Bike Parks: Past and Present

raisingarizona said:
You wouldn’t believe the places I’ve built trail in. The conditions of a trail are more so due to their design and construction. You can build steep and gnarly to be sustainable but it’s a lot more work and more expensive than the old school fall line dh trails at Plattekill.

Yeah, private land can be used to build unsustainable trails, I guess but most land managers wouldn’t want it that way. There may be a small group of fans for that sort of experience as well but unfortunately they don’t generally keep the lights on. The old school fall line stuff isn’t going to bring in the numbers to justify that sort of bike park any longer. Times have changed.
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Unfortunately Plattekill is behind the times, the North East and East Coast is the bike park mecca of the US. Flow trails are a dime a dozen. You've got Mountain Creek close to the major population center, Blue Mountain just a bit further out and Thunder Mountain a short trip up the Taconic. Also add Powder Ridge in CT, Killington Bike Park, Highland and Burke. It seems like nearly every ski lift accessible hill in the North East has had Gravity Logic coming by for a consultation. These mountain all see MTB as "the future" but they are all building trails that ride identically. A-Line is one of the most fun trails I've ridden, but I don't even need to fly to Whistler to ride it anymore, I can just drive to Charlemont MA instead. Bike parks are cookie cutter whitewash which is why you don't see me going out of my way to ride them. Plattekill is something genuinely unique in terms of the terrain they offer, in a place where there is always going to be a closer bike park, this differentiation is about all they got. Laz doesn't run the lifts for MTB outside of mountain rentals or race weekends, at least thats been the case in the last couple of years. The races ALWAYS sell out, there is a real pent up demand for that style of riding.
 
An e-bike park for families probably hasn’t been designed or marketed yet and it’s the future.

There’s a small niche for that old stuff and it’s the race crowd yeah but again, that isn’t a target market for a sustainable business.
 
raisingarizona said:
You are correct on most of this except you can definitely build bench cut trail across slopes exceeding 14%.
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You're correct, IMBA Trail Solutions just advices otherwise. All the riding I've done outside Ashland Oregon scared the shit out of me, 30mph across 8in bench cuts cut across 20%+ grades. FUN.
 
raisingarizona said:
8 inches isn’t enough for a sustainable, full bench.
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IMBA and the local NFS offices don't acknowledge those trails existing :devilish:.

Santa Cruz and Ashland are two places where the number of mountain bikers doesn't line up with the number of trails "on the map". I come at all this from a bit of an odd place, I've literally been thrown in handcuffs and detained for building and riding unsanctioned dirt jumps, now I'm on the board of a non-profit advocating for legal, sustainable trail development, all above board. I see it from both sides, but can also only speak about these things in the context of the North East as that is where all my experience is from.
 
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These are from the Heart Trail project. I designed this reroute and led the hand crew on and off over a 15 month period. It was almost 4 miles in length and across slopes between 40-120% grades. Yup, you read that right. The second pic with my daughter hiking in it has a 50 degree slope below that. You should have seen those kids faces while cutting that bench in. Some were so close to crying, one was even trying to organize a mutiny ?.

The first pic is an armored turn on a small perch created by that volcanic rock formation. Behind that small tower the cliff drops off around 60 feet. The next section after that there was a dacite rock slab for several hundred feet where we had to use a Stanley jack hammer to carve it out across an 80% grade. That took over two weeks for that 250 feet of trail.

I hear a lot of people tell me that this place or that place are inappropriate for trails or it’s simply impossible. My response is generally, hold my fucking beer ?
 
Low Angle Life said:
IMBA and the local NFS offices don't acknowledge those trails existing :devilish:.

Santa Cruz and Ashland are two places where the number of mountain bikers doesn't line up with the number of trails "on the map". I come at all this from a bit of an odd place, I've literally been thrown in handcuffs and detained for building and riding unsanctioned dirt jumps, now I'm on the board of a non-profit advocating for legal, sustainable trail development, all above board. I see it from both sides, but can also only speak about these things in the context of the North East as that is where all my experience is from.
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My background is similar. I may or may not have built some wicked gnarly old school dh stuff here. Check out Private Reserve or Lone Eagle on trailforks. Lone Eagle was my nickname in Telluride. I may or may not have constructed it but my buddies named it after I returned from my winter in Telluride, it was completed that next summer in 2006.

The FS and local advocacy group brought me to the table a few years later and things eventually led to where I’m at now.
 
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