Demolition of unsanctioned bike park in South Cariboo causes community upset - Action News
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British Columbia

Demolition of unsanctioned bike park in South Cariboo causes community upset

Slope Line Bike Park was built several years ago on municipal land by local riders and featured multiplejumps and trails. The District of 100 Mile House has levelled the park over liability concerns.

Before decision to raze Slope Line,District of 100 Mile House had the jumps assessed for safety

A man on a bike spins in the air while launching off a dirt jump on a track in a forested area with dappled sunshine.
A rider does a 360-degree turn at a bike park in B.C.'s District of 100 Mile House, which was uninsured and demolished by the district last week. (Ben Prescott/@itsbigben/Instagram)

Corrie Benard's teenage sons spent almost every day after school flying off jumps at a local bike park in their small B.C. community until last week, when they were gutted to discover the jumps were gone.

"There is not much for our kids to do in this town and that was an outlet for a lot of the teens," said Benard. "What are they supposed to do now?"

Benard and her boys live in 100 Mile House, a district municipality with fewer than 2,000 residents in the Southern Cariboo region of B.C.

And the disappearance of the park was not the work of weather or vandals, but the district itself.

Known as theSlope Line Bike Park, it was built several years ago on municipal land by local riders and featured multiplejumps and trails.

A dirt bike track runs through a wooded area with various tools laying about.
Maureen Pinkney, the mayor of 100 Mile House, said the park user group didn't meet conditions regarding liability insurance and the size of the park. (Facebook/100 Mile Rant and Rave/Dalton Anderson)

Despite not being a sanctioned district project, local leadership agreedthe rogue parkcould remain as long as it didn't get any biggerand the user group that built it secured liability insurance.

According to the district's current mayor, those conditions were not being met.

"We knew it would be a big point of contention and it was a very large decision and that's why we tried to work with the group literally from 2018 on to last week where we finally had the contractors go in,"Mayor Maureen Pinkney said speaking on CBC's Daybreak Kamloops.

"We did try to get the group multiple times to the table and they would never even respond to us," the mayor added.

LISTEN| The aftermath of the bike park demolition:
The District of 100 Mile House brought in a crew to take down a well-known bike park after it was deemed to be too much of a liability. That got some in the community concerned about options for youth.

She said taxpayers should not be on the financial hook if someone getshurt at the park, and that while it is sad to lose arecreational facility enjoyed by youth,there isalready a "really, really good" park just minutes away in 99 Mile House.

Not only was there no insurance for the 100 Mile House park, Pinkney said local firefighters had to respond to several fires at the site and the jumps continued to get bigger.

Before the decision wasmade to raze Slope Line,the district had the jumps assessed for safety.

A bike rider is photographed from behind as they fly off a dirt jump with their hands in the air.
A rider flies off a jump at a now non-existant bike park in the Southern Cariboo community. (Ben Prescott/@itsbigben/Instagram)

"We hauled in a specialist to look at them and see what state the jumps were in and if they could stay, if they were safe enough, and basically he said absolutely not."

At that point, they had no option but to remove them, Pinkney said.

"We work on behalf of all the taxpayers, not just a few."

Mitchell Wilden, one of the original park builders and users, said it was a shame to see it disappear and the district is missing out on a revenue opportunity.

He said there were twobike jam competitionsheld there every year that attracted people to the small community.

"It just doesn't make sense," said Wilden. "It would have been nice to have a discussion about it before so it wasn't just a bomb dropped on usyou know we go up there and it's just flattened."

A picture of flat earth in a clearing surrounded by trees.
The 100 Mile House bike park known as the Slope Line, which had trails and jumps built by locals, has been demolished. (Facebook/100 Mile Rant and Rave/Dalton Anderson)

The space also held a lot of nostalgia for Wilden, who started building jumps and riding them there a decade ago when he was just 13 years old.

"Everyday after school or throughout the summer, that's where I was.I didn't spend any time anywhere else. But, at this point, it is what it is, nothing we can do, they didn't give us a fighting chance," he said.

But Benard says she is not going down without a fight, whether that means going to council meetings or circulating a petition.

"Maybe we need to come to a better solution for these kids rather than just taking it away,"she said.

"Having it taken away is showing that there is nothing for them."

With files from Jenifer Norwell and Daybreak Kamloops