The organizers of the Yellowknife Mountain Bike Club is confident if they build it, they will come.
President Geoff Foster and team member Crystal Sabel presented a plan for their dream bike park to the municipal services committee meeting on Monday.
“There's a lot of potential for more biking community,” Sabel told the committee. “This would be a hub to kind of congeal that.”
The proposed mountain bike skills development park would be located at Bristol Pit. Foster estimates it would cost around $500,000, but told Yellowknifer it could be built in a phased approach.
The park would include features like beginners’ trails, skills parks, dirt jumps and manmade features that would let people develop skills to later take to other trails. He said he'd like to see construction begin as soon as possible, with the city and volunteers helping to build temporary jumps.
The highlight of the final park would be an asphalt pump track, an undulating circuit that skilled bikers can cruise through without pedalling, with a price tag of between $130,000 and $150,000.
“They're awesome,” said Foster. “It's kind of like a gateway drug into mountain biking and the bike park more generally.”
He added that having an asphalt pump track would make it accessible not just to mountain and BMX bikes but skateboards and scooters and riders.
“Hopefully by attracting the skateboarders we could also convert them to mountain bikers,” he said.
As he told city committee, selling mountain biking to impressionable youth is the point.
“There's a different type of person that can fit into that mountain biking niche, especially where youth is concerned,” he said. “There's a lot of kids out there that don't' really get into organized sport, it doesn't really interest them. We really want to support kids like that that aren't really being served by hockey rinks and things like that.”
The club presented the results of a survey asking the community what they'd like to see in a bike park. More than 400 people responded to the survey over six weeks. The majority were over 19, and 95 per cent responded that they, or their families, would use a local bike skills facility.
“That's a pretty good indication of how many people we would see using our bike park,” said Sabel.
The survey also found many riders felt there was a gap between easy beginner trails and trails that made them clutch the handle bars in fear. Foster told the committee that while other cities have a more gentle progression for riders, Yellowknife goes from beginner to intermediate rides on Frame Lake trail with little in between.
“They have that stepping stone,” he said. “Yellowknife lacks that and I think that's one of the big reasons why you haven't seen mountain biking take off.”
He stressed bike parks are spreading quickly across the country, with many other bike parks completely funded by city coffers in other municipalities.
He's not quite looking for the city to cut him a big cheque however. He said once they get the go-ahead from council, either by giving the club the land to build the park or allowing them to use it, they'll be in fundraising mode for cash and in-kind donations.
“What matters to me is that the park gets built, and the facility is created there to cater to a demographic that isn't being catered to at all,” he said. “So I don't really care who really pays for it, what I really want to see is the community get involved.”
Municipal services committee did not have enough councillors in attendance on Monday for quorum, and could not give direction to staff.
“I know there is some interest among multiple councillors,” said Mayor Mark Heyck. “I'm sure it will come back at a not-so-distant future date for some direction.”