framing class that my friend Sophie is teaching in two weeks. I've been a bike mechanic for a long time and this is another way for me to work with my hands.
Last in my continual quest for more hobbies - my mom, my partner, and some of my friends have decided to try and run a trail half marathon in October. Wish these cycling legs luck!
Mike:
Olympics, Olympics, Women’s Sports. Unfortunately, I start to feel a little patriotic then I remember I’m actually here for the athletes and the teams who just happen to represent the United States. The USWNT Soccer team closed out the group stage last week and will be playing for the Gold medal. In the year of our hater, this is the anthem. The Gymnastics team also clinched Gold medals by an almost 6 point margin with incredible performances from the entire team. Simone Biles is a GOAT.
I really don’t recommend getting on X? Twitter? whatever it’s called now but this account has been so interesting to see all of the old photos that have been colorized and aptly described as the internet history museum.
Thanks for reading!
This is brought to you with love and care from Izzy Johnson and Mike Ripley. Make sure to subscribe below so you don't miss out on the Valley Report.