Nest-busters, detractors, killers: as bike park testers, we have to listen to a lot of abuse. "Be happy about the trails on offer instead of criticising the painstaking work of the park builders", many people demand. Yes, you can see it that way, according to the motto: better a bad park than no park at all. But we see it differently. We believe that our sport is being held back by inadequate parks. Although more and more bike parks are being built and the offer is certainly better than ever, it still falls far short of the possibilities - unfortunately.
"If you only knew the resistance we have to fight against," the park operators moan. Strict environmental regulations, terrain that is too steep, a lack of money, angry landowners: park operators have a demonstrably difficult time in densely populated Europe. Nevertheless, if you run a commercial park and charge for admission, you have to accept that your offer will be evaluated. And unfortunately, these ratings are generally quite modest. That's a shame, because bad parks have an impact on the entire freeride sport. If there were only ten football pitches in Germany and half of them were on marshy meadows, German football would be in a bad way - everyone will realise that. But this is (somewhat exaggerated, of course) the situation of our bike parks. A positive example shows the effects a good park can have: A large part of the dirt jump elite comes from the small town of Aptos in California. Why? Friends built a perfect jump spot here. The ideal training conditions produced top athletes such as Greg Watts, the McCaul brothers, Jamie Goldman, R-Dog etc. In short, if the sport of freeriding wants to develop further, we need bike parks that offer good training opportunities. If the approach to the drop of a
In a bike park, on the other hand, the visitor wants ideal conditions: wide, straight approaches, suitable dimensions and a wide, steep landing.
Our appeal: Dear trail builders, make it easy for visitors, not unnecessarily difficult. Tom Pro, trail building boss from Whistler and the undisputed expert in bike park construction, puts it like this: "A park trail is well built if you can ride it unseen. The trail should accelerate you so that you can make all the jumps without getting hung up anywhere and without having to hit the brakes!" Unfortunately, this is only possible in the rarest of cases.
According to our online survey, FREERIDE readers wanted the following stunts:
1st step-up
2. jumpline (with 5 table jumps)
3. drop-battery (with 4 drops from 0.5 metres to 2 metres)
Surprisingly, very few parks offer these features. Step-ups and table jumps in particular allow park beginners to approach the coveted airtime quite safely.
The Samerberg bike park in the Chiemgau mountains proves that our criticism can have an effect. Years ago, we criticised its trail: risky drops, wall rides that were too steep, stunts that were too difficult. The Bavarian trail builders took the criticism seriously, made improvements and lo and behold: now the trail is not only smoother and safer to ride, it is also a lot more fun for a lot more bikers. The Samerberg team also increased the stunt density - another key criterion for a successful bike park. After all, customers want to be entertained and expect as many gimmicks as possible. Ideally, every free space should be used for a boner drop, a jump or a step-up. Clever: In La Bresse, the operators set up mobile wooden features to enhance otherwise dull rolling passages.
A park should also offer a descent for every ability level. This has been achieved particularly well in the La Bresse park. In our opinion, the difficulty levels of blue, red and black are suitable here. In the Brandnertal park, on the other hand, blue and red are too close together, but the black descent is so pitch-black that it is reserved for real experts. With only three trails in total, this doesn't make much sense - as if there were only a 10-metre tower next to the starting blocks in the swimming pool. A handful of cracks are happy about the test of courage, but the majority of park visitors have to look on in frustration.
How good is the bike park? What we pay attention to
Routes with entertainment:
Several trails with different characters are ideal, for example flow trail, jumptrail, DH trail. Desirable: Exciting features such as curve changes, berms, wall rides, step-ups, table jumps, wooden waves, steep descents, root passages, stone fields - in other words, as much variety and a high density of gimmicks as possible. Tried and tested: Trails for every ability level, as ski resorts demonstrate with blue, red and black pistes. Important: Blue must not mean boring and black must not mean dangerous! The routes must be regularly maintained.
Rhythm:
The trail should be laid out in such a way that it can be ridden smoothly and rhythmically, without a lot of braking and without annoying stop-and-go. Keyword: flow - riding flow!
Professional construction:
Bike park stunts should be fun and as safe as possible, so: table jumps instead of doubles, step-ups, wide, long jumps, wide landings and so on. Important: point out sources of danger and signpost well!
Fast lift system:
Ideally a chairlift or even a gondola to get back to the start of the trail as quickly as possible.
