Big Rock Bike Park continues to expand its offerings
The North Little Rock Parks and Recreation Department officially opened the Big Rock Quarry Bike Park in January 2022. This September, the department hosted the groundbreaking for the Big Dam Bridge North Plaza, a facility designed to improve the outdoor experience for pedestrians and cyclists at the base of the Big Dam Bridge. Other recent improvements along the Arkansas River Trail (ART) in North Little Rock include the city engineering department connecting the trail with a paved path, separated from River Road, between Rockwater Village to Riverview Park. Under the direction of Parks and Recreation Director, Steve Shields, the North Little Rock section of the ART is getting a nice facelift and improved facilities for outdoor recreation.
This week, fabricated equipment arrived at Big Rock Quarry Park as part of the next phase of creating a bicycling destination for all ages and types of riders. According to Shields, there are six skill structures being added this week by American Ramp Company/Progressive Bike Ramps just to the left of the pump track (as you approach from the road). Today, through the weekend, the city will be adding landscaping for both looks and to control erosion around the structures. The city is not planning a dedication but expects to have the new section open by early next week. Funding for this phase came from leftover monies from the pump track construction and the park’s 2022 capital budget.
“This is something we needed, due to the popularity of the pump track, we needed to give users other skills areas to enjoy to relieve congestion.” – Steve Shields.
Director Shields said, “This is something we needed, due to the popularity of the pump track, we needed to give users other skills areas to enjoy to relieve congestion.” When asked about future improvements or added facilities, the director said that he and Mayor Hartwick would be meeting soon to look at more options for the Quarry Park area.
(Photos courtesy of Angry Dave’s Bicycles)
3 Responses
we need flow trails like Bentonville and Northwoods in hot springs. you could take some of the existing MTN bike trails and clean them up and make them flowy and people would ride them. a couple Rock gardens are fine but a mile of rock gardens on a beginner trail like jack rabbit is obscene. Enduro trail riding is out, people want downhill flowy fun. whistler is packed everyday because of the great flow they offer. let’s model ourselves after one of the greatest bike parks to ever exist.
Flow is definitely popular, especially for beginners, but it’s also the most expensive to build and hardest to maintain and does not provide a good multi-use experience. To be clear, I’m not necessarily opposed to them in moderation but their specificity, maintenance, and cost are going to prevent you from seeing a lot them.
Remember back in 2008-09 when the AFS (Arkansas Freeride Society) had dirt jumps and a skills park in the quarry near the golf course? Of course not, because no one would come help build and maintain those. We had skinnies built up on top of the quarry, some large ladder drops, a teeter totter and had started a DH specific trail down the backside of the quarry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQm1YJN_atY (couple videos from back then)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esLcodhd0s0
https://ridemonkey.bikemag.com/threads/afs-dirt-jump-park.211682/
I’m glad to see the City of NLR stepping up finally and doing something out at Emerald, but they had the chance back in ’08 to be at the cutting edge in creating flowy trails with actual dirt jumps. We had a dirt pump track, a beginner table top jump line, an intermediate larger table top line and then a “Pro-line” which had steeper and much larger jumps with gaps and even had an on-off jump box. At the time the city said that they would help us out, that never came to fruition and as a core of 4 of us were the only ones maintaining the jumps, it became too much to deal with when people would come ride motorcycles and 4 wheelers after a rain and rut up the jumps and pump track. Not to mention we were using our own money to provide tools and run the website to generate interest and our own gas and weed eaters to do regular maintenance. Glad to see the city finally stepping up, I just hope they realize it could have been done over 15 years ago and NLR would have had the same clout as NWA does.