Mountain biking pump tracks could pop up in suburbs across Wollongong if a new trial track set up in Figtree over the weekend goes well.
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The track, at Harry Graham Park, was built on Friday by Wollongong City Council workers and Canberra-based trail construction company Iconic Trails, after being designed over the past few months by children living in the area.
The project started when environmental officers noticed that unofficial and unsafe trails were being built by kids in the nearby creek bed.
"They had been excavating the creek line and there was a bit of damage to some of our trees," the council's natural areas officer Greg Fikkers said. "We see these type of tracks - which can be pretty unsafe - popping up within sensitive natural areas across the city, especially in the school holidays."
"So what we proposed was to build safer tracks in more appropriate locations so we can restore the natural locations. And the idea is that, as well as riding on the track, kids can help build and maintain as well."
The track caters to "riders from two-year-olds on balance bikes through to grown men who should know better" and has been rolled out as a trial. Over the coming months its success will rely on co-operation from children and other users.
"We've entrusted them to help keep the site clean and tidy and if it all works out we'll keep the trail," Mr Fikkers said.
"The informal trails will be restored, and my ultimate goal would be to build these in lots of safer and more appropriate areas across Wollongong.
"We want to use the kids' enthusiasm and energy. All throughout the suburbs you can walk through these green corridors of park - we mow a whole heap of these areas - but there's no formal recreation there."
"I envisage a strong relationship between the council and bike riding community."
He said there were no plans set in stone, pending the outcome of the trial, but that he would like to see suburban pump tracks "well entrenched" throughout Wollongong by the time the UCI world road cycling championships are held in the city in 2022.
On Tuesday afternoon, Mount Keira dad David Berry was one of dozens of residents trying out the new Figtree track with his children, Olivia, 6, and Matthew, 3.
He said he was thrilled and surprised by how quickly the council had moved to install the track, and hoped any teething problems would be able to be worked out to make the facility permanent.
"It's been absolutely packed - there's little kids, big kids, people walking past and it all seems to be going smoothly so far," he said.
"Olivia loves it - she's been on several pump tracks and BMX tracks, but with this one her school is 50 metres away and this is on the route we would normally go to school. It's fantastic for the area."
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Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
