Field of Dreams

Aside from the trail building we do at Christie Lake, we've been working very hard to bring Hamilton's first pump track to the park. We have Trillium funding in place and we have the approval of the Conservation Authority. Good as gold, right?

Not so fast!

There are few contractors that are qualified to do this kind of work and they are a busy bunch! It seems that municipalities all across Canada are eager to build bike parks such as the new Sunnyside park in Toronto (see it here) and they're flooding the industry with projects.

This is a pump track

Keep in mind that Sunnyside was a half-million dollar mega project. It really got people talking. My project is somewhat smaller and I've been having on-again/off-again relationships with a couple of different builders for the last two years. People are just too darn busy to even come visit our little empty field at Christie Lake.

That is, until today. Someone was finally able to make some time in this shoulder season to come up and do a site visit and invest some time chatting with the Superintendent. We took some measurements (my first time surveying!) and sketched out some ideas. My hope is that we can do something fun this fall within my modest budget.

In any event, it was very encouraging and we got it all done before the rain started. 

As we stood there taking our readings, a number of riders rolled by. This was in the middle of the afternoon! As the saying goes, build it and they will come!