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Mountain Bike Parks
The City of Kelowna is committed working with the local youth and the biking community to create mountain bike parks within the city.
Through the Mountain Bike Strategy, several areas have been identified as potential sites for mountain bike skill parks. The City's first mountain bike skills park islocated along Hollywood Road South.
Activities within skills parks range from simple ladder bridges, skinnies, small berms and whoop-de-doos to more elaborate bike parks with a wide range of structures and trails, mostly suitable for downhill or freeride riding styles.
Types of Mountian Bike Parks:
- Skills centres – a small area (usually less than 25 X 25 m – 80’ x 80’) located on flatter terrain. Built structures are intended to be low risk and are designed for introducing children or unskilled adults to riding technical features. Structures are typically composed of partially buried 8” X 8” beams, skinnies (elevated ramps less than knee high), cornering earth/rock berms, and whoop-de-doos. These are arranged strategically to provide a sequenced route that loops around on itself or parallel routes of slightly increasing difficulty.
- Dirt jumps – an area (at least 50 X 25 m – 160’ x 80’) on gently sloping terrain. Compacted earth is formed into a series of gap-jumps – the up ramp is separated from the landing ramp with a gap that must be traversed in the air. Most dirt jumps have several possible ‘lines’ that require high levels of skill and require considerable expertise to navigate through.
- Bike parks – a large area that can cover a hill or mountain side and may consist of many trails of varying difficulty. Since these are essentially designed to ride downhill (trails are uni-directional), access is via shuttling (vehicles drive to the top of the park) or ski lifts. Runs are designed for beginners to experts and feature many kinds of built structures, depending on the difficulty level rating. All ages and skill levels are usually able to enjoy these areas; skills centres and dirt jump sections can be incorporated into them however, the scope and scale of bike parks usually generate a need for regular maintenance, qualified bike safety patrols, emergency plans, erosion and sediment plans, and user-pay schemes to offset costs.
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