Bike Park Archives | Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation

Dig Deep! Strawberry Hill Bike Park campaign launches, March 22-24

Dig Deep! Strawberry Hill Bike Park campaign launches, March 22-24

Dig deep! The Strawberry Hill Bike Park campaign launches March 22-24 with a weekend of events for families and riders of all ages, sponsored by the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation.

Proceeds from all events support construction of the island’s first-ever dedicated bike park at Strawberry Hill Park for riders of all ages. The 8-acre bike park will feature 1.5 miles of riding trails with challenging features like jumps, flyovers and berms. A special skill-building area will welcome new riders or those honing their bike riding skills.

The Parks & Trails Foundation and Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District hope to break ground on the Bike Park this fall. The Foundation is about halfway to the $450,000 fundraising goal, and donors at all levels are encouraged to give today to support the Bike Park.

“Bainbridge Island is a biking community that generously supports […]

Dig Deep! Strawberry Hill Bike Park campaign launches, March 22-24Douglas2024-04-01T11:06:01-07:00

Forest thinning underway at Strawberry Hill

Forest thinning underway at Strawberry Hill

Even a skinny tree makes quite a WHUMP when it hits the ground.

As we are there to hear it, an age-old philosophical question remains unsettled. In any case there are the echoes, reverberating through the misty morning and across the island to herald that forest thinning at Strawberry Hill Park has, in fact, begun.

WHUMP.

“It’s a shocking sound for such a small tree, isn’t it?,” reflects Lydia Roush, Parks Superintendent for Bainbridge Metro Parks. “But they’re so dense, and Douglas fir is heavy.”

It’s a first-of-its-kind project on the island: restoring an overdense, profoundly unhealthy forest through aggressive thinning and strategic replanting, while at the same time carving out chute-like paths for the new bike trails that soon will criss-cross down the hillside.

About 40 percent of the trees are coming out. In the shadow of those […]

Forest thinning underway at Strawberry HillDouglas2024-03-05T07:51:43-08:00

Sign up for a fall work party

Sign up for a fall work party

Conservation Work Party

Where: Strawberry Hill Park, 7666 Highschool Road NE

When: Saturday, Oct. 14 (2nd Saturday), 10:00a-12:00p

What: Join the Park District, Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, Gear Grinders, and the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation this fall, preparing the site of the future mountain bike park for new trails and features. Projects will include removing invasive species, building habitats, and planting native plants.

Well-suited for children ages six and up who are comfortable using small hand tools and walking off trail on uneven surfaces.

REGISTER HERE

Trails Work Party

Where: Gazzam Lake Nature Preserve

When: Saturday, Oct. 21 (3rd Saturday), 10:00a-12:00p

What: Join the Park District’s trails team, the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation at Gazzam Lake Nature Preserve this fall, maintaining trail surfacing, improving trail drainage, and closing social trails in sensitive wildlife habitat.

These work parties are well suited for children ages eight and up who are comfortable using some small hand tools and […]

Sign up for a fall work partyDouglas2023-10-13T15:09:47-07:00

In the news: ‘Overpasses a safety feature at BI bike park,’ Bainbridge Island Review

In the news: ‘Overpasses a safety feature at BI bike park,’ Bainbridge Island Review

Bainbridge Island Review

Jan. 5

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND – Overpasses over intersections help vehicles get from one place to another safely, and the same will be true at Bainbridge Island’s new mountain bike park.

They are planned as a safety feature to help the flow of cyclists on the trails. But bike committee member David Maron said they’re more than that. “The idea of creating artistically designed overpasses is very important to making it feel like a special place,” he said at a recent meeting of the Bainbridge Island Metro Parks & Recreation District.

Parks Natural Resources manager Lydia Roush said staff has been working with Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance to design the park. The committee has hosted two community walk-throughs, and one more is planned. They will also be working with the BI Parks & Trails Foundation to fundraise. The bike park will be located on the 10-acre parcel west of Strawberry Hill Park; land […]

In the news: ‘Overpasses a safety feature at BI bike park,’ Bainbridge Island ReviewDouglas2023-01-06T13:46:25-08:00

In the news: ‘Plans rolling along for mountain bike trails,’ Kitsap Sun

In the news: ‘Plans rolling along for mountain bike trails,’ Kitsap Sun

Great coverage of the Strawberry Hill Bike Park in the Kitsap Sun:

Plans rolling along for mountain bike trails at Strawberry Hill Park in Bainbridge Island

NATHAN PILLING | KITSAP SUN

Dec. 21, 2022

BAINBRIDGE ISLAND – Mountain bikers could soon be whizzing down a network of trails on a forested property at Strawberry Hill Park.

A $1 million donation funded the Bainbridge Island Metropolitan Park District’s purchase of the site last year, and plans for new bike and dog park areas began to move ahead. The Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, hired to do design and construction work on the new bike park, presented a look at designs at the district’s board meeting last week. The group detailed plans for crisscrossing trails of varying difficulty levels with skills areas and other specially designed features.

Lydia Roush, natural resources manager for the park district, noted to board members that the site has previously […]

In the news: ‘Plans rolling along for mountain bike trails,’ Kitsap SunDouglas2023-01-06T13:20:28-08:00

Designing a bike park for every rider at Strawberry Hill

Designing a bike park for every rider at Strawberry Hill

Matt Blossom grew up on a simpler island, in a simpler time.

It was the 1980s, and on Bainbridge Island the people were fewer, the houses farther apart, the property lines less distinct. Blossom could ride his Yamaha dirt bike from his parents’ house in Eagledale to Walt’s Market in Lynwood Center, or wherever else, and nobody really seemed to mind.

“Bainbridge was a great place to grow up,” says Blossom, a fifth generation islander on both sides. “As a kid you feel isolated, but once you leave and come back, you realize what a special community it is.”

Knowing island back roads and byways as well as anyone and better than most, even Blossom was surprised when, last year, he first set foot on the former Hayashida property northwest of Strawberry Hill Park.

The historic strawberry farm was now a rolling hillside of […]

Designing a bike park for every rider at Strawberry HillDouglas2023-02-17T16:36:10-08:00

Strawberry Hill Bike Park presentation is Dec. 15

Strawberry Hill Bike Park presentation is Dec. 15

The Strawberry Hill Bike Park plan will be presented to the public at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15 at Bainbridge Island Recreation Center.

Park designer Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance will present the plan to the Bainbridge Metro Parks board as part of its regular monthly meeting.

Strawberry Hill Bike Park will be built on approximately 8 acres in the park’s northwest corner. Features will include approximately 1.5 miles of wooded trails, berms, jumps, flyovers and more, with areas for bike riders of all ages and skill levels and a special skill-building area.

The park is designed by Seattle-based nonprofit Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, with the help of local mountain bikers.

Find out more at www.biparksfoundation.org/bikepark.

Strawberry Hill Bike Park presentation is Dec. 15Douglas2023-01-03T18:04:05-08:00

Restoring a forest at Strawberry Hill

Restoring a forest at Strawberry Hill

Trees this tall shouldn’t be this thin.

Bundled like pencils they stand, ring upon ring of bare, withered branches scaling their skinny trunks toward tiny puffs of green canopy aloft. In a Pacific Northwest defined by majestic forests of Douglas fir, the trees on the new Strawberry Hill Park addition have never quite made the grade. Now the challenge is helping the best ones move forward.

“It should not be this heavily stocked for this size of tree,” says Lydia Roush, natural resources manager for Bainbridge Metro Parks, scanning the rolling stands of troubled firs along park’s west edge. “It’s kind of a miracle more trees haven’t come down, or they’re not in even worse shape.”

The 10-acre parcel reflects the shifting uses of the island landscape, its natural and cultural history. Ancient forests were cleared for timber and, here, agriculture. Several generations of berry […]

Restoring a forest at Strawberry HillDouglas2022-11-23T11:57:39-08:00