A lot of my contemporaries have yet to try the Virginia Capital Trail. “I don’t have a bike”, they say. Or, “I don’t know how to get there.” Or, “I don’t have the right clothes.” These are smart people who buy things at retail stores and use Google maps all the time. I know from experience how these small obstacles take something that is very doable and make it doable another day. Another day that keeps turning into another day. Why? Fear?
I’d like to give you a gentle nudge to GET OVER IT. When someone is on the Virginia Capital Trail for the first time, whether walking, running or riding a bike, their face shows absolute joy. For people my age, it’s usually because they haven’t been on a bike in twenty years and they feel like a kid again when they first start to pedal. For recreational cyclists, it’s the very unfamiliar feeling of being safely separated from car traffic. For families, it’s discovering an activity everyone can do together and, in all likelihood, enjoy.
You wouldn’t miss a party because you didn’t have the right clothes, right? You wouldn’t skip vacation because you’d never been there before, right? Go. Get a bike (anything with pedals is perfect). Get clothes (shorts and a T-shirt). Then click here (http://virginiacapitaltrail.org/trail/map/) to find your way to the Virginia Capital Trail.
Here’s how it’s done.
See you on the Trail!
Beth Weisbrod
Executive Director
Virginia Capital Trail Foundation
