One of the most common questions in any bike shop, right behind “Can I get some air?” and “Will you match this price?” is “Where’s a good place to ride around here?” The bike shop is where we all go to find the best routes. By “we” I mean self-identifying cyclists who know that trick. Bike shops retain a unique position in the the community this way. They are a repository for local ride knowledge. When I travel, the first place I go to find out where to ride is the local bike

For Land Run 100’s fifth event, founder Bobby Wintle called and said he wanted to do something special with the route. Historically, he relied on a few close friends to design the route, but this was the first year he had handpicked each and every road for the event. “These are my absolute favorite roads in the region,” he said. The red dirt roads had already left their mark on the brains and stains on the clothes of riders who had already ridden the event. This year, the roa

In 2006, the first Dirty Kanza 200 had 34 riders. In 2017, there will be over 2,000. As they’ve grown and added other events throughout the year, they have transformed the small town of Emporia, Kansas into a global destination for gravel riding. In 2016, they opened a retail store called Gravel City Adventure & Supply. To accommodate riders looking to ride around Emporia on their own, the DK/GC crew created a catalog of branded routes they called their Iconic Routes. When bl

We are excited to announce a new feature on blackriver called RideCards. RideCards were designed to help retailers and brands quickly and easily get riders on good routes. They feature your logo, a snapshot of the map, vital route details, a Cue Sheet, and a QR/URL. blackriver has a built-in QR scanner (under the 'More' tab on iOS), so a rider with the app can immediate scan, save, and navigate a route within seconds. RideCards are available as a PDF export for any route crea

Get everything and everyone on the same page with blackriver Events. Events are a key part of creating an active community around bicycle retail, but they can be tedious to maintain. Our goal is to simplify the task of planning and promoting Events. Use the Events tool to host any type of riding event. When riders “Join” your Events, you get a notification and they immediately get a copy of the route saved to their “Planned Rides”. They can choose to export the route file for

Have you ever tried finding a good route on the internet? Finding routes themselves is easy, too easy. In fact, a quick search for routes in Madison yielded over 40,000 routes to choose from. But are they any good? Who is authoring all those routes? And can you trust them? This is one of biggest problems we’re working to solve with blackriver. On our platform, we promote routes from local shops, brands, and advocacy groups above the routes from regular riders. We call them “C

Simply put, blackriver for business is a toolkit for using your local route knowledge and riding activities to add value to your brand. Pairing products with experiences is a powerful way to build better relationships with your customers. blackriver’s three main business features, Classic Routes, Events, and Challenges will help you inspire and engage your followers in a whole new way. Creating an active community around your establishment through inspires loyalty and increas

blackriver’s patented route-specific Challenge technology is a proven way to inspire your riding community to get out on their bikes and back into the store. blackriver is the only platform that offers the tools to host and track local Challenges. Riders can discover Challenges in local searches on the Explore page, on Profile Pages, and in their Social Feeds. When they “Join” a Challenge, the route is automatically added to their Planned Rides and the host receives a notific