Gravel Ride of the Week: Capitol to Capitol (A journey to the IRL Richmond Zwift Course)
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Winter blues be gone, we’re back with another Gravel Ride of the Week! Yep, it’s been a long, cold winter, but the light is finally at the end of the tunnel and soon we’ll be back into warmer days. If you’re like me, then you probably spent more time than you wanted indoors on a trainer throughout the colder months. I know... that virtual Zwift terrain can only keep you entertained for so long! I felt the need to trade in the virtual for the real thing and decided to ride to the nearest IRL (in real life) Zwift course that I could find - the 2015 UCI World Championship course located in Richmond, Virginia. In the latest Gravel Ride of the Week, I document my 2-day bike trip from Washington DC to Richmond as I set out to explore this part of Virginia. This was a journey that contained lots of lessons. Let’s dive in to unpack it all!
The route
Christin and I live only 2 hours (of driving) away from Richmond, VA., but I’ve never had the opportunity to visit this city. I’ve ridden through the virtual streets plenty of times ever since Zwift released a replica of the 2015 UCI Richmond World Championship course on their platform. I’ve seen all the famous sights in the game so many times; the brick roads along Monument Avenue, the views of the James River as you ride alongside some train bridges and, of course, the famous cobble stone climb up to the top of Libby Hill Park. As interactive as the Zwift platform is, it can, however, only go so far to give you a feel of what the place looks like. Thus, after more than enough hours in the virtual Richmond world, the time was right to trade in the virtual for the real thing to see the real Richmond course for myself.
Given our close proximity, getting to the real-world Zwift Richmond course by car isn’t all that impressive. To make it more of a challenge I opted to cover the distance to Richmond by bike. What better way to travel along the Eastern side of Virginia, than by bike? Or so I thought! The idea was simple: Start at the US Capitol building in Washington DC and ride all the way through to the Virginia State Capitol building in Richmond.
The route planning for this journey was a rather time-consuming task and I tried to set out the perfect route that would include the least number of busy roads. Hours were spent studying Strava Heatmaps, Google Street views, Gravel Map and any other sources that I could find. You can read more about my route planning techniques here and here. In the end, I had a route set out that would start off in Washington DC, head along some trails through the busier metro area, through to Clifton VA for a lunch stop and then into the country as I made my way down to Fredericksburg. This town served as my overnight destination before I would continue further South towards Richmond the next day. The ride would, as mentioned, end off in Richmond as I covered some parts of the Richmond Zwift course.
What about the gravel?
The area between Washington DC and Richmond does not offer all that much in terms of gravel roads. In the planning phase, I tried to link up as many of the gravel roads that I could find. Only two places along my route truly offered anything in terms of gravel, a handful of short gravel sections outside of Clifton and The Old CC Rd that lies halfway between Fredericksburg and Richmond. Hardly enough gravel to justify a gravel bike, but I still opted to take on this challenge onboard my 3T Exploro. I even decided to make use of my more rugged Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M tires, since I had no idea what would await along this ride. Whereas a wider slick (32-35mm) would have done the job perfectly, I leaned towards the side of caution since there was no certainty about what might still be sitting on the edge of the road after winter. For this adventure, puncture protection and ride comfort superseded speed. Good thing I made this decision, since I was forced to ride in the gutter far more than I could ever have anticipated. Bottomline, the gravel bike was the perfect choice for this ride after all.
The ride
Where do I begin?! This ride simply challenged me on so many different levels. I won’t bore you by writing out the play by play from this ride in detail. You’ll see each bit of frustration, joy and suffering clearly in the Gravel Ride of the Week video that goes along with this post. You’ll see how I battled intense headwinds, fought my way through some of the craziest and most ridiculous traffic that I’ve ever encountered on country roads and how I had to dig extremely deep to push through knee pain to get to the finish line in Richmond. You’ll get to experience the ups and downs of a journey that took me from busy metro streets to hidden gravel roads tucked away in the middle of nowhere. You’ll see how this trip took me through some historic places, like the battlefields outside of Fredericksburg all the way through to the history that’s found in Richmond. Most importantly, you’ll see how a ride that started out as an adventure to seek out an alternative to the virtual world became a very intense reality in itself.
It was a journey that tested my grit and the ability to stick out whatever came my way to get the job done. I’m very thankful that I pushed on. Getting to that Capitol building and the Zwift course in Richmond felt incredibly rewarding. I can now proudly say that I know what the real-world version of the Zwift course looks like, including riding up the famous cobble stones that you find at Libby Hill Park. What an amazing moment!
Wrap-up
What didn’t make it into the video were the events that followed the ride. The challenges from this bike trip did not end after finishing off in Richmond. Turns out that there was one more hurdle that I needed to overcome to get this content created. One of the Micro SD cards in my GoPro was corrupted and I feared that I would lose all the shots taken on that camera. After a day or two of additional toil, I managed to recover about 70% of my videos and 30% of the photos from the card. This project really tested me on so many grounds. I have to give a big shout-out to Christin for all her support on this trip. She was there to help me through lots of the challenges, especially when it came to lighting the fire in me to get day two started despite the setback from a sore knee. So much of what we do here at Mountain Road never makes it into the final product and on this trip that was certainly the case. Now that the fitness from this trip is in the books, I’m ready take on the 2022 season of gravel. It should be a good one and I’m excited to share more rides in the near future. Until then, enjoy your ride!
