The Next BIke Parks - Micro Bike Parks for Our Smallest Riders

Bike Cochrane is working with the Town to install ‘micro’ bike parks in some existing parks in our community with our first pilot project at Riverfront Park opened in 2022. These proposed bike skills parks in Cochrane will provide people of all ages a place to gather and share in physical activity. We believe that our community needs more opportunities for people to engage in physical activity. The long-term plan is to have bike parks throughout the town to be designed and built to be used by cyclists of all ages and abilities. We hope that children will grow up with a lifelong love of cycling and physical activity and youth will be able to spend their time in a positive way. If you are interested in helping us build more bike parks, please send a note to Paul at paul@bikecochrane.com.

Our First Bike Park - the Launchpad - opened August 2020!

Bike Cochrane dreamed, planned, fundraised, and built Cochrane’s first Bike Park - the Launchpad, on Bow Street next to Garmin Canada. It opened in August 2020 and sees 1000s of riders a week. We have had an amazing amount of support from the community to get this project completed, and we’re so lucky to have this great asset in our community!

We are working to redesign the Launchpad in 2023 to better meet the needs of our users. Stay tuned to our newsletters for more information on this super exciting project!

Do you Love Using the Launchpad Bike Park and Want to Help Us Manage It?

Have you taken your kids to the Launchpad and thought, ‘Wow, is this ever great!  I’m so happy to have this in our community!’  Would you like to help Bike Cochrane to ensure that we can keep this bike park running but don’t want to take on a big time commitment?  We’re trialing out a ‘1 Week Bike Park Family’ program where you can volunteer to ‘look after’ the bike park for a week this summer.  This would require stopping at the Bike Park at least 2 times during the week, pick up garbage (if there is any), pull weeds (if they're along the side), close it when it’s too wet, and re-open it once it’s dry, along with in general check in on our bike park and let us know if it needs more involved maintenance.   Send a note to Paul at paul@bikecochrane.com if you’re interested in helping us maintain the Launchpad!

Future pump track at Horse Creek Sports Park

The future Horse Creek Sports Park now has a completed master site plan (July 2021) that has been approved by the Parks and Recreation Committee of the Town of Cochrane. This calls for a beautiful expansion to Cochrane’s recreation facilities and includes plans for a pump track, flow trail, and skills park.

While this project still hasn’t been budgeted and included in the Town’s 10-year capital planning, it’s not too early to start thinking about the scope and potential of this amazing facility. With new pump tracks opened in Fairview, South Glenmore Park, and Inglewood in 2021, and a new planned pump track in Okotoks coming soon, it’s obvious the amount of energy, smiles, and hoots and hollers these facilities produce. For a list of local bike parks, visit Mike’s excellent site at Kids Bike Canada HERE.

In the meantime, while our Town figures out the plan for this site, Bike Cochrane has started working with bike park builders to get some ideas and help scope out the potential here.

Courtesy of Hoots, VeloSolutions, and Bike-Track, Bike Cochrane has some great starting ideas for this space.

First, What is a Pump Track?

Pump tracks provide initial progression into the world of cornering, momentum, and speed control. Pump tracks are a series of rhythmic rollers placed in a circuit format providing two-wheeled fun for kids and a perpetual motion machine for riders that figure out how to get momentum from ‘pumping’ each roller to continue around the track without pedaling. Pump tracks provide initial progressions into the world of cornering, momentum and speed control, enhancing basic bike handling skills on a safe, low-risk track. These tracks also offer handling skills that prepare riders for jumping. (Description courtesy of Jay Hoots).

Next, What is a Skills Park?

Skills parks are the welcome mat to mountain biking and offer opportunities for riders of all ages on all types of bikes to learn and practice bike handling in a planned, safe and natural environment. They allow skills succession through progression-based features that are all within a dynamic, self-taught environment.

Skills parks can include dirt jumps, wooden bridges, wall rides, drop zones, progression trails, pump tracks and teeter totters all methodically placed in the park for a fun and managed recreational experience. (Again, description courtesy of Jay Hoots).

Lastly, What is a Flow Trail?

The term 'flow trail' is a relatively recent addition to the mountain bike lexicon, a phrase used to describe a trail, usually machine made, that's full of berms and rollers, a dirt carnival ride that almost any ability level can make their way down without much trouble. (courtesy of IMBA Canada).

The potential at the Horse Creek Sports Park is for all of these bike amenities along with the potential of mixed-use cross-country/cyclo-cross bike trails and even potentially some cool rock features and drops as the height of land near the gas plant is explored in the ~35-50 acre space marked for trails.

If you’re interested in working on projects like these, reach out to trails@bikecochrane.com and join our Trail Crew.