Does seeing a nice, tall curb-cut ever remind you of the first time you got both wheels off the ground? Travis had been chasing that dragon for decades until a leg injury brought him swiftly down to earth. But then he found an unlikely path back to dirt jumping when it finally became possible to find a really good public bike park.

I don’t skate, but I understand how a skateboard works. That’s why I’m so confused when I see bad skateparks. It should be obvious that a 3-foot quarter shouldn’t have a foot of vert. Or that 40″ is too tall for a fun-box ledge. Or that just because something looks cool, doesn’t mean it rides well. Those types of oversights can leave new skaters bored or frustrated. Not because progressing as a skater is often boring or frustrating, but just because a city’s parks & rec department underestimated the expertise needed to do it right.

These days, there’s no excuse for bad skate parks. A robust industry of consultants, designers, and builders has emerged to help cities identify and meet their needs. And bike parks have finally started catching up. By the way, by “bike park,” I don’t mean destinations like Whistler or Les Gets. I mean small municipal parks with dirt jumps, a pump track, and maybe some wooden skinnies off to the side. Specifically, it’s the dirt jumps I’m here to talk about, because before bike parks caught up, they were usually boring or frustrating.

I used to look down my nose at public bike parks. To me, most featured what I call “dead-end jumps.” Even the worst skateparks have room for creativity. But three sets of straight table-tops is just paint-by-numbers, and there aren’t many colors to work with. So, if you want to experience the artful flow of a meandering line of tall, steep lips and landings, you’ll have to build them yourself. And that’s what I did for over 20 years of my life.

R.I.P. Marina Hills (left) R.I.P. Regency (right)

The lines we would create didn’t have to satisfy concerned city officials or cater to the lowest common denominator. We just needed a forgotten corner of dirt and a way to bring water to it. My friends and I pulled some beautiful lines out of the ground, most of which eventually got plowed. But every time, we would move on and rebuild. We’d start by iterating on the best and biggest features of the spot that we left behind. It’s an odd type of evolution, where repeated failure results in the new generation being better (and bigger) than the last.

And that’s great, until it’s not. I may be a top-tier builder, but I’m a mid-tier rider. While our terrain progressed, I always struggled to keep up. It seemed like every few years, I would suddenly and spectacularly run out of talent. And never so spectacularly as October 20th of 2019. We had a pretty technical right-berm-to-right-hip that required a lot of lateral force to line up. More than a month off my dirt-jump bike had left me sorely out of practice, and on the first run of the day, I got sideways on that hip and stuck out my left leg upon overshooting the landing in hopes of staying upright. It didn’t work. I shattered my tibia, and rang my bell pretty hard in the process. I remember the first thing I said when I came to was, “my life is gonna change.”

I wouldn’t get off crutches for almost four months, and not before an infection had me on a six-week course of IV antibiotics at the out-of-pocket cost of $4,000. I’d broken bones before, but this was different. So, when my post-injury grief entered the bargaining stage, I promised The Universe that I’d stop dirt jumping if I could someday get back on a mountain bike. Eventually that happened, and I made peace with my long BMX chapter coming to an end. Or so I thought.

Photos: Lear Miller

I spent a weekend at a friend’s property in Marin County, where I was a captive audience to his pump track and one very non-threatening tabletop. The feeling of hitting a proper transition, combined with lining up next to friends atop a roll-in was just too good. I decided then and there I would break my promise to The Universe. As soon as I got home, I did what over-the-hill BMXers have been doing for years. I ordered a 26” dirt jumper.

Specifically, a Propain Trickshot (now called the Trickshot 2 Pro). Quick bike-review sidebar: If reading this leaves you inspired to go risk it all, I think the Trickshot offers the most bang for the buck. The stock fork, cranks, and wheels are often seen on bikes that cost $500 more. This meant shelving my 24” bike, which was an innovative BMX/MTB hybrid of my own design. But I needed something more forgiving. Still, that wouldn’t be enough. It had been five years since I’d hit a proper jump. I couldn’t suddenly start riding how and where I rode when I was in my 30s. My old trails were (and are) still going strong, but I had to start somewhere friendlier, with a long gradual progression curve. I had to start at a public bike park.

Right about when I broke my leg, Sapwi Bike Park in Thousand Oaks, California was just opening up, of course including jumps, a pump track, and a couple skinnies off to the side. There’s a beginner and intermediate line that are just straight table tops, but they are not dead ends. The advanced and expert lines start with rollers and step-downs. They’re then followed by hips that turn both directions, both sharp and gradual. Each jump in the advanced and expert line has a gap, but each landing has a generous case pad and even more generous runout.

Photo: Chris Wellhausen

Then a few years later came Bradley Bike Park in San Marcos. The gaps are shorter here than at Sapwi, and the pits are tighter. It’s got a skate-park-like verticality to match its skate-park-like surface. The shape and traction are always predictable, and you never have to water to keep the runways from crumbling. There’s a consistency to the experience at both Bradley and Sapwi that I can only describe as comforting.

Photo: Chris Wellhausen

That’s hard to find at a traditional underground spot. Even with the most dedicated digging crew, there are limitations to how much dirt can be harvested, or how much space is available. You work with the topogrophy you’re given, and the water you bring. There are compromises that sometimes manifest in having too much speed here, too little speed there. Lips that are a little bucky, landings that are a little skinny.

But at a public bike park, I felt like I was in good hands. I could follow a local without fearing that there would be some hidden trick required to make it through a line. After the recent years I had spent with my wheels (mostly) on the ground, it only took an afternoon for the body position, the muscle memory, and the confidence to return. Aside from a lot of extra wisdom and a little extra back pain, I feel like I never left.

Photos: Chris Wellhausen

I guess we all just needed to be patient until America’s public bike parks fully matured. That required enough motivated locals to start asking for jumps that aren’t dead ends, and enough experienced professionals to start providing them. And now, the progression-focused, all-level jump park is a proven model. If a local citizen or local organization wants to push their city to build something of quality, they have countless successful examples to point to. It has finally happened.

Photos: Chris Wellhausen

And this wasn’t even the most surprising thing about my journey. I think I always had faith that public parks would eventually grow up. If it happened while I was still young enough, I could reasonably picture myself opting to ride a public park on the days I don’t feel like riding my secret spot. But until I experienced that for myself, I hadn’t realized how often I simply can’t ride my secret spot.

I mean, I always can ride it. I’m back, baby. But the fact that it’s a secret spot is a problem sometimes. Only a handful of people know bout it. And when we’re not there, we chain it off. You could probably cut it with a pocket-sized bolt cutter, but the locals-only message has long been clear. And unfortunately, that message doesn’t help shore up membership numbers. In fact, as people get old, get busy, get kids, or move away, the numbers tend to go down.

Photos: Chris Wellhausen

I don’t ride alone. For one thing, it’s dangerous. For another thing, it’s boring. I want someone out there with me. Unfortunately, at many spots, there’s maybe only a dozen guys (and they’re usually all guys) who you can text to try stirring up a session. It doesn’t always happen. But on evenings and weekends, there’s always always someone at the public bike park. Probably a few people you know, probably a bunch you don’t, and probably a couple from out-of town. Maybe a pro BMX racer or a retired mountain bike racer will stop by. Or maybe a kid who doesn’t know how good they have it or a Polish-born truck driver from Ohio.

Photo: Chris Wellhausen

That kind of thing happens all the time at public parks. It’s there in the name. They’re public. They can have publicity. They can have an instagram page with an address. They can have open work days and fundraisers. They can have parking lots and drinking fountains. They can have hoses and tool sheds. And they can have a reasonable assurance that, as long as everyone behaves, they won’t get plowed.

I don’t think underground spots will ever go away. Some areas will just never see enough organized support to make a public park happen. And it takes a lot of support. I went on my own naive journey trying to build a park in Orange County, California. I learned some things in the process. Like how world-class spots like Chicago IL’s Garden, Bethlehem PA’s Catty Woods, or Queenstown NZ’s Gorge Road all had a head start thanks to their open-minded land mangers. That just isn’t going to happen everywhere.

But the other reason there’ll always be underground spots is why there’ll always be street skating. Some riders just don’t want the pristine, sanitized landscape that they find in a municipal bike park. They value ultimate freedom and creativity, despite the risks. And those riders may always be the ones pushing the sport forward, perhaps further influencing public bike parks years down the road. As for those of us who want to stay safe, but not too safe, there’s never been a better time.