Much of a local bike park built within Moraine Crest Park was taken down at the end of this January after it was discovered by the town and deemed unsafe. This little-known secret has been home to many riders from the surrounding towns, looking for an outlet to express their creativity.
Riders built many jumps and features which they rode their bikes on, some of these riders even spending personal money on materials to build with. Despite all of this, the many wooden features which made this small park different from others are all but gone. These riders are now trail-less, forced to look for a new place to call home, yet perhaps the town can be of some service. If Bernardsville was able to make an official bike park or trails area where riders can build in cooperation with the town, then perhaps these riders won’t be forced to move far.
One particularly invested sophomore rider here at BHS said that a town bike park “would be very beneficial for the community to learn what it means to be a team and create something, somewhere that friends or even parents can build bigger bonds.” He even volunteered an example of a large-scale bike park built with the help of the local town, Berm Park in North Carolina. Considering such places exist, maybe it’s time to start taking into account the possibility of a new public bike park.
The town has a biking and hiking trail system at 271 Mine Brook which would serve as a perfect place for these riders to go and be allowed to create and build new features. BHS sophomore Wiley Downing said that “it would be a great thing for the town. Local riders have been needing a place to go and this would work well.”
Attempts to make the use of these trails for riding more widespread have been in vain, for these trails have been advertised as cyclocross trails, much different from the jumps which these riders are searching for. In addition, the building of these trails could serve as a form of community service for the students and teens in our area, giving them a new and fun way to give back to the town they love.
Although their trails have been taken from them, the riders and future-riders of our town are searching for a new place to enjoy the sport of biking. A public park would do this town a great service, not only by providing a riding place yet also a home in which all ages can come to socialize and shed the stress of their daily lives. As for the old bike park, the more veteran riders will simply have to look upon those memories as good times now gone
