Friday, July 10, 2009
Name change for outfitters
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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A Giles County outfitter will celebrate a transition in name and place with a grand opening celebration Saturday.
Leigh and Britt Stoudenmire have changed the name of their business to New River Outdoor Company from its original moniker, Canoe the New Outfitters.
And, after having operated for its first five years out of their home in Pearisburg, the business is now housed in a log cabin alongside U.S. Route 460 just east of Pembroke.
"We wanted better amenities for our clients," Britt Stoudenmire said of the company's move. "And we wanted to be more visible."
The new site has been up and running since May in a new log cabin that does double duty -- it also serves as a model home for the Amish-built Mountain View Log Homes.
For Saturday's event, the company is offering half-priced canoe and kayak rentals, as well as various raffles. Stoudenmire will hold a seminar on smallmouth bass fishing from 2-3 p.m.
A graduate of and former baseball player at Virginia Tech, Stoudenmire was in graduate school at The Citadel when he and his wife decided they wanted to start an outfitters business.
"We had just finished a trip on the James River when we saw the owners of the company sitting in chairs in the river drinking wine," he said. "We said, 'We could do this.'"
Having paddled many places in the Southeast, they like the potential of the New, which had fewer outfitters than many other rivers they had visited.
"Compared to other areas, the New seemed underutilized," Stoudenmire said.
In addition to canoe and kayak rentals and shuttle service, the company also offers guided fishing trips and overnight stays in four cabins on Big Walker Creek.
Stoudenmire said that despite the tough economy, the company is doing well. While the new location may be helping, he said he believes the outfitting business is benefitting from the desire of many vacationers to find inexpensive, close-to-home fun.
"People aren't necessarily going on these huge vacations," he said. "And there's a lot to do out here on a small budget."
For more details on the grand opening celebration and the New River Outdoor Company, visit the company's Web site at newriveroutdoorco.com.
ID3 races draw lots of racers
Success of a trio of bike races over the July 4 holiday has some cycling enthusiasts thinking that Roanoke could be, in the words of race official Bob Bowman, making the transition to becoming "the biggest gear rather than just a spoke" in U.S. cycling.
The three races, which were affiliated with the Commonwealth Games of Virginia, drew 428 entrants as well as a solid number of corporate sponsors.
The July 3 hill climb time trial at Mill Mountain drew 162 entrants, a number organizers say is higher than any other previous race on the steep course.
The criterium circuit races on the streets of downtown Roanoke on Saturday and Sunday also drew strong numbers of entrants. The headliner was Ben King of Charlottesville, a Virginia Tech student who is one of the country's top young racers. He easily won Saturday's marquee event after having won the hill climb a day earlier.
Next up for area bike racers are a mountain bike hill climb at Mill Mountain on July 18 and a cross country race at Carvins Cove on July 19. Both of those races are also affiliated with the Commonwealth Games (commonwealthgames.org).
--Mark Taylor
