Renovated bike park challenges Park City novices, experts
In a city known for world-class athletes and a celebrated film festival, a one-acre pocket park is drawing new attention.
What began as a dirt jump park nearly 20 years ago reopened in September as Creekside Bike Park with a new design that attracts bike riders from novices to experts, said Tate Shaw, Park City, Utah’s assistant recreation director.
Originally launched in July 2005, Park City and the International Mountain Bicycling Association created the city’s first dirt jump park as a pilot project to determine community interest. It offered programs and clinics as well as a community Dirt Jump Jam featuring professional athletes who interacted with local youth.
The state recognized Park City’s clinics as an “Outstanding New Program,” laying the foundation for the park to become a permanent part of the city’s extensive recreation programming in 2011. The transformation was funded by capital improvement money and grants that resulted in a comprehensive redesign and upgrade of the facility.
Shaw described the community of 8,000 permanent residents, located on the Wasatch Back, on the eastern side of the Wasatch Range of the Rocky Mountains. She called it a “preeminent cycling community.”
Park City is home to the U.S. Ski Team, the site of several events during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games and host of the annual Sundance Film Festival. A popular tourist destination, the city’s population can swell to two or three times the norm.
Simply stated, the bike park, Shaw said, “fits into who we are as a mountain town.”
From its opening in 2005 through its redesign in 2011 and then to the 2020s, Shaw said, the bicycling community witnessed everything from young children learning biking skills with strider bikes to the evolution of technological changes in full-size bikes. This spurred Park City Recreation to make changes to the dirt jump park. The recreation department secured grant funding for a renovation aimed at creating a more sustainable and advanced design.
In 2023, Park City-based ShapeShift Terrain Parks was granted the renovation contract. “They delivered an innovative new layout that meets contemporary standards and enhances user experience,” Shaw said. “Creekside Bike Park’s design now minimizes weather-related impacts and reducing maintenance requirements.”
The park, which took almost a year to complete, went from a dirt jump track to a bike park with drop and skill features that make biking fun for beginners and experts alike. “A lot of physics went into the design for rise and run and landing decks,” he said.
The redesign utilized what Shaw called a “dirt recipe that has a specific mix concoction” that holds up to rain and snow. The ramps are made of metal so that the city does not have to face rebuilding year after year.
The park offers a skills-building area for rolls and drops. And, he added, the new design is family-friendly and fun for both riders and spectators.
The park is free to the public and open from dawn to dusk, with only occasional closures for maintenance.
In addition to the one-acre Creekside neighborhood park, Park City Recreation Department also operates Trailside Bike Park, part of a 17-acre recreational facility.
“We kind of joke, but it’s true: Park City has recreational programs for Olympic athletes and average Park City Joes,” Shaw said.
In addition to traditional recreational activities like tennis, pickleball, volleyball, baseball, basketball and soccer, there are community education programs for youth and adults. Along with CPR classes, there is a first aid and safety essentials class for hikers, bikers, and wilderness adventurers as well as an Avalanche Awareness class that helps adventurers enjoy the snow-covered mountains while exercising caution to avoid accidents related to avalanches.
Shaw also described some of the outdoor education programs, including fly fishing and day-long classes that might take participants to a fish hatchery in the morning and paddle boarding on a mountain lake to identify fish in the afternoon. There are also hiking programs and tumbling classes for young children, line dancing and karate for adults, and everything from archery to yoga – in addition to events like pumpkin smashing for recycling – and a flashlight candy cane hunt.
“We want to provide activities for all ages and abilities,” Shaw added.
The money to complete the $110,000 Creekside Bike Park project came from Park City’s Capital Improvement Projects fund and a Summit County Restaurant Tax Grant. The tax grant is money collected from restaurants and food service providers to be used for improvements within the community.
