Like a skatepark but for bikes, revamped Corral Center Bike Park, near Lory State Park, to offer place to practice jumps and skills

Corral Center Bike Park aims to offer space for folks to gain confidence on their bikes, whether practicing skills or jumps, in Northern Colorado. Courtesy photo.

By Dan England

At 71, Alan Miller prefers riding his mountain bike on the trails that surround his Soldier Canyon home to the jumps he sees younger riders attempt at the bike skills park in nearby Lory State Park. 

But he and fellow members of the Friends of Lory State Park (including his wife, Patricia, the president of the group), saw a need to improve the skills park, even if he knows days of doing tricks are behind him. 

“The park was always there to foster bicycling in the younger group,” Alan said. “We want to make that happen.”

The Bellvue park, close to Tower Road and the Horsetooth Mountain and Devil’s Backbone areas, began construction on a revamped Corral Center Bike Park a couple weeks ago. The bike park’s been there for 15 years in place of a former horse corral, and on a nice day, more than a dozen kids show up. But the improvements will upgrade it into a more professional design, with a pump track and moderate dirt jump lines, as well as help it drain better after a storm. 

There will even be room for spectators in case they want to host an event. 

You can think of this place as a skatepark for bikes, or a place where mountain bikers can gain some confidence before they tackle some of the harder rides in the area, said Roy McBride, Lory’s park manager. Friends of Lory State Park raised $10,000 for the first stage of the project by raffling off a bike donated by TREK North in Fort Collins. 

“Maybe people just wanted to win a bike,” McBride said, “but we took that as a pretty strong indication that a lot of people supported the project.”

The plans for the bike park renovation include small, medium and large dirt jumps, a pump track, and more. Courtesy photo.

Indeed, bike parks, especially one with fun jumps and a skills course, are hard to find, even in outdoors-conscious Colorado. A group of residents built one nearly a decade ago, sort of, just west of the Farr Library in west Greeley off 20th Street and 63rd Avenue next to the Youth Sports Complex. Greeley’s parks department said they would mow it if the group maintained the trail. That lasted a season before the group essentially broke up, as a couple of them moved away and the rest were unresponsive. Parks removed the obstacles and equipment and left the basic trail. By then, walkers and runners started to use it, and so the city kept it instead of seeding it back over. 

“We actually receive more calls from folks enjoying the walking path than when it was a bike course,” said Eric Bloomer, Parks Superintendent. 

That’s great for runners — ahem, like the author — but shows how difficult it can be to get a skills course going. The bike skills park is the only one in all of the Colorado state parks. 

The staff of Lory State Park are optimistic they can raise the rest of the $40,000 needed to complete the project through grants, donations and perhaps another bike raffle. That will include a large dirt jump line using steel-framed wood jump lips and a curved wall ride. They would install five of those jumps. McBride said he hoped the rest of the park could be built by the end of this summer, but that depends on raising the money. 

Much of the cost covers the materials, as the work is donated by J2 Contracting as well as bike clubs and shops. Volunteers would have to commit to the upkeep of the bike skills course as well, McBride said. 

“Right now it’s a lot of work to build it,” he said. “But it will continue to have to be a volunteer effort. We only have a handful of employees.”

To learn more

To learn more, go to https://www.loryfriends.org/support-your-friends-and-support-your-park 

To support the bike park. Call (970) 235-2045 for more information on the park or Lory State Park.