I'll have a race report coming up shortly but this is from Boulder's local paper, the Daily Camera. Have a look see. Some of my favorite people interviewed including Brooke Watts of Cross Partners (e.g. Cross Vegas) and Bobby Noyes...who has pushed this Park selflessly over the last decade and then some.

You ever wonder how a bike park gets built? Well, in the case of Valmont Bike Park, this is a MAJOR undertaking as nearly 45 acres of land will be meticulously groomed and shaped by earth movers to literally make the elevation gains and losses we want to have the most fun on as off road cyclists. Your donations and the substantial money invested by the city of Boulder make this happen and the VBP committee is dedicated to ensuring this becomes world class. To our knowledge, no bike park in the United States is at the scale or caliber of this multi-million dollar investment. So to demonstrate, here’s what a typical day in the life of a bike park’s development looks like in a brief 45 second snapshot:

Over and over…all day…a parade of monster earth movers and groomers literally take land from one place and deposit it elsewhere to create the contours, hills and valleys we’ve designed into the Park. Once groomed and shaped, the park will have it's courses laid in and natural vegetation carefully replanted to give the park a great taste of Colorado’s finest singletrack.

As previously mentioned, October 17th will be the park’s groundbreaking day and a Cyclocross Race! To give you a bit of a teaser, here’s a preview of the course to whet appetites. HUP HUP!

Ladies and gentlemen! Get your hard hats and shovels out and come and celebrate the groundbreaking of the Valmont Bike Park. The day will be complete with festivities for the family and racing. Oh yes racing....cyclocross racing! An ACA event is scheduled and will include all major categories.

Also, note too that the BMA is looking for volunteers to help establish the race course which will be used to demonstrate the concept of the courses that will be 'officially' manicured into the Bike Park in 2010. We'll be testing all sorts of concepts so be there to help influence! If you can volunteer, that'd be great. Go here for details.

Conceptual Plans as Envisioned by Tarras Landscape Innoventions I just wanted to share with you a little sampling of what’s coming with Valmont Bike Park. What people need to understand is that this project is literally at the tip of the spear in many aspects…from the way we organized to push the concept in 2007 with the City of Boulder to the aggregation of the most professional resources possible to ensure this park is world class.

One such example is Tarras Landscape Innovation. This is the team which was selected by the Valmont Park Committee after they submitted their designs  held during an open competition and clearly blew the team away. Their contributions will be to look conceptually at the space we have allotted to us (45 acres) and look specifically at the ‘details’ of the Park itself to balance aesthetics with usability/sustainability all the while keeping the theme of cycling and cyclists at the core of their usable designs.

It’s worth a look at this brief snapshot they’ve provided.

Get excited!

Board OKs first phase of Valmont park construction

45-acre parcel to include bike park and disc-golf course

By Zak Brown (Contact)
Thursday, June 4, 2009

BOULDER, Colo. — After more than a decade, a plot of land Boulder voters envisioned as a park with community-wide appeal took a major step toward reality Thursday night.

The site review for the first, $4.5 million phase of the Valmont City Park was approved unanimously by the Boulder Planning Board, clearing the way for a 45-acre section of the park that will include a bike park, trails, a dog park, a “tot lot” and a disc-golf course.

“When the idea for this park first started, it was meant to be an active park that coul

Photo by Marty Caivano Jasmine Wong plays with her dog, Bella, on the south side of Valmont City Park on Thursday.

d be a place for several different activities,” said Alice Guthrie, a superintendent with Boulder Parks and Recreation. “And we really think we’ve accomplished that with this plan.”

Voters approved a tax to pay for the park in 1998.

Construction is expected to start this summer or fall on the first of three phases of Valmont City Park, which in all covers a 132-acre parcel in northeast Boulder. The first phase is expected to be finished in about a year.

The bike park — which includes several different levels and types of terrain, such as dirt tracks and a cyclocross course — is already being designed with help from the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance, which has donated $70,000 to the project.

The bike park is “the first built anywhere, that we know of,” Guthrie said.

Click to read more ...

Valmont Clean Up a Success!

A Mud and Cowbells Guest Blog Report by Pete Webber

The future home of the Valmont Bike Park got a spring cleaning this weekend thanks to 60 volunteers who spent their Saturday afternoon working to clear trash, junk, and old fences from the site.

The plan was to clean up the 40-acres in anticipation of official construction to begin later this year. By the end of the day, piles of trash included car tires, lumber, innumerable plastic bags, and unexpected discoveries like a shopping cart, golf bag, rusted bed frame, lawn furniture, and 11 different shoes.

The crews also dismantled 700 feet of barbed wire fences that were hold-overs from when portions of the property were a farm. Along with the barbed wire came nearly 100 fence-posts that had to be pried out of the ground.

The vibe was super positive as young and old got dirty and pitched in to do their part for the project. Everyone also got a close look at the park plans and toured the site with some of the team involved in the planning and design.

The event was organized by the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance and the City of Boulder Parks and Recreation Department, with help from the International Mountain Biking Association.

Since day one, the public support for this park has been unbelievable, and this weekend's event was no different. Stay tuned for future events later this year and come join the fun!

   The Valmont Bike Park Volunteer Crew

See the full set of images here, or enjoy them in the slide show below!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Full Cycle will host the St. Patrick's Party and Film Night to benefit Valmont Bike Park

All Proceeds from the event will benefit Valmont Bike Park , a new dedicated off-road cycling facility in Boulder, Colorado planned for construction in 2009.

Date/time: March 17th, Doors at 7, Movies at 8

Location: Boulder Theater

Price: $10 + service charge

Feature Movie: New World Disorder 9: Never Enough

Special Events: Mafia Racing is organizing Demos, Ripstoke will perform Trials Demo

Sponsored by: Full Cycle, Kona, Pabst Blue Ribbon

Drawings for cool gear from: Kona, Mavic, Oakley, Giro, Fox, Look, Bike Magazine, PBR

Wear green and get raffle tickets for $1; No Green and raffle tickets are $2

Clink image below to access to the MP3 file and listen to the Valmont Bike Park Committee's interview with Boulder's KGNU public Radio.

Have a looky-loo at the latest version of the trail map and race course concept. Things may still change but this should give you a pretty good feeling of what's coming.

VBP Park Map 8.5x11

(I am re-casting this from my post on the VBP blog)

Our main man Pete Webber was on the scene at the Park yesterday and behold...DIRT IS BEING DELIVERED!! His report:

Oh yes. Progress at the Valmont Bike Park in the shape of growing
stockpiles of fresh dirt. The dirt is being delivered free of charge
from various construction sites around town.

They've got dirt to get
rid of after digging basements, and we need hundreds of truck loads
to enhance the terrain at Valmont. The dirt shown in these photos
will be used to to pump up the bike terrain in the flat southeast
zone, as well as to shape the land around the dog park, steel 
building, and parking lot.

W e love dirt, and we love real tangible
progress!

BIKES BELONG DONATION MATCHING PROGRAM!!!

And don't forget: Bikes Belong has agreed to match up to $10,000 in
funds raised from individuals by this Friday Feb. 6 dollar for
dollar. If you haven't donated yet, now is an excellent time to do so
- you'll have twice the impact.

DONATE HERE!!!