Mountain Bike Skills Park (Teaser)

 

Mountain Bike Skills Park Concept

We are very close to kicking off the latest addition to the Northeast Chapter mountain bike offerings, a Skills Park at Midland City Forest.  The park will include beginner and intermediate level mountain bike features designed to improve your balance and bike handling skills.  It will be located behind the rear toboggan tower, in an unused, rectangular shaped, grassy clearing. Features will include: dirt jumps, drops, skinnies, log rides/piles, teeter-totters, rocks and a Lee McCormack designed pump track.  This will be the only publicly accessible mountain bike skills park in the Northeast Chapter region (that I know of).  Volunteers will be needed to efficiently build this park, so that we can start riding it as soon as possible.  A portion of this project will be completed thanks to the leadership of area Boy Scout, Matthew Zawisza, earning him an Eagle merit.

Materials for this project will mostly consist of recycled lumber, re-ground concrete, donated scrap rough sawn cedar and other donated items.  If you have or know of other (free) materials that could be used in the build, please contact thadhallberg[at]gmail[dot]com.  Galvanized fasteners and bagged concrete will be needed, as well.

The skills park design has gone through a few rounds of revisions.  Ideas for the current design are based on features seen while researching similar parks.  Some details could change slightly during the construction phase.  If you have some expertise in designing or constructing bike skills features, please volunteer some time, to help us get this right!  Work days will be announced soon.

IMBA calls Skills Parks the “gateway” feature at mountain bike areas.  It helps to introduce younger riders to the sport.  They hone their skills on the jumps and skinnies, then venture out into the nearby trail systems.  I think that the Skills Park will be a great addition to our mountain biking lineup (for all ages).  MMBA Northeast Chapter will be responsible for its maintenance and upkeep.  Please help us in this effort!  Pick up your trash, report damaged features, report or thwart any malicious destruction, ride smart, wear a helmet and other necessary gear, be aware of other riders, etc.  We are fortunate to have the City of Midland’s approval for this project.  Let’s keep the door open for future opportunities.  Thanks!

Feel free to leave any comments below.

From zero-to-Skills Course in 5 minutes

 

 

James Lee

 

Thad Hallberg

After our chapter meeting we decided to walk/ride out to the potential site of the skills/pump track at Midland City Forest.  The space looks roomy enough for our needs and seems to be vacant of any activity.  We will need the approval of the city before any ground is broken…that is our next step.

While we were there we found some old railroad ties and logs that were asking to be ridden over.  James sailed over them with ease, while I cautiously gave it my best.  WARNING: the riders shown in these images are not wearing helmets and should be severely beaten for their behavior.  The MMBA Northeast Chapter promotes safe bike riding and the use of helmets.  The riders were forced to apologize and promised to not let this happen again!  Seriously, we know better and weren’t expecting to be doing this.

Hopefully, our skills course and pump track vision can become reality.  It would be a great attraction to add to our already solid MCF trail system!