Today we’d like to introduce you to Frenchy Riviere.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Frenchy. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
After talking to the city for almost 5 years, they agreed to let us use the North Point of Virginia Key to build an off-road bike park at our expense. The city asked me to design it because of my prior experience in building trails. We opened a mountain bike club in September 2010. Since then, we grew from 150 paid members a year to what could be 1000 by the end of this year. Between membership drives, sales of t-shirts and racing jerseys, donations from biz and private citizens and events that we organized (night rides, kid’s day, races, swap meet, BBQ, meet and greet), the club and the venue are doing very well. More and more riders come every week and from farther away than ever before. The club logged over 22,500 hours of volunteering since 2010. The interest is there.
Has it been a smooth road?
It has been a pretty smooth road so far with the occasional hurdle. It is never easy to deal with government red tape. But our numbers don’t lie. The park is successful, we are happy about it and so is the city.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Virginia Key Bicycle Club story. Tell us more about the business.
We are a 501 c 3, not for profit corporation. No one is on any salary at all. Therefore, all we do is for the betterment of the trails and the club. Most other off-road bike parks in South Florida are opened since 1990. When we opened in February 2011, we were the new kid on the block, 21 years younger than all others. This has changed. We are known now as one of the premier places to ride, train and race and enjoy the outdoor in South Florida. We certainly are proud of that and we are still expending.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Even though the sport of (mountain biking) is not synonymous with Miami, we are a major player in the biking industry in Florida. This alone will make us grow, thrive, and with us, a lot of local bike shops who are selling mountain bikes like it is going out of style. For us, if the city of Miami let us do what we do, we could become a park recognized internationally.
Pricing:
- Our membership is $20.00 for single and $30.00 for family. Yearly.
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