New, cool place for bicyclists (8 photos)

Velorution celebrated its 10th anniversary Saturday with the official opening of a public pump track located on its property at 162 Old Garden River Road.

A pump track is a bicycle course dotted with bumps, jumps and berms in which the rider uses his or her own weight to get through it without continuously pedalling the bicycle.

The pump track on Velorution's front yard, located at the corner of Old Garden River Road and Second Line East, is a sampling of a bigger Sault pump track to come.

That pump track is currently under construction in the city's downtown core, funded through municipal and private sector funds  and set for a grand opening in September. 

"Cycling in Sault Ste. Marie has been growing for the past few years and we wanted to contribute to that bicycle culture and build this pump track, which we had professionally designed and built," said Jan Roubal, Velorution's owner, speaking to SooToday Saturday.

"Today is the first time a lot of people in the Sault will get a taste of what a pump track is, and with the one going on downtown in the fall, this is a good segue for that," Roubal said.

"The beauty of a pump track is that you can get kids as young as two years old that can get around on it, and then you get people who are really experienced on their bikes, then all of a sudden they're riding the same terrain, just in a different way."

Velorution opened in 2006 under the ownership of well-known Sault cyclist Andre Riopel.

Roubal began working at Velorution as its manager in 2008.

Roubal and his wife Ngairi became its new owners in January 2015.

"We're all about creating a bicycle culture, we're selling bikes and that's fantastic but we're here for more than just the business aspect of it," Roubal said.

"We pride ourselves on being a bit more than a cycle shop, we're really here for the community, we really want to get more kids and adults into riding on bikes." 

Roubal said there are plans to expand the Velorution pump track on the bicycle store property's back yard.

The Velorution pump track is free for the bicycling public to use, Roubal said.

"It's on private property, but we're trying to make it a community park."

The Velorution pump track consists of 27 truckloads of clay, Roubal said.

Local contractors dropped off the clay from sites where they had been excavating, and a landscaper friend accompanied by volunteers donated their time to help Roubal build the project.

"To contract this out and get it built, it would have been about 30,000 dollars," Roubal said.

"Friday afternoon (July 15) we started it, and we were done Tuesday about 11 at night, we have to thank all the volunteers who came out, the bike community really came together by digging dirt and shaping the track."

"We've got an unbelievable staff, we couldn't do it without them," Roubal said, adding he hopes to have pump track events on an ongoing basis throughout cycling season.

For Saturday's 10th anniversary festivities, Shabby Motley provided food while OutSpoken Brewing was on hand with beer.

Fit Bodies Fit Minds was scheduled to be at Velorution at 3 p.m. to demonstrate some bicycle-specific yoga.

Admission to Saturday's event was by donation, with the proceeds going to Bikes for Kids, a charitable organization run locally through the Sault Cycling Club.

Bikes for Kids provides bicycles to underprivileged children.

"It's a really good initiative," Roubal said.

In addition, a free Cycle Aid Station was set up by Velorution on the Hub Trail at the corner of Second Line East and Old Garden River Road, at which cyclists can stop and perform minor maintenance duties and repairs on their bikes.

Velorution functions as a cross-country ski and snowshoe store in winter, but its sales of fat bikes took off last winter as well.

"We've sold fat bikes for about five years now, and last year we went from selling five to about 50 fat bikes…we've got a pretty awesome place for fat biking, the Hub Trail really works well for it and places like Crimson Ridge have really embraced it, grooming specific trails for fat bikes," Roubal said.