Group looks to revamp bike park

Overgrown with weeds and in need of maintenance, the city’s bike jump park at Armory Park has generally fallen into a state of disrepair in recent years.

The Flathead Fat Tires group is aiming to fix the problem by creating a new pump bike track at the city of Whitefish site adjacent to the WAG Dog Park.

“As a bike club, we see this as a bike amenity,” said Noah Bodman with the Fat Tires. “It’s good for the community.”

The Fat Tires is a nonprofit with a mission to preserve and advance mountain bike activities in the Flathead Valley. The group has been involved in a number of projects in Whitefish including making improvements to the freeride trail network on Spencer Mountain.

Now, they’ve turned their sights on creating the pump bike track. A pump track is like a downsized BMX track and uses a looping trail system of dirt berms and rollers, or smooth dirt mounds for pumping, for bicycling.

The type of track is great for kids usually ages 6 to 14 or new riders looking to enter the sport of single track riding, Bodman noted.

“It’s a great place to get into bikes and it’s a skill builder,” he said. “It’s great for kids and we always like to see kids on bikes.”

The city Parks and Recreation board has approved the Fat Tires plans for the bike park.

City Parks and Recreation Director Maria Butts said the new pump track will be designed to be more easily maintained.

“The jump park was not built with a mind for maintenance,” she said. “The park hasn’t been used since its become over grown and the wooden features were removed because they weren’t solid.”

Butts said the parks department is glad to be working with the group to change the park.

“It’s definitely a positive,” she said. “It will be much better than what we have right now.”

Revamping the park is estimated to cost about $15,000. The club has raised about $1,500 so far along with receiving in-kind donations of dirt.

The plan is to level the site to start fresh. Then bring in fill dirt to raise the site, which is expected to help with drainage. A section of the park has standing water. Then the new track will be constructed along with landscaping of the site.

Fat Tires expects to begin work on the site next spring as long as funds are available. The club plans to continue its fundraising efforts and has applied for grants for the track.

The club has proposed the design of the new track based on a track in Philadelphia. The track will have a smaller footprint, but Bodman said the benefit of a pump track is that it can easily be expanded in the future.

The track is expected to feature rollers, small jumps and banked turns. Riders can maintain speed through the track without pedaling, propelling themselves through the track by shifting their body weight or “pumping” throughout the track contours. The track is a loop, so that a skilled rider can do a continuous lap of the track without stopping.

Volunteers created the current dirt jump park in 2007 geared toward progressive skills building, with accompanying wood and rock stunts. The club has since made repairs to the 1-acre park, but the park has again fallen in to disrepair.

Bodman said the current track was a good idea, but it was difficult to maintain. The new pump track will be easier to maintain, including for the city to mow the grass, and should not have the same issues that happened with the current dirt jump track, he noted.

“The potential is there, we just have to raise the money and push some dirt around,” Bodman said.

For more information on the project, visit www.youcaring.com and search Armory Park pump track or email president@flatheadfattires.com.