The Garden: City of Chicago’s First-Ever Dedicated Bike Park
We’re officially legal! Read on for the press release.
Hard Work Finally Pays Off for Local Riders: Dirt Jumps/Bike Trails in Their Very Own Backyard!
3400 N Rockwell Street, Chicago, IL: an address that will always have deep historical significance for Chicagoans as the original home to Riverview Park, an extremely popular amusement park that lasted from 1903-1967. Since that time, the land has been separated into various zones, including retail shops, Lane Tech High School, Clark Park (made up of soccer fields and a canoe/kayak launch site), and now Chicago’s first ever bike park: The Garden.
Sitting atop land that had been undeveloped for many years, a wooded area once thought of as a hotbed of gang activity and other illegal activities, The Garden is a community project built by Chicagoland BMX and Mountain Bikers, the City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District.
As one of the few wooded areas close to downtown without specific zoning, local riders had attempted to use the land for recreational use with little to no success for nearly a decade. In the fall of 2008, the Chicago Park District were looking into the idea of plowing this land which prompted action by a group of local riders interested in putting the land to good use.
This group, led by Tim Hovey, Daniel Peter, and Jeremy Kawka, began to attend Park District meetings and crafted a proposal for the land. When they reached out to the West Chapter of the Chicago Area Mountain Bikers (CAMBr, a 503.C.3, non-profit organization credited with building and maintaining many riding destinations around the Chicagoland area), the momentum snowballed.
Delighted with their proposal, the Park District allowed the first, official construction of the bike park under careful watch during the summer of 2009. With shovels, wheelbarrows, piles of dirt (graciously donated by Lake Street Landscape Supply), a chainsaw or two, and hard work, the riders not only built their bike trails, they also built fence-lined pedestrian walkways for nearby residents. On top of that, they worked alongside the Park District to clean the area of broken glass and assorted trash.
As the area began to take shape, the dedication of these riders, backed by CAMBr West, convinced the Park District to accept The Garden proposal and on March 1st, 2010, this land has been sanctioned as Chicago’s first-ever bike park!
With the City of Chicago and the Park District’s official blessing and warm weather just around the corner, The Garden Crew needs your help to get the trails back in shape for this momentous year. This park doesn’t build itself so stop by, check The Garden out and lend a hand; first workday of the year is scheduled for April 3rd, 2010.
On an even more exciting note, The Garden Crew and CAMBr West, are in the midst of planning an “extravaganza” sometime in the beginning of summer so stay tuned to facebook.com/CAMBr, CAMBr.org, thegardenjumps.com, and twitter/thegardenjumps for news, updates, trail conditions, workday information, fun facts, and other entertaining items.
Come out and play sometime but don’t be afraid to lend a hand – they can always use the help!
Celebrate The Garden’s unveiling
Don’t forget we will be celebrating at Easy Bar (1944 W Division in Chicago, 773-227-4644) Friday 3/19 at 7pm. RSVP here.
CAMBr’s continued conquest of the internet
Has now seriously exploded on Facebook with a really awesome multi-chapter fan site. Join up and check it out!
Winter
I guess it goes without sayin, but winter is here and we can’t do a thing about it. Until something like spring shows itself, we can consider The Garden to be out of commission. Last night myself and most of the crew attended Red Bulls “Reel Life” film tour at The Vic which featured the New World Disorder 10, after seeing that i just had too much stoke running through my veins to sit around the house today. So I grabbed the Husqy and went over to check up on the place and cut up some dead trees. I’m glad to say that all of the carpets are in place, and now frozen in place so they aren’t going anywhere, and everything else checks out just fine. The Garden is as ready for winter as it could be, so lets just cross our fingers and hope come springtime that it won’t take as much work next year to get it running smooth again. Even covered in snow and ice, i still had a fantastic afternoon, we are so fortunate to have a patch of woods in the city, its so nice to escape into the woods and get a couple of hours worth of hard labor. The joy The Garden brings me goes far beyond just boostin lips and railin berms.
Wow!
Yesterday was another fantastic Saturday. I can’t believe we’ve had such great weather in the middle of November! With a mildly messed up elbow I’m on a ‘no jumping!’ cycling plan (but still rippin da singletrack) so I left the bike at home, went over early and got the place 90% cleaned up and leaf blown before anybody showed up, by 2pm people were filtering in and hungry to ride. Most of the locals and a whole van full of guys from out of town showed up and much ripping commenced, seeing the garden looking so gorgeous and seeing the show those guys put on over the big lines makes all the hard work worth while! The only fault is that the place was looking a bit dry, so hopefully that touch of rain last night dampened things and the garden should be prime for some serious Sunday action, while most of the 26” crew swaps out to 29” and heads out to Palos for some singletrack. Go get after it!
Go Ride!
It was such a nice day out today, the trails are in pretty awesome shape and we did a fairly extensive sweep through with the leaf blower. If you’re looking to get in a good ride before the weather takes a serious turn for the worse, you better get yourself out!
