Sunday Parkways kids bike skills area

Yesterday, June 21st, was the first of three Sunday Parkways events in Portland.

Basically, the City barricades off a route on city streets between several parks where old and young can walk, skate, pull the Radio Flyer wagon, bike safely and otherwise commute between parks in a given "quadrant" of the city, safely, without motor vehicle traffic. Yesterday was North Portland's turn; NE is on July 19th; and SE is on August 16th.

Volunteers from the Northwest Trail Alliance (NWTA, formerly PUMP), led by Will Heiberg (same individual who's also been active pushing Portland to get a pump track), have built a skills area of small teeter-totters, skinnies and bridges for kids (and all ages) to enjoy at these events. Yesterday we were setup in Kenton Park and the area was a great success! Lots of smiles on the kids/parents/others who played on the features. Bikeportland had a nice little write-up on the event which has a couple of photos of the features, and this supportive quote:

Jonathon Maus said:

North of Arbor Lodge is Kenton Park. All day I'd been hearing a buzz from people about the skills park that Northwest Trail Alliance (formerly known as PUMP) had set up so I had to check it out for myself. I was not disappointed. Skills park advocate Will Heiberg and his crew had set up a simple, fun course that consisted of narrow, balance-beam sections; a curvy track about 2-feet wide; and a few little teeter-totter ramps.

The kids were eating it up. Portland needs a permanent home for this type of thing. If we can have a network of skateparks, than surely we can find some space for bike skills parks. Sunday Parkways gave Heiberg a perfect lab to test his idea and it was a major success (please take note City Hall).

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Photos:




If you have a chance to get out for the Parkways event in July/August, stop by and try out the features (you/your kids/your friends). We had kids, adults, training wheels, Extracycles, Big Dummies, unicycles and people/rigs of all sorts testing the area yesterday.

Next Location:
July 16th: NE Portland, Alberta Park

More info:
Northwest Trail Alliance Sunday Parkways Bike Skills Area

Hope to see you there--

PS- Looks like the skills area will also be setup at the Portland Mountain Bike Short Track Series at PIR