The Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association has officially opened the town’s revamped mountain bike skills park.
With bigger and better jumps and a new pump track, the organization is encouraging mountain bike enthusiasts of all skill levels and ages to come down and see what all the fuss is about.
“The age range is seriously from three to 70. We’ve seen all of that here and the whole facility here is for first time mountain bikers to advanced dirt jumpers,” SORCA executive director Ian Lowe told The Squamish Chief.
The park's transformation cost about $238,000, but of that $177,000 was through grants and funding, Lowe said.
“We peeled back everything that was here and regraded the whole place. There is well over 3,000 tonnes of material that have been put onto this place, as all new drainage and more,” Lowe added.
SORCA president Jeff Norman said the idea to transform the mountain bike skills park—built in 2014—began in 2018 after the realization that the standard of the old site was “falling behind.”
“Throughout that time, bike parks in B.C. were ubiquitous, all towns had them and ours started to fall behind a little bit,” Norman said.
“We started talking about how we needed to upgrade the Brennan Park facility and we looked at a few ways of rebuilding from rollers, or doing some small things here and there; but then Jonny Lloyd came onto the board and said, ‘We really need a great facility and we need to do a great job with this and make this project bigger.’”
“So we went to the District and a load of other funders and it slowly came together. It has been a long road … but that’s just the way some of these things work and we are really happy with the results.”
The park unofficially opened on May 30 and has since gained attraction of hundreds of bike, skateboard and scooter enthusiasts.
So what’s new?
Lowe explains the biggest differences between the old site and the new and improved park are the jumps and the addition of a pump track.
“The jumps got totally rebuilt and are much larger,” Lowe said.
“There used to only be one jump line as well and now we’ve added two others. There’s a double blue, blue and a green line.
“The biggest change I think is that we now have a paved pump track. It’s a place where people can learn to hone their mountain biking skills in a safe environment … people of all ages are welcome.”
Mayor Armand Hurford spoke at the park’s grand opening and praised the community effort it took to get the site up and running.
“SORCA, for a long time, has been a growing example of what a strong community partner can achieve in the community,” Hurford said.
“We’ve just hit around 30,000 people, so that’s a lot of new residents and there’s parents that may not—shockingly—be mountain bikers. So the fact that they can come here, hang out and have a picnic while their kids can hone their skills in a controlled way is an amazing gateway [to the sport].
“When I think about the success of our Squamish athletes … particularly in mountain biking, it’s facilities like this and the broader trail network facilities that are producing world class athletes.
“If we want that to continue then we need more pieces like this.”
The SORCA mountain bike skills park can be found next to the Brennan Park Recreation Centre.
