Im also planning on checking out eastern passage today on a quick investigation
Made to the Eastern Passage BMX park yesterday. How did I not know this was here? It’s a good size park. Small jumps, berms and a pumptrack. The park looks like it could use a bit of maintenance. The features look a little worn down and rutted. Some of the berms look grassy and unused. Drainage also looks to be an issue as it’s collecting water in some places.
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This one was a super late season build followed by a monsoon. Then no maintenance but I believe the 3 pooling issues, and such will be sorted as early as possible this season. Super sad how some of the park funding is forced to happen at certain periods of the year when we make firm recommendations to not be doing this kind of work… It’s awesome when it’s running well and such, Eric. You can flow the entire park without pedaling and it’s a really great sized park. There are a few really sneaky hidden lines, too.
Eric - New Glasgow has not received maintenance in maybe 6-7 years since originally built. If it has, it wasn’t us.
The wood structures are still as solid as day 1. The dirt is dirt, and has eroded a tonne. The pump ring is pretty cool. It’s elevated and with 10-15 mins of shovel love is really fast. At least a few years ago when I last passed through for a little spin.
WRT the HRM parks - contact your councillors and let them know how much you love these parks. Last year the budgets for most included a few hours of hand work. No dirt. They all need dirt, and machine work big time now but stoked for the season and working to try and bring more knowledge of the parks to communities and users.
The Dirtworks site is awful considering I’m a web developer. The business is a labour of love, and really going to see some focus this summer on getting our assets up to snuff. Maybe recommending a few of them be axed from city maint, and adopted by clubs who would show more interest.
All of the parks are super fun and fluid when prime. Once the ground is firm enough to hold machines, the servicing should start 
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Thanks @nimzie! I’ve really enjoyed your work over the years. I found a youtube vid of opening day at the Eastern Passage park, and it looked awesome (I see you in it too). Glad to hear it will get some love and work this year. I’ll contact my councillor and let them know I appreciate the dirt parks, and see if we can get more info on them on the HRM webpage.
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So… move New Glasgow Bike Park into the “Active” list?
I’ll be living in the Beaver Bank area again starting this summer, I can provide manual labour and some shovels/spades, if anyone has any experience in building I’d be eager to help out on this track during my days off work.
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I know for a fact you guys know Glenbourne is active (I ride there and there’s others I see regularly). I do general stuff like keeping grass of the berms and fill in ruts but I don’t do alot of work on the jumps because the sets I use are in good-ish shape. I have notice someone/some people have been fixing up the big set, added in a small gap jump and a big gap jump, and cleaned up the big berm. The pump track sees little use as far as I know. If any of you guys or any of you know of who’s doing work, let me know, I’d be happy to lend a hand.
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I used the pump track a ton last year, but that was after I put a ton of work into making it ride able again fixing all the bomb holes and ruts made by kids in the rain. I ran by there the other week and the pump track is in worse shape than it was last spring and I just can’t commit the time to trying to fix the whole thing sadly. I love going down after work to blast around, but the lack of any maintenance at the city parks is less than ideal. It’s one thing to expect the riders to take care of the park and do small maintenance work, but they should bring someone in to at least get things back into riding shape in my opinion. They hired someone to build the park, they can hire someone to do at least a spring tune up and let us riders take it from there, but that’s just my opinion and I’m aware it matters to no one, especially the city.
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Yeah, they should really do something. The least they could do is organize a build day for riders, come give us fresh dirt and tools and have people come out. They’ll have to be somewhat experienced riders telling people where to put the dirt but i’m sure if that person is a constant rider of glenbourne they probably wouldn’t mind, just for an afternoon or two. The small tabletops are in okay-ish condition but i don’t ride them a ton, they are fun. The medium set seems to be the one that is currently getting worked on, because the first jump seems like it’s in the process of being changed.
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As was mentioned above, contact your councillor (district 12-Richard Zurawski). Let him know the park is well used and needs some work. Maybe mention its a safety issue if it’s not maintained.
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Hey guys - I have been lobbying to bring the machine in and get more dirt. My best recommendation is to call 311 and report the park. All of them. As much / often as you can.
Without data - the city just sees the parks as more work. Give a call to 311, and your councillors! It only takes a minute. Losing parks would be a huge loss for the city. I’m at Glenbourne at least weekly and even though the pump track sucks, it’s great for my 2.5 year old and I to play in. There are almost always others there.
With new dirt and a proper day or 2 with the build crew - the parks would all be super pumped up.
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the idea is just that - there’s supposed to be a crew build early season to bring dirt and things up to snuff - then riders can generally self-maintain (i.e. similarly to golfers fixing their divets)…
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Called 311. Was not able to put work requests in for all parks at once. Had to do individually, so put requests in for Mt. Edward, Eastern Passage, Glenbourne, and Cameron Park in Wellington.
Also asked if the bike parks could be put up on the Recreation page of the HRM website, but the person I talked to said that could not be done from her end, and gave me a number which turned out to be the HRM recreation registration line, so that person couldn’t help me, but did help me find the work request section of their website, so I submitted an electronic work request.
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I visited Fall River jumps and Cameron Park in Wellington today.
Fall River - I think the park used to have three lines of jumps. The middle (medium) jump line is gone. There’s only a small jump line and a big jump line. There are two jumps on the lower level. The small jumps are really small - they really only provide some interest on your way back to the roll-in. The big jumps are too big for me. They’d be fine if they were table tops, but they’re a little scooped in the middle, so a bit intimidating to me. The two jumps on the lower level are moderate size, and OK for me, but the berm at the bottom is a little small and grassy and the front wheel washed out over the grass at the end of the berm.
Cameron Park - Small jumps - good size for beginners, but the roll-in is really small. Had to pedal after the roll-in to get enough speed to get air. There are two lines of jumps - a two-set and a four-set. One of the two-set has had the middle dug out to make a double. I’m still a noob and don’t ride doubles, so I didn’t ride the two-set.
Fall river is a blast for sure. Would like to see something put in the middle of the two lines though, more variety and could serve a nice stepping stone to work up between the sets. The small line is hardly more than a pump line and the big set can be intimidating for most. Lots of space and potential
And i totally know what you mean about the berm At the bottom, its hard to get into it without feeling like youre going to wash out or spill over the top
This was my first visit and attempt at the park, im just a beginner but it was tricky to get into the berm off that bottom jump the first try. I completely missed the berm on my first go at the jump on the bottom left as you can see haha