Pulaskis in full swing: The trails season outlook
 

by Brandon Mathis

Boulder has one. So does Frisco. And Milwaukee. They are even in Florida. So why, in one of the most celebrated cycling communities in the world, is there nowhere for freeriders to shred the gnar?

In development for years, Durango’s dreams of a bike park at Chapman Hill are agonizingly close to reality. The plans are sketched out, the city officially came on board last March, and riders are chomping at the bit. All that’s needed is the money. Unfortunately, everyone will have to cool their wheels a bit longer. The City’s application for a $260,000 Great Outdoors Colorado grant to help fund the park was denied this week, putting the project on the back burner till next fall.

According to Trails 2000 Executive Director Mary Monroe, this isn’t the end of the trail for the bike skills park. “We are going to reapply in August,” she said.

For years, local riders have expressed a need for trails geared specifically to riders who embrace gravity-oriented riding. Other mountain biking destinations, like Moab and Fruita, are developing freeride and “flow” trails which enhance natural features while adding human-built berms, jumps and obstacles.

However, it wasn’t until Monroe toured the Chapman Hill site with Canada’s Alpine Bike Parks in 2008 that the vision for Durango became clear.
“We looked at a lot of locations,” said Monroe, “Chapman Hill came to the top. It has infrastructure – it’s near the college, town, the river trail, and in terms of summer recreation, there’s not much happening there.”

Monroe said the need for a bike park is one she has heard repeatedly. “They’ve come forward to us many times over the years,” she said.

To address the bike park, Trails 2000 connected with other cycling folk, the Fort Lewis College Cycling Program, Durango BMX and Durango Devo, along with Second Avenue Sports and Pedal the Peaks.  After several meetings and trips to Chapman, it became plausible they were onto something and conceptual trails were mapped.

Grant Lamont, with Alpine Bike Parks, says Chapman is textbook for a bike park, with steep orientation and close proximity to town. Commuter trails would allow riders to return to the top.

“The Chapman Hill site is ideal. It has solid vertical and can provide for gravity trails,” Lamont said, “and we can see huge benefits for students at Fort Lewis.”

Lamont said it would splash color on Durango’s cycling community. There would be jumps, rolling bridges, walls, berms and more. All trails would graduate by skill level.

“It would provide a professionally built facility that would create a gathering point and progressive addition to the classic cycling community that already exists,” Lamont said. “It would be a meeting place and connection point for both the community and visitors.”

Talk about the passion, Durango is home to one of the largest junior cycling clubs in the country, Durango Devo, and Club Director Sarah Tescher is all about a park in town.

“Being one of the few sites without a bike park is odd,” Tescher said in an email from Moab, where DEVO was visiting the local dirt jump park. “It would be like the best junior baseball team existing in a city without a well-manicured baseball diamond.”

She agreed that creating a place for freeride is long overdue.

Most parties are in favor of a bike park, if for nothing but to reduce the pirate trails that pop up, and in doing so, increase the quality of other singletrack. It would also legitimize the sport, bringing it from the dark depths of the forest out in the open.  

On the other hand, waiting to ride legal trails may mean not riding at all.

 

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“There is not one legal downhill trail in Durango, period,” according to Dusty Bender, “The XC is awesome, but I just feel like we’re so far behind the rest of the country.”

Bender, a former Devo coach, says that Durango may move slowly when it comes to change, especially freeriding, but he’s encouraged about the possibility at Chapman. He is familiar with other municipal bike parks, their benefits both economically and socially, and wonders why Durango would wait so long.

“I’ve been working on this for 10 years, and there were people before me doing the same,” said Bender. “We wanted to have these bike trails before there was a bike park anywhere in the nation.”

Both Lamont and Bender said that pirate trails can actually deter communities 4 from adding freeride trails.

“When pirate trails are built undercover, they’re not being built right,” Bender said. “You’re running, you don’t have the tools – they are just not safe. And people see these features and think that all freeride stuff is junky and people are going to get hurt.”

 He said people of all ages will line up for park thrills. “It’s not just for kids. It’s a place for everyone. It’s well established community members who are a part of this and want to see this work. We want to make it as fun as possible.”

While certain efforts by passionate, rogue trail builders are certainly commendable, there is something to be said for fund raising for a project that could literally move mountains. According to Durango Parks and Recreation Director Cathy Metz, the estimated cost of the park is $380,000.

 

About $100,000 of that could come from the city’s half-cent parks and open space tax, and with $260,000 in matching GOCO money, the park would be close to realizing its goal. But not until late this year or early 2014. “All of these projects are very competitive,” said Metz.  “We’re going to see what we can do to strengthen out grant application, because we do need the GOCO funding.”

She added that plans for a Peter Carver Memorial, planting 200 trees around Chapman Hill, will add support to the application.

In the meantime, happy trails like Twin Buttes get worn in. Proposals and plans for new trails wait for the light of day. The Scratch Trail, off Raider Ridge, is in development, and Log Chutes could be home to a new downhill trail system.

Chapman Hill, however, weighs on the minds of many.

“It has a broad range of community support,” Monroe said. “We feel good about it.”

From Moab, Tescher said that the wait will be worth it. “My sense is they want to do it right, not rush it. Have professionals build it. I have great faith that this approach will procure a top-notch facility that Durango will have for a long time.”

Dig deeper @ www.trails2000.org; www.facebook.com/pages/Durango-Freeride; and www.horsegulchblog.com