Some catalog publicity for Seattle's Park.

http://vimeo.com/3768778

Bike Park Meeting Update

Stage one
Between the Tumwater and the Olympia meetings we had a good turnout that was very helpful in getting a better ideal of the concerns of some area riders, location ideals, and funding possibilities. I will be continuing to carry the bike park questioners with me just about every place I go to gather more input. The age of riders I have gotten questioners from runs from 13 to 58 now.

Amongst some of the great ideals was one for doing bike demonstration shows at community events to bring greater attention to the needs of off road cyclist. I am working with Olympia Parks, Capitol Theater, Olympic Outfitters, Alpine Experience, The Bike Stand, and local riders to do just that at Spring Arts Walk April 24th & 25th and the Outdoor Life Festival in Marathon Park May 2nd and 3rd. We will if all works out have stunts and ramps for both a BMX and Mountain Bike presentation with a table that will provide stickers of support, information fliers, and a petition for inclusion of mountain, BMX and other recreational bike use in future parks planning.

Common things mentioned in the comments section of the questioner by both BMX and mountain riders were a desire for a park to have separate beginner, intermediate and expert areas, rails, ledges, wallrides, lights, halfpipe or a bowl, a practice jump with foam pit, and water fountains.

Stage Two
Over the next few weeks I will be working with a landscape architect student to do some layouts and drawings that could be inserted into any park setting. This will become part of a comprehensive manual I will be drafting addressing planning, building standards, signage and liability coverage issues for a bike park. I will be borrowing from the Whistler Municipality Trail Building Standards, Evergreen Bicycle Alliance, American Bicycle Association as well as others. My hope is to create a guide book for developing a bike park that could be applied not just to city and county municipalities but maybe to build more challenging trails on state and federal land. As part of this I could use help going out to some of the dirt jump areas to take pictures and measurements to start writing and developing some building standards for today's dirt jumps that the ABA does not cover in there guidelines for BMX track construction. One a draft manual is published I plan to have another series of meetings sometime in late May early June for input so that the manual is edited by rider.

Greenlake Skatepark 7pm Wednesday night.

Green Lake skate park 7pm Wednesday night, empty other than me. The city has spent over $500,000 plus state grants of Seattle city tax money on several parks in the past four years. Bikes are not allowed in any. The Green Lake dirt jumps sit 50 feet away. The BMX riders have to ride the one and only Seattle city condoned but not funded and unofficial BMX area looking at a $600,000 plus park they can not ride. Now some of the blame here goes to the bike community for not being organized enough to go to the original park planning meetings to be heard. However some of the blame and issue falls on the city. They have designed and built knowingly or not a park amenity that has multiple uses and excluded some tax payers from it's use. It's like building a ball field and saying only baseball is allowed because the size of a softball will damage the grass to much when it hits the ground. The skateboarding organized community that worked and made this park happen left bikes out of the public input, funding, and design process possibly by accident or on purpose. It doesn't mater either way a public facility has been built to the exclusion of a specific portion of the public that helped pay for it and continue to pay in tax levies.

Bike/Skate Park Meeting Saturday, March 7th 3pm to 5pm

Saturday, March 7th 3pm to 5pm Tumwater Library
Just a reminder that The Capital Bicycling Club is having a meeting this Saturday at the Tumwater Library meeting room (7023 New Market Street Tumwater, WA 98501-6563).

The Agenda is as follows:
Opening
Joseph Ott will present some information contained in the Tumwater Parks and Recreation Plan on "Skateboard courts and challenge courses" and the proposed location of a Skate/BMX/Bike park that is proposed in the long term plan.

Presentation of Capital Bicycling Club prepared examples of how this Skate/BMX/Bike park could be developed and look like.

Attendees will be asked to fill out information forms on the interest of a Skate/BMX/Bike park while participating in small group discussions about what you would like to see in a park, ideals for financing, and opinions on importance of use.

Each group will let the room know some short points about the group discussions and a follow up room discussion will follow.

Upon closing a drawing for the door prize will happen.


If you have any input you would like to give on the agenda or the meeting feel free to email me and don't forget to check the Blog: http://olybikepark.blogspot.com/

River Valley BMX

RIVERSIDE PARK AND RIVER VALLEY BMX NEEDS YOUR HELP!

PIERCE COUNTY PARKS MAY HAVE TO CLOSE RIVERSIDE PARK AND RIVER VALLEY BMX, DO TO PALS REQUIREMENTS!

WE ARE NOT ASKING PEIRCE COUNTY FOR ANY MONEY OR HELP TO RE-OPEN RIVERSIDE PARK OR RIVER VALLEY BMX!

PIERCE COUNTY IS HOLDING A PUBLIC MEETING! PLEASE COME SHOW YOUR SUPPORT TO KEEP RIVERSIDE PARK AND RIVER VALLEY BMX OPEN! BRING THE KIDS, BRING EVERYONE!

THIS MEETING IS DO OR DIE FOR BMX IN PIERCE COUNTY!
Public Meeting
March 9th at 6:00 PM
Lakewood Community Center
9112 Lakewood Drive SW
Lakewood, WA 98499
(253) 798-4176

IF YOU CAN ATTEND THE MEETING OR CAN NOT ATTEND THE MEETING PLEASE WRITE LETTERS AND EMAILS SHOWING YOUR SUPPORT, PLEASE ADDRESS THEM TO PIERCE COUNTY AND EMAIL THEM TO US AT MARK@RIVERVALLEYBMXRACING.COM

ALSO PLEASE EMAIL AND SEND LETTERS TO AS MANY OF THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE LISTED BELOW TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT! THE MORE EMAILS AND LETTERS THE BETTER!

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU GET AN EMAIL TO SHAWN BUNNEY, LISTED BELOW, WE NEED HIS HELP!!!!

Kathryn Kravit-Smith, Pierce County Parks - Director
Phone: (253)798-4007 | Email: kkravit@co.pierce.wa.us

Kent Baskett, Superintendent of Parks
Phone: (253)798-4092 | Email: kbasket@co.pierce.wa.us

Skip Ferrucci, Resource Stewardship Superintendent
Phone: (253)798-4009 | Email: skip.ferrucci@ co.pierce.wa.us

Janel Krilich, Business Manager
Phone: (253)798-4008 | Email: jkrilic@co.pierce.wa.us

Pat McCarthy - Pierce County - Executive
phone: (253) 798-6602 | email:pmccart@co.pierce. wa.us

Shawn Bunney - Pierce County Counicalman - Disrtict 1
sbunney@co.pierce.wa.us

Some video of Stowe Mountain bike Park, France. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDyDxuIbP9k

Access Buzz!

It seems the past two weeks have been a flurry of online debate, arguments, and even down right fights about mountain bike access.

The Tiger Mountain Update is Back post on BBTC Yahoo's page generated more than 37 post back and fourth just on access issues predominantly about one riding spot in Western WA. http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/bbtcmembers/message/42473

Lots of drama over the River Valley BMX Track and a new federal flood zoning that will close the track. http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/WaBMXnews/?yguid=293134491

Don't forget to attend the meeting this Saturday 3pm to 5pm at the Tumwater Library to talk about the possibility of a skate/bike park in Tumwater.