Crescent City cut the ribbon Saturday on the first amenity at Beachfront Park built using Prop 68 grant money. | Jessica C. Andrews
Wesley Phillips’ experience with pump tracks is limited — the new course at Crescent City’s Beachfront Park was his first taste.
Though the official grand opening wasn’t until last Saturday, Wesley’s dad, Tom Phillips, said his son had already been practicing. Wesley and his friends Aidan Evans and Landon and Chase Feight were demo riders — zipping over the jumps and scaling the wall ride, the wooden structure towering above the rest of the track — while Tom looked on.
“He’s blown away by it,” Tom said, watching Wesley and his buddies. “He had always ridden bikes and asked [me], ‘Can you build me a jump?’”
As the bike pump track took shape over the last two months, Wesley’s thoughts have been “nothing else but BMX,” his dad says.
Fifty minutes before the festivities were set to officially kick off, Joe Gillespie passed out raffle tickets to a crowd of youngsters who had gathered to try their own skills out. Gillespie, who founded Del Norte Trail Alliance, said his organization was giving away 20 bikes, some they purchased and others Walmart donated.
Ace Hardware also donated 27 helmets to the raffle. There were knee and elbow pads also available. And in a speech just before the ribbon cutting, Gillespie also acknowledged Redwood Medical, Cholwell, Benz and Hartwick, and SeaQuake, all of whom donated $1,000 each.
Though he introduced city staff and elected officials to the concept of a bike pump track at a community meeting in 2019, for Gillespie the journey to seeing it realized began two years earlier.
In 2017, Gillespie, a retired science teacher from Crescent Elk Middle School, said the idea to build a bike park in Crescent City began at his niece’s wedding where kids were more interested in a nearby dirt track than the party itself. A year later he introduced the Del Norte Trail Alliance to the community, telling elected officials that their main objective was to create mountain bike trails and to build a community bike park.
At the time, Gillespie said Saturday, the Del Norte Trail Alliance used money from the Gil and Anne Hess Foundation and hired Trail Labs Co., a Mount Shasta-based trail building company, to build the track.
In 2019, as the City was pursuing Proposition 68 funds to upgrade Beachfront Park,Gillespie told city officials he thought a pump track with its banked turns and jumps would attract both visitors and locals.
Seeing it realized on Saturday was, Gillespie said, unbelievable.
“We were lucky to have Prop 68 queued up,” he said. “It was voted on by California voters. This was a $4 billion bond for water and parks — most of the money was for city and county parks. Out of 400 applicants only 100 got funded.”
Two years after receiving a $5 million Statewide Park Program grant in 2021, Crescent City contracted with Velosolutions and the American Ramp Company to build the pump track.
The city broke ground on the pump track July 31.
“I pushed for a track young kids could ride and at the same time would be challenging for intermediate and expert riders. And, boy, did we get one,” Gillespie said. “They did a beautiful job. The best feature is the jump line. It’s encouraging for kids to push their abilities and learn to jump.”
Gillespie said that some riders will eventually want more than the track offers. He said he and Crescent City Manager Eric Wier are considering potential future additions. One feature Gillespie said he’d like to add is a “tot” track for younger kids who might still be riding strider bikes.
“The idea is to have a bike park where there’s something for everyone,” he told Redwood Voice Community News.
Just before he joined kids and local dignitaries to officially cut the ribbon on the pump track, Gillespie urged the kids gathered at the entrance to create a culture of inclusivity, kindness and caring at the park. He reminded them to follow the rules, which includes wearing helmets, knee and elbow pads, and said there may be more bike fun to come in the future.
We want you to teach your friends, develop new friends, help each other up and help each other out,” he said Saturday. “Make sure that you all feel safe and everyone is included. And with that culture that you kids set here at this track, this will be a success and, who knows, we might start adding on to it. But it’s up to you kids to make sure this all happens.”
Astride his own bike watching his son Wesley and his friends take the jumps, Tom Phillips took his own ride around the pump track despite an injured knee.
“I didn’t even dream about something this amazing when I was a kid,” he said.
