A community run sustainable mountain bike and BMX bike park is a simple concept. As an example imagine if every borough in London had a multi disciplined bike park in at least one of its parks.

A section that allowed for a dirt racing track (like a mini four cross or BMX racing track) with jumps galore or a pump track with rollers and berms or a skills area with shore and boulders and logs, or maybe all of the above. Imagine it was council approved but with the collaboration of the best of the biking world organisations and designers and with local stakeholders and community groups running it. What if it was open from dawn t’ill dusk 365 days a year. What if it was free and open to all regardless of age or ability.

It's not a dream. It's started. We have a blueprint in Tottenham. The "Lordship loop" community run bike park, built by Rowan Sorrell and Back on Track, commissioned by Haringey council and maintained by the local cycling club The Trax.

I'm keen to build more so please get in touch

Case Study - Lordship Loop

The first case study is the "Lordship Loop" bike park in Lordship Rec, Tottenham. This is a really exciting off road mountain bike and BMX track in the heart of Tottenham.

Haringey Council look after the park and working with the friends of Lordship Rec (the park users forum), iBikeRide.com led a community consultation back in April 2009. This showed that what this new park needed was a mutli-discliplined off road bike park for all ages and abilites, open to all with a vibrant bike community represntative of it's locality to run it.

So iBikeRide brought together some of the best off road bike designers, architects and local community groups along with the council to work together to come up with an urban off road design for the bike park.

Over months of close collaboration, working together as a team of bike experts (i.e. established designers, CTC and IMBA), community groups and council folk we created the plans and designs and went forward to gain funding and formal approval.  The building of the bike park started in August 2011 and the whole project was complete by December 2011.

The "Lordship Loop" is created within open areas of woodland and the design is a big long 'pump track' style trail loop which is ridden individually and is very skills and feature intensive. It will cover a looped distance of 391metres which will be made from re-used earth bunds from recycled earth from the park and surfaced with aggregates to provide a fun year round riding facility. Designed as a singletrack experience it will be made up of rollers, berms, roller doubles and step-up jumps and will be rollable by all abilities but with more challenging jumps for experienced riders. The track is open all year.

The project was delivered by specialist bike track developers Back on Track led by Welsh Downhill champion Rowan Sorrell and managed by the Council's Recreation Team. Haringey Council is responsible for maintaining the facility through the Lordship Recreation Ground's 10-year Management and Maintenance Plan. The Trax off road cycling club of Lordship Rec (see later) ensures long term sustainability by developing a bank of volunteers with bike track building and maintenance skills to undertake ongoing repairs and maintenance as well as coaching youth, adults and creating a race network.

The facility is FREE and open 365 days from dusk to dawn during weekdays and weekends including bank holidays. There aren't many bike parks that can say that. The bike track is open to all abilities and age groups. In time it is hoped bike loans will also be available to young people to further widen accessibility. Adapted cycles for riders with disabilities (through Brakethruthe local special needs cycling club) will be available to use around part of the track to improve skills.

Let's move onto the community focus which is core. The Trax club was set up 18 months ago in advance of the bike park opening in order to create a vibrant community that will take ownership of the bike park and make it a success and accessible to all. The club team of volunteers are representative of the local community it serves and this is core to a community projects success. Essential to setting this up and dealing with the challenges of an urban off road bike park was working closely with funders, local youth clubs, schools, parks groups, other community groups and British Cycling, IMBA, the CTC and the council.

So what are the benefits of a club and bike track. Here are just some:

• The number of volunteers learning new skills of which many will help build self esteem and job prospects is 25 - 30 in any given month. The new skills gained range from coaching, ride leading, bike mechanics, trail building, welfare officers, general volunteering, finance, fundraising, first aid, project management, web site development and management and so on.
• The number of these volunteers who are youth volunteers (between 16 and 24) is 90%.
• The number of kids (aged 6-15) coached are around 25-30 a week over approximately 40 weeks. So thats over 1000 individual sessions in sport.
• The number of schools it will serve and anticipated to hold after school clubs is at least 50% of those in a 1-2 mile radius (i.e. 6 of the 12 primary and secondary school) holding one session a week each for 20 kids (see below map).
• The number of races planned interclub and interschool are between 6 - 10 year with up to 50 entries each.
• Open to all throughout the year and free of charge the number of visits in total over a 12 month period is a staggering 60,000
• Economic benefits from creating skilled labour locally through volunteer skills created as well as boosting local cycling economies. Every new cyclist spends. A bike park cost can be £60 - £100k +. It will deliver ten times that in economic, social and health benefits

The benefits are more than stats. Also there are wider benefits of:

• Social inclusion across all socio economic and thnic groups in your local area.
• Community cohesion from the above
• Reducing youth knife and gun crime
• Improved youth job prospects
• Increases in health
• Improving self esteem for all involved

Interested? Lets create more. A bike park in every borough of London to start with and then let’s move it out across the UK. A network of community run sustainable urban bike parks. It can be done. Local communities run it, funding can be from landfill agencies, Heritage Lottery funding, corporate grants, bike brand advocacy, sponsorship etc and local councils give permission and oil the wheels. The bike organisations come together and provide political lobbying, trail infrastructure, guidance, coaching and club structure. We invite enthusiasts, councils, community parks groups, youth centres, the cycling organisations and businesses to get in touch. We are doing it now. Lets build more.

Some Of The Schools Served by Lordship Loop (at point A on the map)