Nearly ten years ago, then-town council member Chris Leggett built a mountain bike trail in the woods near Mesa Place.
While most people knew him as a number cruncher (he started in town managing the Lake View Credit Union, then later took a position as the District’s Chief Financial Officer), Leggett was also a former semi-pro mountain bike racer, riding for the Skookum Cycle Team out of Salmon Arm.
As a strong rider, Leggett built the trail for people not afraid of catching air, featuring a series of ever growing jumps, with the last featuring a 22 foot gap. And rather than working with any sort of trail professionals, Leggett rented a small earth moving machine and built the trail himself.
At the time Leggett said the trail would be accessible for most riders, the route was basically just a series of jumps.
A few years after building the trails, Leggett left town to take on the Chief Administration Officer job in Pouce Coupe, and maintenance of the trails languished.
Now, with the advent of the Tumbler Ridge Mountain Bike Association (TRMBA), there’s a renewed interest in the area. While this area falls outside of the group’s interest (they are building an up trail and a series of downhill trails on the ridge east of town), they recommended the District—under whose auspices the trail had originally been build—put some work into revitalizing the trail and getting it up to code.
And so, at the April 17 meeting of council, the decision was made to put $165,000 into turning the area into a Jump Track. “The jump trail would open up opportunities to host events and apply for grant funding such as the ‘Hosting BC’ program which invests $500,000 annually to support competitions and provide sport, economic and community development opportunities,” writes Jason Bradley in his report to council. “One of many ways amenities are important to a community is business attraction whereby longtime and new business owners rate quality environment, scenic beauty, recreation opportunities, and community characteristics like small town atmosphere higher than local tax structure or cost of doing business.”
The District has been liasing with DTR staff to discuss options for the revitalization and professional build of the DTR Jump trail. “The project would coincide with the downtown revitalization initiatives included in the OCP and create a great circular flow of the pump track and interpretive trail into downtown,” writes Bradley.
The jump trail would be a natural skills progression from the paved Pump Track to riding and learning on dirt jumps rollers and berms, which then leads to being able to ride the downhill ridge trails. “Existing networking infrastructure already links riders from the downtown core to the Jump Trail,” writes Bradley. “The professional design would include green, blue or black trails.”
Council was enthusiastically in support of the project; Councillor Noksana says she’s “absolutely in support”.
Funds to build the project are not coming out of taxes, but out of the Gas Tax fund.
Councillor Norbury says “any way we can add these great projects to the community without adding to taxation is great. It adds to another source of activity for our residents, as well as to the adventure tourism industry that we’re trying to grow in Tumbler Ridge. I think diversifying in our community is always a smart thing and this is a great plan.”
While no date has been set yet for construction to start on either the TRMBA trails or the jump track trails, both projects are expected to be completed this year.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
