Thirteen year-old Finn Corrigan-Frost says he was one of four “hard-core” users of the bike park on Mount Gardner Road, and that there were at least four other kids who used the park two or three times per week, most weeks. For Corrigan-Frost, the bike park consumed last summer entirely, from dawn until dusk, he says, and he was hoping that this summer would be the same – aside from the time he planned to spend working shifts as a dishwasher at Tuscany, a job he picked up in order to pay for a new bike and the shovels he used to re-build jumps at the park on a regular basis. The bike, he says, is designed specifically for pushing up hills and flying off jumps like the ones at the bike park, so isn’t of much use now. His two shovels, he says, are now lost under the earth compacted by the bulldozers that flattened the park last week.
The group of dedicated bike park users went unacknowledged on May 26, when Bowen’s municipal councillors voted unanimously to dismantle the park and flatten its dirt jumps. Three times during the roughly fifteen minute conversation, various members of council questioned whether members of the island’s mountain biking community had been consulted, or whether there was anyone present who could represent this community. Bob Robinson, superintendent of public works, presented the bike park report put together by the municipal engineering assistant, Al Fontes, and mentioned that Fontes had been in touch with “Dangerous Dan,” referring to local mountain biker Dan Cowan.
Cowan says he had a conversation with Fontes around Christmas and he knew the issue would be going to council at some point this spring, but didn’t know when.
“I thought I’d be notified,” says Cowan, who played a key role in the construction of the park, and has used it over the years as part of the youth bike camps he runs. “Over the past few years I’ve had conversations with people in the municipality about changing the park, making it more sustainable and easier to maintain, but I was really hoping that we could have that conversation before going ahead and bulldozing the whole thing.”
The municipality’s lease on the Metro Vancouver land where the bike park stood had run out in 2011, and in March 2012 council requested a staff report on how to proceed on the issue.
“Metro Vancouver didn’t like their property being used for this purpose,” says Councillor Cro Lucas, who was acting mayor on May 26. “There were a number of measures that we could’ve taken to mitigate their concerns, but the cost of those combined with the yearly maintenance costs were significant, especially for a facility that didn’t appear to have a high amount of usage, and did not have a specific group taking responsibility for it.”
Those measures, as outlined in the report, include creating an official Bike Park Policy with inspection and maintenance schedules; creating signage on Mount Gardner Road warning drivers that they are approaching a bike park; a crosswalk between the parking lot at Killarney Lake and the bike park; fencing around the park; and the removal of both overgrown bushes and debris. The cost of making these changes was estimated to be close to $8,000. The cost of yearly maintenance and inspections of the bike park was estimated to be $12,000. According to the staff report, the bike park was used by an average of one person per-day, for fifteen minutes to one hour.
In discussing these numbers at council, Bob Robinson described his perception of the usage of the bike park.
“Whenever I drive by there, all I ever see is people picnicking,” he said.
Dan Cowan says that as he is not actually a big user of the park, he didn’t have any more accurate numbers to offer in terms of how many people used the bike park on a regular basis.
“I do know that a lot of people would come with little kids and just play on the wooden jumps,” says Cowan. “And I will be the first one to admit that this is not an appropriate use of the park, and that it is problematic. It is part of the reason why I agree that the park needs to be changed and updated.”
Cowan says his vision is for the creation of a “pump track,” a looped dirt path with rolls and various angles along the side that a biker could use to build momentum and also to jump off of.
“These structures are really popular with younger kids, and they’re a really great way for mountain bikers to start out and build skills,” says Cowan. “Also, because this kind of facility is made up of a dirt track, it would be a lot easier to maintain.”
Cowan says he also knows of people on Bowen who have both the know-how and the machinery to build a pump track.
“I only hope that if we bring this idea forward, it can get done more quickly and with fewer meetings than it took to get the bike park built,” says Cowan.
The bike park was first proposed in the late 1990s, but was not actually built until 2006.
Finn Corrigan-Frost says he is hoping that the construction of some sort of bike park can get underway this summer.
“My friends and I are willing to help in whatever way we can,” says Corrigan-Frost. “If there’s no bike park on Bowen, then I’ll end up spending my summer on the ferry trying to get to a bike park in Vancouver. If I’m lucky, maybe I can get up to Whistler a couple of times.”
For his mother, Caitlin Frost, these are not appealing options.
“We’re here on this island and it is beautiful and natural and I don’t like the idea of spending the summer trying to get him elsewhere so that he can ride his bike,” she says. “Everyone is always talking about wanting kids to take responsibility, and here is an example of kids taking responsibility, but now the thing they loved and cared for is gone. Not only did the bike park get Finn off the computer, but every time it rained he and his friends would call each other and figure out who’d be heading out to fix the jumps.”
Frost says she hopes that this situation will start a conversation that will lead to a positive outcome, with possibly better facilities for mountain biking on Bowen than what existed at the bike park.
Councillor Lucas says he has been surprised by everything that has happened since council voted on the resolution to dismantle the bike park last Monday.
“First of all, I was surprised at how quickly staff actually moved to take down the park, I didn’t expect they’d head out the next day to actually do it,” he says. “Also, we were surprised about the dialogue that has emerged since then. We took the staff report at face value, I know we’ve tried to engaged the biking community in the past and it hasn’t amounted to anything. Now that we know, we can actually engage in a new way.”
Dan Cowan, Caitlin Frost and Finn Corrigan-Frost address council on Monday, June 9 on the topic of the Bowen Island bike park.
Cowan says that he would love to hear from anyone who has thoughts or concerns on the bike park, and what should happen moving forward. He can be reached at [email protected]
