In less than a week, representatives from the city of Sedona, local bike community and the project’s contractor met twice to iron out some ongoing wrinkles while preparing for the second phase of the Sedona Bike Skills Park.
“The purpose of the meetings was to get the volunteers and the city on the same page,” Parks and Recreation Manager Rachel Murdoch said. “We discussed what we do with what we currently have and how we move forward. We still have some stuff to work out but everyone agreed that things have been more positive than negative so far.”
Murdoch said there are aspects of the first phase that still need to be improved upon. All parties agreed that some of the volunteer experts need to be on site not only to assist with any needed changes to the first phase but be on site for the second phase as well. Once work is completed, upkeep of the park will be a collaborative effort between city maintenance crews and the volunteers.
“We have a group who are professionals in this field and are willing to help so let’s work with them,” she said.
Phase two will come before City Council in November for possible funding approval.
Doug Copp, the city’s bicycle coordinator, attended both recent meetings and came away feeling the project is headed in the right direction.
“I believe both meetings went very well and there is agreement on how to move forward. Phase two will include the dual slalom feature and possibly the tot loop,” Copp said, noting that the dual slalom was the most popular feature voted on during public outreach, and also the most expensive feature. “The users want more input and more test riding as phase two is constructed.”
City staff also wants more time spent on coordination between the users and Banicki to reduce the need for rework, Copp said.
“Banicki [the project’s contractor] agrees with what the users and city staff are requesting,” he said. “We talked about how to accomplish this goal. There are details to be worked out, but basically the dual slalom should be roughed in and then ridden by multiple experts and then the terrain features can be built up using feedback from the riders.”
Copp added that because the contractor is liable for safety during construction, it remains to be worked out how local experts can be on site riding during the construction phase.
“Everyone agreed that one user would act as the point of contact to Banicki so we don’t have multiple riders telling the contractor what to do,” he said.
Now that the monsoon is ending, the erosion threat to the trails will decline, Copp said. In August, following a heavy downpour, several areas of the park were damaged. Ironically, water is needed to repair damage caused by rain. Currently, there is water adjacent to the park but not in the park. The original plan was to use a water tank mounted on an ATV to deliver water throughout the park during trail maintenance activity. However, Murdoch said water will be available at the park within the next week.
“We are on a learning curve when it comes to maintaining a bike park,” Copp said in August. “However some of us have many years of trail maintenance experience from working on the trails around Sedona. I am confident this trail maintenance experience can be directly applied to the park.”
Murdoch said that learning curve has yet to be straightened out as this something new to all those involved.
“This has been a learning process for Banicki, for us and for the volunteers,” Murdoch said. “Everyone has stayed positive, especially now that the volunteers feel like they’re being heard. We’re excited about how things are going and we’re also ready to fix those areas that need tweaking and we move forward with the next phase.”
