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I got my first mountain bike at age 11 — probably the most life-changing gift my parents ever gave me. With those two wheels, my world expanded a hundred fold. The freedom, sense of exploration, and opportunity to test myself helped me develop confidence, friends and a sense of myself at a very young. The idea of a place like Riverton Trolley Park wasn’t anywhere in my imagination, but we still wanted to get airborne. We would lap a ditch in the neighborhood instead, which was as close as we could get. One night on her way home, my mom nearly hit me in her car as I came flying out of that ditch.
This Wednesday, after four years of hard work, we were able to open Riverton Trolley Bike Park for the first time with our partners at Portland Parks Conservancy, Portland Parks & Recreation, and Maine Trail Builders. We have some great social media to share from that event here and here (thanks in part to Jamie Walter, who also shared the photo above!). The city expected 50 people to show up. With your help, we turned out more than 200. It’s safe to say we proved to community leaders across Portland that there is a huge demand for bike infrastructure like this new bike park, with folks ages 3-70 enjoying every second riding, pumping, and jumping the new features. We’ve built relationships, trust, and results we can now build on for additional project in and around Portland.
Knowing every kid in Portland now has access to a safe and professionally designed bike park to access every benefit of a life on bikes that I enjoyed as a kid without dodging cars or building sketchy rogue jumps is an incredible feeling. We had our turn at the mic, and shared our vision for building Greater Portland into a world class bike community, and how significant of a milestone the opening of Riverton is on our journey to realizing that vision. It is truly a milestone around which I believe the future of the Greater Portland riding scene will pivot.
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