Alun Wooliams spoke to Gibsons Town council on Dec. 1 about his ideas for a bike skills park that he would like to see built in the Town.
“The main benefit is just for fun,” Wooliams said. “The reason I’m here is because I have a 14-year-old boy who is incredibly passionate about biking and he’s built one of these in our back yard, basically. I feel like somehow we should give back and have more of it in the community.”
A bike skills park is a controlled place for people to learn the basics and build on those skills.
“It’s controlled in the sense that it starts at the beginner phase and goes all the way through to expert,” Wooliams said.
Wooliams listed a few reasons for wanting to build a skills park, but his main reason was location. While there are other skills parks on the Coast – Sprockids, which is nearby, has a skills park – Wooliams said that having one closer to town would make it more accessible for younger generations of riders.
“The Sunshine Coast is becoming a Mecca for biking. Our kids are growing up around this,” Wooliams said. “We have – per capita – probably the largest number of professional riders in the world. Brandon Semenuk is arguably the best free-rider in the world and he lives just down the road here. We have a large community of people here that are inspiring our kids.”
Council was cautiously optimistic about the project. While they liked the idea, Gibsons mayor Wayne Rowe and councillor Charlene SanJenko both discussed feasibility issues of finding space for the skills park as well as funding.
“Obviously the talent and the people are here,” SanJenko said. “It makes sense in that it’s a skills training and capacity building spot to utilize the other assets in biking that we’ve got on the Coast.”
SanJenko said she’d be interested in seeing more on the project in terms of practical steps that would advance it.
“Just finding the land is a challenge, but the funding, insurance, volunteers and all of those things come to mind, too,” SanJenko said.
Councillor Silas White spoke strongly in favour of the proposed bike skills park. White said he has heard from a lot of people on the Coast that there’s a strong desire to have more opportunities for families to get involved in things like mountain biking.
“This is a really exciting idea, it’s a really exciting concept and I’d love to see it in the Town of Gibsons,” White said.
“On behalf of the local government economic development effort, I’ve been having a number of meetings including with people talking about mountain biking a lot. One of the revelations for me is that this truly is becoming known as a Mecca for mountain biking, especially for families.”
