Additions to the Hinton Bike Park will make for sweet fall riding!

As a municipal bike park, the Hinton Bike Park attracts a diversity of visitors from all over that is unmatched to any other park we’ve built. The local HMBA (Hinton Mountain Bike Association) puts in countless volunteer hours to make sure this park is always top notch and in good riding condition. Without this group, the park would surely not exist, nor would the biking community that continues to grow! The Town of Hinton does a great job of supporting the park and the club in their endeavours and is always looking for ways to become more rider friendly.

The HMBA, the Hoots Crew and the local Boston Pizza are committed to good times on two wheels! Pizza parties in the forest are awesome.

HMBA President Jan and Trails Coordinator Tim finished the new bridge off with lumber donated from the local West Fraser mill.

Fresh ribbons of dirt in the forest!

Local rider, Leah gets her groove on in the new pump track!

The girls get down to business as Jeff looks on, wishing he could do as good a job as these ladies did building the rock ramp for the new bridge.

This crew slung dirt and rocks like nobody's business.

Kevin leading the youth of the HMBA in an exercise of mining for good dirt - great to see the young guys out!

Jim test riding his rock ramp that he masterfully built.                          

VP, Mike ready to build bridges, he even brought his tool belt!

It’s not uncommon to see vehicles with license plates from BC, Saskatchewan and Ontario in the parking lot. The Hinton Bike Park sees a lot of tires but with annual additions and frequent maintenance, the park holds up really well and is always full of fun surprises.

The Hoots crew is always excited to get back to Hinton to work on the bike park. This year the club worked really hard to find funding to build an advanced flow trail and an advanced pump track to keep riders coming back for more. Hoots Inc was invited to build both the trail and the pump track with the help of local volunteers and some awesome donations from West Fraser and CAT Rentals.

The new flow trail is 0.85km long, running in one direction to avoid collisions on the fast sections. The up trail is a nice little leg burner to get the heart pumping in time to drop in for some action packed roller sections and sweet berms. This trail will have you giggling in no time and riding (or pushing) back up for more. The faster you go the more you can connect the features. That said the trail is beginner rider friendly and can be used as a training tool for getting comfy on rollers and berms.  The Hoots crew put together a little video edit of Ash and local Leah having fun on the new trail - New Trail at Hinton Bike Park

The advanced pump track is a display of Jay Hoots art – his riding and building experience has culminated in this track and it shows by the amount of tires that have already been on the track. Built in the trees, across from the bottom of “Beam Me Up”, you earn your turns by venturing thorugh the bike park to get to the pump track. Sponsored largely by the local Subway, the pump track is a great example of local business investing into diversifying a mostly industrial economy.

People from all over the province (and further) make multiple trips in a summer to visit the Hinton Bike Park and they are always grateful that such a park exists and so are we ☺

Did we mention how amazing the volunteers are in Hinton?

Be sure to check out the Beaver Bike Fest this weekend on Saturday, September 14th, 2013! We hear they will have the AFD Acro Bag set up Friday night – fun times in Hinton!