We’ve come to our final Stone Eater Bike Park video series…for now. City of Lebanon Engineer Kevin Krulik recaps the five year process of creating the park, and looks ahead to potential bike park additions.
“The journey was not a straight line,” said Krulik. The journey was not easy, but neither is mountain biking. For those of us to do it, that’s why you do it, that’s why you love the sport. Sitting here today, five years after we first started dreaming that maybe we could build a trail out here. Not knowing lawsuits, and permitting, and mitigations, and all the things that would go into putting this bike park together.”
“It’s just definitely a relief that we’re here to this point, that the park is open, that the park is turned over to the Parks Department,” added Krulik. “They’re going to do a great job of maintaining things. That’s what we wanted, we want a place where all can ride, all ages and skills and abilities can come out here and enjoy it. Whether that’s walking with your dog, or bombing down the double black diamond skill trail, we want everything in between. I think that is what we’ve created here, and that is what it can be for the public.” Krulik pointed out a possible Phase 2 of the bike park on the map, located at the kiosk near the beginning of the trail. “Take a look at this upper meadow area and you’ll notice here it’s kind of faded, but it says ‘Phase 2, Bike Park Area.'”
“We had to scale back the project throughout the years,” said Krulik. “We had to keep it on budget. So, there’s a lot of future phase stuff that is not out here, yet. There’s a lot of stuff in the skills park area in this upper meadow that could be: pump tracks, and jump lines, and kids’ tracks, and skills parks. Those things aren’t here, yet. So, we’re hoping, with favorable funding situations, with possible donors that might come alongside, that we can make that a reality.”
“There’s 113 acres here, there’s only 8 miles of trails give or take. There’s plenty of room to build more trails,” said Krulik. “I don’t know what the park will look like or what will be next, but I know the park is set up to evolve and grow, and to meet the needs of the cycling community, as well as the greater City of Lebanon and regional community,” said Krulik. “This is a great first phase, but this is by no means the end of the park.”
Visit StoneEaterBikePark.com to stay up to date on the latest happenings at the park.
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