{"id":863086,"date":"2026-08-18T23:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T23:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/863086\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T23:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T23:52:09","slug":"fire-damages-cumberlands-iconic-riding-fool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/863086\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire damages Cumberland’s iconic Riding Fool"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late Sunday evening, fire damaged two institutions of Cumberland\u2019s community, both housed in a historic building on the small village\u2019s main street. The fire started in Dodge City Cycles, which suffered significant damage. Riding Fool accommodations, the mountain bike-themed hostel upstairs in the same building, was also damaged.<\/p>\n

Dodge City Cycles and Riding Fool are a core part of the Vancouver Island destinations mountain bike community, and have been for over two decades. While there are several bike shops in town now, DCC was the first proper mountain bike shop in Cumberland. Its shop teams have supported young riders for years, including names like Carter Woods in his early years.<\/p>\n

Riding Fool just celebrated 20 years of welcoming guests to Cumberland. The hostel-style accommodations catered to cyclists, with locked bike storage and a location just blocks from Cumberland\u2019s extensive trail network. The owners of both establishments have spent years building the mountain bike community, helping lay the foundations for the village as a mountain bike destination. Riders from all over, including your author, have stayed at Riding Fool while exploring the village\u2019s trails, often with route suggestions from co-founder Jeremy Grasby, also a co-founder of United Riders of Cumberland.<\/p>\n

In Cumberland, Biking is Life<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The fire started around 9:30 p.m. on 16 August.<\/p>\n

Cumberland Fire Chief Mike Williamson told<\/a> Check News that the fire appeared to start in DCC.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started as a small fire and grew fairly quickly,\u201d Williamson said. \u201cSomeone heard the alarms and called it in, so the duty officer came to check it out and saw the fire in there so he called out the troops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williamson told Check News that there is damage to the interior of the historic building, but the structure itself seems to be intact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are heartbroken to announce there was a fire at the shop,\u201d DCC posted in an update online. \u201cThe extent of the damage is unknown at this time. Our deepest gratitude to Cumberland Fire and Rescue for your dedication and competence. Your skill and experience ensured the preservation of this historic building.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love being part of this community and we are deeply moved by the overwhelming amount of love, support, and assistance we have received in the past 48 hrs. Thank you,\u201d The post continued. \u201cThe shop will be closed for the foreseeable future, but we are determined to rebuild. We will be back as soon as possible. Better than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

An investigation and assessment of the damage are still ongoing. We\u2019re all hoping for the best for both businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Late Sunday evening, fire damaged two institutions of Cumberland\u2019s community, both housed in a historic building on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,300160,635,300161,62722,300162,82],"class_list":["post-863086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cumberland","tag-cycling","tag-dodge-city-cycles","tag-mtb-news","tag-riding-fool","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}