The 23rd Street Bike Park in Pittsburg, Kansas is now officially open. The Pittsburg City Commissioners officially made the area a public city park, and Pittsburg Chamber of Commerce opened it during a ribbon cutting ceremony by the on July 31st.
The park, formerly an informal collection of mountain biking trails on the site of an abandoned coal mine, was a local tradition known as “The Dumps”. But this year a local group of riders and trail-builders took on the project of cleaning up the site and making it into a real bike park. With donated equipment and materials, and many hours of volunteer labor, the group built and and now maintains the park and trails.
The park offers several miles of single track mountain biking trails, a mountain biking skills area, a pump track, and a dirt jump area, with different levels of trails from beginner to expert. Organizers hope the park will not only be popular with local riders, but will become a regional draw:
“That’s great to see that many people using it,” says John Harrison of the Kansas Overkill Racing Club. “I believe it’s going to attract people from the surrounding area ’cause there’s just not anything like this very close to us.”
The park is quickly growing into an attraction in the area, and the city hopes the 23rd Bike Park may become a type of tourist attraction.
“Once some other areas of the park get developed there won’t be another area like this,” Wilbert told us. “You’d have to travel quite a ways to find a park that’s going to have jumps and different things located in it. So it could bring in some competitive contests where people are going to have to come in and spend the night, maybe a weekend contest or something like that, so it could have an impact on the economy of the area.” read more
Congratulations to all the people at the Kansas Overkill Racing Club who volunteered their time, energy, money, and enthusiasm to build the first bike park in the state of Kansas. They should be proud of what they’ve accomplished in a very short period of time (the project was only green-lighted in February).
One note: There is currently no parking available at the park, because of ongoing road construction in the area. Cyclist are advised to park in nearby neighborhoods for the time being.
See also: 23rdstreetbikepark.com, discussion forum, KOAM-TV, Pittsburg Morning Sun, Joplin Globe, park flyer.
Post tags: Pittsburg
