Coast Gravity Park held their Backwoods Jam this past weekend featuring five of the world’s best riders, who entertained several hundred spectators with slope-style competition and high-flying tricks.
“There’s a group of guys that travel the world in this slope-style series [downhill course with jumps and large drops], and at the end of each year we put together a jam at Coast Gravity Park. It’s the Logan Peat Invitational,” said Darren Hemstreet, president of Coast Gravity Park. He said that Peat, who lives in Roberts Creek, “travels all over the world and is one of the top slope-style riders.”
“We built a course in the back woods, not part of the park – this course lives on its own. Each year we invite riders, at the end of the season, for a wind down. They polish off their season in Sechelt,” Hemstreet said.
Coast Gravity Park boasts some of the largest sets of dirt jumps in the world, according to Hemstreet. “So they come from all over just to ride these things; they are big,” he said. Skilled riders soar over huge gaps and at times hit heights of 40 feet in the air. “The best trick this year was a double back flip with no hands,” Hemstreet said.
Twenty-two riders participated in the weekend event. Hemstreet said what is significant about this event is the fact that there is no purse to be won. Usually the purse for this type of event is up to $25,000, Hemstreet said.
“It’s pretty cool they put on this show for our community. “
In past years the riders have come to Sechelt directly from Crankworx – a Whistler downhill bike event – but this year they participated in an event in Germany following Crankworx.
“All the riders went there [to Germany] and then they came here,” Hemstreet said. “Riders pay their own way to come but Gravity Park pays for everything once they are here,” he said.
Hemstreet estimated that 600 or more people from the Sunshine Coast attended the event – “our best year so far,” he said.
Next year the Coast Gravity Park is planning on brining additional events, which he hopes will attract a few thousand people to the Backwoods Jam.
