Discover Statesville
Welcome to "Discover Statesville," the show that takes you on a captivating journey through the heart of one of North Carolina's most charming towns. Co-hosted by community advocates, Richard Griggs and Cindy Sutton, this weekly show brings you the pulse of Statesville, recording live at various spots throughout Statesville in partnership with Sow Media studios.
Join Richard and Cindy as they uncover the hidden gems and local treasures that make Statesville truly special. From the top-notch attractions and exciting events to the remarkable individuals who shape the community, "Discover Statesville" promises to leave no stone unturned.
Hungry for a culinary adventure? Tune in for their delightful restaurant reviews, where they'll guide you to the best places to eat in town. Whether you're a resident or a visitor, this podcast is your ultimate guide to all the things that make Statesville great.
You're invited to come along on this immersive journey, as "Discover Statesville" brings you closer to the heart of our vibrant town. Be prepared to be entertained, inspired, and enlightened each week, as Richard and Cindy share their passion for all things Statesville!
Discover Statesville
Cycling Celebrations: Statesville Prepares for Cycle NC's Visit
Get ready for an exciting journey as we welcome Roxanne Newman from CycleNC! Over 900 cyclists will arrive in Statesville on October 7th for the 25th anniversary of the Cycle North Carolina Mountains to Coast ride. Statesville is their third stop on their 450-mile ride across the state.
Roxanne shares insights into the event’s focus on tourism and community engagement, along with Statesville's special preparations like tethered hot air balloon rides and balloon glows. Discover the meticulous planning behind route selection, community involvement, and the various rides CycleNC offers. Plus, learn about sporting events across North Carolina, and get ready to experience Statesville’s charm!
Get ready Statesville. Over 900 cyclists from 42 states are rolling into Statesville on October 7th and we have all the details.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Discover Statesville, the show that takes you on a captivating journey through the heart of one of North Carolina's most charming towns.
Speaker 3:Welcome to Discover Statesville. We are joined today by Roxanne Newman, who is a staff member with CycleNC. Welcome, Roxanne.
Speaker 4:Thank you, thank you, guys, so much for having me.
Speaker 3:So, as Cindy said before the show started, we got a huge event coming up here in just a couple weeks, with over 900 cyclists coming in for stop number three on this year's CycleNC, which is the 25th anniversary, correct?
Speaker 4:Yes, it is.
Speaker 3:So I guess, start off, just tell everybody what tell us about CycleNC.
Speaker 4:What is it?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Where are all these bicyclists coming from?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so Cycle North Carolina falls under North Carolina Amateur Sports. It's a nonprofit organization and 25 years ago we started the Cycle North Carolina arm with our Mountains to Coast ride. So we go every year from the mountains to the coast, different routes, different towns. It's all about tourism, back roads, seeing the different scenery in North Carolina from a different perspective. It's not a race. That's usually the big thing. We want them to spend time at the rest stops, hanging out, seeing, learning. We want them to come to the towns, venture out, learn about everything going on. So, yeah, so the first year we ever did it did it was two weeks long. Uh, they went from murphy to manio, uh. So since then we've cut it down a little bit, um, and we do a week and so, yeah, you guys are our third stop. Uh, we'll start in spruce pine this year, go to lenore and then make our way here yeah, we're in statesville on monday, and that's so they'll be in.
Speaker 3:You guys will be in statesville monday, october the 7th right and cyclists get in starting kind of before lunch-ish.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the early ones will get here right around noon. It is a shorter day that day, so they pick up a little bit of pace.
Speaker 3:And for non-cyclists. A shorter day for the cycling world is 50?
Speaker 4:Yeah 55 to 60 miles.
Speaker 4:Okay, that's a long day, yeah, overall in total, they're going to end up doing around 450 miles to make it from Spruce Pine to Ocean Isle Beach. So that's a lot of bike time. That's why, even more so, we encourage them to take a break from the saddle and stretch their legs at the rest stops. So yeah, they'll be rolling in around 12 or so, bulk of them coming in really around that two o'clock, three o'clock window. I know they're going to be hustling with the great slate of activities you guys have laid out. Once they see those, they're going to want to get in and then they'll just hang around, explore town and venture out to all the stuff you guys have lined up for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're excited. So you mentioned Roxanne, kind of the tourism arm, and we kind of were looped in by our partners at Visit North Carolina. They were here kind of just talking about Statesville and all the great things there are to do here, and I mentioned to some of the team I said you know, statesville really is a destination for cycling, for bicycling. We have road, gravel, dirt, mountain biking, I mean, you name it, we have it here in Statesville and we have all kinds of great routes and you can even rent bikes here. And so we were just having this conversation and they mentioned CycleNC and of course, before my time maybe Richard was involved, but I think Statesville's played host to this event twice before.
Speaker 3:Certainly here in the area absolutely and not involved. My cousin participated for a number of years, so I can remember when they stayed at the fairgrounds one time going down and seeing him when they were coming through. But yeah, really cool event.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So these cyclists are very tourism savvy, like to experience new places, and what we want to do here in Statesville is really make sure they're rolling in, that we roll out the red carpet and really showcase Statesville for the amazing destination it is. So I saw you guys did a post last week on your social media Thank you for that that we wouldn't be the ballooning capital of the East if we didn't showcase some hot air balloon balloons. So for those of you who are not cycling, we are doing some partnering with hot air balloonists that are local here in Statesville and we are offering the cyclists coming in tethered hot air balloon rides. We didn't have enough time to launch 900 balloons, but we are offering some tethered hot air balloon rides in and around downtown Statesville. And then for the community, the balloonists are going to partner with us to do static glows. So we're going to be at we know right now we're going to be at Broad Street United Methodist Church Thank you for their partnership on that and then also at the Civic Center. But around 730 is what Christy Darling from Big Ol' Balloons is telling me when the perfect timing is going to be. But they're going to do static glows. We're going to get to see the balloons glowing at night, which we think is really cool.
Speaker 1:So normally it's a Monday in Statesville, north Carolina and Main Street Not everything's open, or they close early, like they. They're open through the weekend and then that's your day off. So we've our team's really been working downtown. Downtown Statesville Development Corporation's been great to help us make sure everything's open. So we're going to make sure the restaurants are open because there's probably 600 people. I know some of the riders are on a meal plan.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely so. Of the 900 riders, we offer camping. That's what the vast majority of them will do. They'll be outdoor camping at Purple Heart Homes, and then we also have a good number of them staying in hotels as well. So that's kind of the break. Then there's probably 15 or so RVs that come with us as well. That has somebody else who drives while they ride. But yeah, of all those, like 200 or so are on the meal plan, but everybody else wants to get out, find the local cuisines, ask all kinds of recommendations. They eat a lot at the rest stops, but they eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly and Clif Bars and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4:So by the time they get in, they're ready for a hot meal and a cold drink, and just to get to know the town.
Speaker 3:So I think that's cool and so riders will come in.
Speaker 3:As you mentioned, we've got a great partnership with Purple Heart Homes and so that's where a lot of the people will be camping and so there will be sort of a closed event there for cyclists.
Speaker 3:As they come in, refreshments, get to kind of unwind, rest, shower truck, all that kind of stuff, and then, starting that afternoon, really most of these riders, with the exception of some of the stops that I guess we'll talk about, they'll be descending upon downtown Statesville and you know, as Cindy mentioned, you know downtown Statesville has opened their doors. So you know, if you're a local and kind of used to that idea, that downtown is pretty quiet on Monday, this is a good opportunity to come out and enjoy and mingle with the cyclists and stuff. But we'll have a lot of restaurants open, entertainment at a variety of venues, and so people just we'll shuttle cyclists to downtown and they'll just kind of walk around, and that's sort of the norm for what they're experiencing in these towns, right, it's just yeah people sort of open it up and saying, hey, come enjoy what we have here in downtown statesville absolutely, and our cyclists love to hear about the stories.
Speaker 4:They love to interact with the locals. So please definitely come out, hang out with them, tell them what you love about the area, recommend restaurants, recommend sweet treats, all that good stuff. They love to interact with the locals. It really makes them feel welcome in the towns and it's just a nice way to feel as they gear up to head on to Thomasville the next day. We love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think also worth noting the majority of the riders that participate. These are folks that like to travel, so the likelihood is it's an opportunity to really put our best foot forward on what Statesville is, because there's a high likelihood that some of these folks will want to come back and visit a lot of these towns that they stopped through on the ride.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. Average age is going to be in your 60s for this ride. You know, our youngest right now registered is 10. And I think the oldest we have registered right now is 81 or so like that.
Speaker 1:You have a 10-year-old registered.
Speaker 2:Yeah we have a 10-year-old registered.
Speaker 4:So you know it really does span the gamut, but yeah, it does skew a little bit older.
Speaker 4:Just because you have to be able to have a week, You've got to have a week to ride your bike across the state, and so, yeah, a lot of them are retired at times or they do have more vacation and stuff. So, yeah, they're looking to travel, they're looking for reasons to come back, whether it's to our host towns or a lot of them also come out to the rest stops, since they don't get to spend as much time there.
Speaker 3:And everybody that comes to Statesville wants to come back. That's usually what we hear.
Speaker 1:We know that for sure, especially once they go up in hot air balloon. What's really cool is you guys chose and this will be two weeks prior to our largest event 49th Annual Carolina Balloon Fest that's happening that third weekend in October, so we're excited to be sharing hot air balloons with these visitors, with these cyclists, and I forgot what I was going to say next. But we have over 85 restaurants, locally owned and operated restaurants, probably 100 plus once you add in the chains and stuff. But we have a lot of very unique chef inspired destination restaurants here and we're so excited to include Sweet Treats, Two amazing coffee shop bakery type downtown ice cream ice cream bakery and a gelato store.
Speaker 3:Lots of unique places to drinking establishments Definitely have those ice cream bakery and a gelato store, lots of unique places. Drinking establishments Definitely have those. All the things that people are looking for.
Speaker 1:We have a brewery in downtown Statesville. What I forgot that I was going to say is I think it's really unique that Cycle NC you guys work really hard on this route to find rest stops that are also tourism destinations. So as the cyclists are coming in from Lenore to Statesville, their rest stop is Fort Dobbs right. So that would be something that we would normally want to share, but I love that you guys are already stopping there as a rest stop. We've got some volunteers from the community there to come out and help with that, so we're excited about that. And then I do.
Speaker 1:You both have mentioned Purple Heart Homes. I want to give another shout out to them for opening their amazing facility and got that nice flat camping out there. We're going to have some music out there. We are going to have some food trucks for lunch, because we know people are going to be hungry and starving, and then we're loading up shuttles, just so everyone knows kind of what we have going on, to take cyclists out to experience tours and tastings at Southern Distilling. We have the largest distillery in the southeast, so we want people to experience that. And then Rescue Ranch is an amazing facility with over 80 animal ambassadors and we want people to be able to experience that too. So we're going to be running tours, think, until five o'clock, but then the goal is to get everyone downtown statesville to dine, shop, discover and have the balloon glows. And then, of course, we know you're not going to want too late of a night yeah, they will want to get to bed early.
Speaker 4:Um, it's another day of riding, obviously, but yeah, the rescue ranch, I'm excited for that. Um, we've actually used that before for one of our excursion stops last year.
Speaker 4:In addition to the bike riding side of it, we also partner with VisitNC to offer excursions. It's everyday motor coach transportation is included. It's a great way that if your spouse wants to come ride, or your dad or that kind of thing, and you don't want to ride, you can still do the whole week with us and you get to go check out other things. Um and so, yeah, I know that group went last year, uh, to that swap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we absolutely loved it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they came downtown and toured and had some lunch, so yeah, it was really nice how many, uh how many people do you usually get participating in that aspect of it, like the motor coach thing, like non-cyclists that are just along for the week?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so the excursions every day usually is like 15 to 20 that are with us, and it also, you know, if you're a rider that's not comfortable with the mountains or your legs are just tired or your butt's a little tired from the seat, you can take a day off. We'll take your bike to the next campsite for you and you can go with the motor coach and check out the cool places. Like you said, we try to take them to a destination or two that's not a rest stop, that also may not be a host town, and also take them to eat and so they're also giving back and exploring the community just in a little bit of a different way.
Speaker 4:And they get in around 3 or 4 o'clock each day, so they're there as the riders are coming in and then they get to be a part of everything the town is doing, like what you guys have downtown.
Speaker 1:Oh, very cool. I didn't know that they were going to come be a part of the afternoon, so I'm excited about that. Yeah, absolutely, but we enjoyed doing that last year and I hope we get to do it for years to come. So how do you guys pick the routes each year? I know this year your team reached out and Mike on the team came down in December and I'm looking at him because he's sitting over here but will not come on camera. So, hey, mike Came down in December and we did a full tour trying to I tried to get you guys to camp inside and glamp inside our Civic Center.
Speaker 3:He said no way, there were two parts to that conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm just telling the marketing side of the story. But how Like we're so excited to have chosen a Stop 3, and how do you guys choose the routes every year? Do you try to switch it up?
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. We usually try to do kind of, you know, a northern route, then do something down the middle and then kind of a southern route, but it really varies every year on kind of where we're able to go with it, always trying to get new towns involved. It's hard when you've done it for 25 years to get to the new towns, but we always try to get at least a few in there. But we always try to get at least a few in there. But really we start with the anchors, you know, figuring out the start town, figuring out the end town, because those two you got to have and those are kind of the hardest at times, just with the limitations and being smaller, and then you just kind of piece it together, looking at what's roughly 50 to 60 miles and which direction we can go, and kind of piece it together that way. Who's available at the facilities, all that good stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, who wants it? I'm sure is a big part of it too, yeah.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, absolutely. What town is excited about it and has, you know, wants to roll out the red carpet to make them feel welcome, that kind of stuff? And then we let our route guys get out there and they're the ones that find the rest stops for us that figure out the ways to go. You know we try to keep them on as many back roads as possible. Low traffic counts, they're not just going down the freeway on their bicycles.
Speaker 4:They're definitely taking the back roads to get here. So, while it may be, you know a 50 mile direct route by the time we weave them around and do stuff, it gets a little bit longer and definitely want to take them up some climbs. Definitely want to put them up some climbs.
Speaker 3:Make them work a little, and so you know this is coming up here in just a couple weeks, and so as soon as this particular the 25th is over, I mean you're all in immediately planning the 26th.
Speaker 4:Yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. We're always kind of trying to work a year ahead. So, Absolutely, we're always kind of trying to work a year ahead. So you know, we've already got feelers out there talking to other towns because, as much as we want to go ahead and get it done, our cyclists are going to be all over us. Where are we going next year? What are we doing?
Speaker 4:We just announced our coastal ride. So, in addition to Mountains, to Coast, we do a coastal ride every April and we do a mountain ride every August. They're different in that they're loop routes, so you stay in one city, you have a few different route options each day, but you don't have to move camp, whereas this one, you know, a lot of our riders are waking up in the morning, breaking down their tent, packing everything up, throwing it on a truck, and then they get to camp after riding 65 miles, set up their tent, get everything set up. So the coastal ride and mountain ride are a little bit different, but we just announced our coastal ride for 2025, so I know they're going to be itching for the other two soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, statesville is a mountain town, we're the mouth of the mountains. Yeah, so you know that three-day ride should be coming to Statesville sometime.
Speaker 4:Might know a guy you can talk to about that.
Speaker 3:Might know a guy you can talk to there's some local talent that would love to talk about all the uphill opportunities here in the area for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have lots of. It's crazy because, like we just had well, coming up the weekend before Mountains to Coast comes into Statesville, purple Heart Homes is having their Take that Hill ride, which is pretty intense. They've been doing that for several years. And then last week, the Love Valley Robe and Love Valley a dirt bike race that Wes Davidson, who's actually on the Statesville Convention and Visitors Bureau board, coordinates. He owns First Flight Bikes. Talking about Wes, wes, along with Ron Smith, who is our city manager, has worked with Chip at Cycle NC and they are going to be riding the route from Lenore into Statesville. So we're going to be like home team cheering them on. Chip keeps reminding us it's not a race.
Speaker 4:It is not, it's a ride. It's always great when we can get the locals who have worked so hard to help us make this, let them take a little break from it and get out there and ride the routes. I know we had our crew that rode through and tested it back in I guess it was July to do the route and everything and they stopped at all the stops. We've got all the notes of what's great, what they're excited about, and I know they love when they stop down here. It makes it easy when they have an easy downtown where there's so many options.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I also want to make sure and give a shout out to our hotel partners, who really rolled out the carpet when Mike and team, when your team, came to see if Statesville would be a good fit and help showcase that we were. But they've been great partners too and we got all the rooming. It's quite a few people staying in hotels. It didn't look like many, but then I was looking at the roommates and yeah, you guys are.
Speaker 4:When you see the truck full of luggage you really understand it's a lot of people. When you've got that luggage team that we've got that's delivering all the luggage and moving it around and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not that anyone else cares, but I did the math and in one night it's $26,000 in hotel rooms. So thank you, cycle NC, for choosing Statesville. We are very excited. So, Roxanne, your organization I just want to talk a minute because you personally thank you for being here.
Speaker 4:No problem.
Speaker 1:Thank you for driving here to be here with us today, because I know you guys are crazy busy right now, but not only for this. But you actually run or work in a separate division of the organization, right, the Body Armor.
Speaker 4:Games. Yeah, so I'm the director for our Body Armor State Games event, which takes place every June. It's actually kind of what the organization North Carolina Amateur Sports was founded based off of way back in the day, when they used to do Olympic festivals. Most people don't know what those are now, but that's kind of what started the organization and was this idea of a multi-sport festival. So every June we do 25-ish different sports. It varies and it's usually 12 000 13 000 athletes of all ages. We do everything from basketball, baseball to pickleball. This year we had an arm wrestling. We had over a hundred people compete in arm wrestling. I could do that I watch.
Speaker 4:I watch over the top the movie yeah, so that's kind of what I do. Obviously, we're a small nonprofit. There's three of us that work full time, so it's all hands on deck, and we also couldn't do what we do without our great contract staff that comes on board. You know we've got a great crew. I think almost everyone that's coming to work the ride with us has done it before, so they love it as well but we can't do it without them. We've got a staff of 25 probably. That's going to be all hands on deck to make this thing that's amazing come to fruition between the route, support, the sags, getting everything set up at camp, all that stuff. So you know we need them to make all that happen.
Speaker 1:yeah does the body armor games travel?
Speaker 4:too, or it does, so we typically rotate it every two years. We just did two years in the Charlotte area, okay, and we are going to Greensboro for two years my hometown, okay. So I'm excited to go back to Greensboro. It's been a while, but yeah. So we're working on finalizing that right now. We'll have a bunch of stuff at the Greensboro Coliseum, some stuff at Country Park, just finalized a location for Disc Dog that will be a new one for us next year. We added Doc Dogs this year, so we're adding Disc Dog next year. But yeah, we're always looking to add new sports, really just expose people to them and also just provide an opportunity for people to play.
Speaker 3:Especially because a lot of the things that you mentioned are not your typical. You know, disc, dog, arm wrestling, things like that. I mean you've got to seek those sort of opportunities out, so kind of bringing all those things together in conjunction with some of your more common sports, it's a pretty neat concept.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it is, and it's a lot of fun. You know, we really want to communicate to people that it's not just a Taekwondo competition, and so when they walked into Cabarrus Arena and it was taekwondo, karate, strongman wrestling, all these things going on, it really opened your eyes. But it's a lot of fun. I meet a lot of different people, work with a lot of different groups and it's also a very different group than the cycling group. You know, my average age is 16. Right, so I'm dealing with mom and dad a little bit more.
Speaker 2:But I love the cycling side too, so it's a great job.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, if people want to learn more about the organization overarching, or is there still opportunity? Is registration closed for the bike?
Speaker 4:Registration is not closed. It stays open. It stays open. Yeah, so where do?
Speaker 1:people go. I mean, I've been seeing the billboards. You guys have been doing amazing. I know you invest a lot of money in marketing this event. Invest a lot of money in marketing this event? Yeah, but if, for some reason, someone is listening and they have not heard and they desperately want to come cycle with Mountains to Coast Race, how do they get more information?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so you can go to our website, ncsportsorg. You can either go to the Cycle North Carolina drop-down and pick Mountains to Coast and learn all about this one. If you want to ride, if you want to come volunteer at the rest stops, there's opportunities there to sign up for those. And then there's also all of our Body Armor, state Games, information and stuff is posted there as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, anything else? You want to make sure people know about Cycle NC?
Speaker 4:No, we're just excited to be here. I think our participants are going to really love this stop. You guys are going to set the bar really high for those that are down the road as we make our way and if everyone can do whatever they can for the anti-rain dances, oh yeah, we're good there, we're doing it, we're doing it. Make sure the sun and 70s has been ordered. That'd be perfect.
Speaker 3:Already taken care of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're on it, perfect. And if you are a participant tuning in, we look forward to welcoming you and helping you discover Statesville, north Carolina. But thank you guys so much for choosing us as a stop and we look forward to it, yeah absolutely. Thank you guys for having us. We're excited too. Cycle NC guys, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining Discover Statesville. You can email us at discover at statesvillenccom. Check us out on Facebook at Discover Statesville, NC hashtag Discover Statesville and our website, statesvillenccom. Catch us next week as we continue on our journey to uncover the hidden gems, culinary adventures, entertainment, and to be inspired and enlightened as we Discover Statesville.
