2007 Dirt Jump Park Renovation

When the Civic Field Dirt Jump Park was first constructed it was one of few around and one of VERY FEW located inside of a city park. Bellingham Parks and Rec was visionary and cutting edge in allowing it and a lot of credit for the inception goes to David Waugh, Ben Cashman and Patrick Dahl who led the initial charge to make it happen.

But as with many things now days progression is fast and furious and the sport of Dirt Jumping has grown by flipwhips and 720s! The youth movement has pushed things to a whole new level and it soon became apparent that the sport had outgown the initial design of the park. As the use of the part started to decline we knew there needed to be some work done to elevate it back to it's original status as one of the best around.

Thanks to some savvy folks the word came in that the only way to return the park to that stature was to start from the somewhat level ground up. So as of today September 9th, 2007 the ground is leveling and the work will begin. Our goal is to provide a better experience for all park users. A new design was put together by Mike Metzker and has been refined with the help of John Cowan and the former IMBA Trail Crew Team (our favorite) Nat and Rachael Lopes.

The first and most important part of the rebuild is that we have located the perfect dirt for the park, thanks to help from RAM Construction. It will make for much better jumps that can be better maintained and will be minus the rocks and clay that impeded progress from the first build.

Design features will include an expanded line for the better riders with transition lines and berms making creativity in line selection much more available. And in what may be the most welcome addition the effort and design has gone into making sure there is a great line for beginners and young kids to learn. Also, a medium level line that will allow for a better opportunity for progression as riders skills advance.

Special thanks to Bellingham Parks and Rec, The Parks Advisory Board that voted to help us with the Funding, Transistion Bikes, Kona Bicycle Company, Fritz from Public Works, David Waugh and last but certainly not least Barry Dikeman/RAM Construction.

It is projects like these that the WHIMPs Mountain Bike Coaltion is able to help faciliate and help be successful. It's also a great reminder that we live in a great community of bikers and  volunteers and visa versa.

Cheers,

Mark Peterson

WMBC President

DJ Park

The Civic Field DJ Park is located on Puget St. in Bellingham.  The park was build in 2004 in cooperation with the Bellingham Parks Department.

 
Images courtesy of Hunter Bennet and WHIMPs.
The DJ Park was open for WHIMPfest, June 26, 2004!  Above are some shots of the Big Air Competition.

Construction got in full swing beginning June 1st, 2004 Ben Cashman, Vaughn Larsen, Pat Doll and their buddies helped the RAM guys every day with the major earth moving, shaping and grading.

The Saturday before the Ski to Sea Race, just the start of the main roller.

That's Brad Brown of RAM Construction showing us the 2004 WHIMP Fest Flyer with Milt Unick grading the new DJ park on the tractor in the background on 6/3/4

 
Above is Milt and Brad working with Vaughn and his buddies to dial in the big jumps today, Friday, June 4th, only 22 days until the Big Air Competition at WHIMP FEST!

This line of shots is from 6/10/4 of Vaughn, Ben and Paddie and the RAM guys doing the final heavy equipment work. Pat won the WHIMPfest 2004 DJ competition by the way and wowed the crowd after doing a successful backflip. Good work Pat, and the rest of the peoples.

That's Ben Cashman on the hose above, everyone who uses the DJ Park needs to Thank him for being the 'main' man behind the DJ Park. Thanks Ben     

The Civic Field Jump Park is OPEN and was site of the 2004 WHIMPfest Big Belly Air competition.