New riders and seasoned shredders alike — dust off your mountain bike and get ready to hit some trails.
During a virtual open house on July 23, Corvallis Parks and Recreation unveiled the final design concept for a new bike park on the north side of town.
With a wide range of trail elements, the park will be a fun, challenging and safe space for riders of all experience levels.
“This park is not just trails and jumps,” Project Director Meredith Petit said. “It’s really about connection and community. We’re just really excited to see what it can do (as) a public space that helps develop confidence in youth … where families can come together and play (and) where people feel welcome and like they belong.”
The park will offer a looped pump track where beginners can practice generating speed and momentum without using their pedals. A skills course and bike playground will feature specialized elements that allow riders to practice bike handling, balancing, jumping and turning.
In other areas of the park, cyclists can pedal up climbing trails, then descend on jump/flow segments. Gravity trails will offer elements that mimic natural obstacles frequently found on mountain bike trails in the Pacific Northwest.
The park’s entry plaza will have accessible shelters, picnic areas and informal turf seating where family and friends can hang out. Public restrooms, water fountains and lighting will ensure public safety and comfort. Bike repair stations, bike racks and bike staging areas will be open for use as well. Parking spaces in front of the entry plaza will have room to accommodate vehicles loaded with bikes.
The project team includes Petit, Project Manager Travis North, landscape architecture firm Walker Macy, Chris Bernhardt with C2 Recreation Consulting and an advisory board. The board has nine people on it, three of whom were elected through public process and six of which are allied professionals.
Together, the project team designed the park to reflect widespread community input gathered through online surveys and in-person events held this spring.
One group closely following the project is Oregon State University’s cycling club. The majority of the club’s members specialize in mountain biking and trail racing, so the incoming bike park is of great interest to them.
The club frequents the McDonald and Dunn Research Forests in North Corvallis for their training rides, but trails there can be overly technical and difficult to navigate for inexperienced riders, Nico Parodi, the club’s women’s coordinator, said. Other areas which cater to mountain bikers are too far away for the club to visit consistently. The new bike park will give club members a place to train that is more accessible and welcoming, especially for those who are just starting out with the sport.
“I’m personally really excited for the skills area they’re putting in,” Parodi said, “so you can have progression if you’re trying to learn drops or jumps, in a controlled environment that is less scary.”
“The nearest skills park that I’m aware of,” Parodi added, “is Black Rock (Mountain Bike Area) and it’s not very progressive. There’s like a 2 foot drop and then a 10 foot drop and no in between.” The new bike park’s skills course, by contrast, is designed to build confidence.
The bike park will be constructed on a five-acre rectangle wedged between Chip Ross Natural Area, Timberhill Natural Area and Lester Avenue. The site was selected, according to the City of Corvallis website, “because of its proximity to existing local and regional recreational amenities, including miles of outdoor trails.”
Overlook platforms and wetland boardwalks will offer a twofold advantage in protecting the property’s sensitive wetlands and giving cyclists a place to regroup off trail. In addition, there will be ongoing efforts to remove invasive species from the property and to plant native oaks trees.
Finding the site was not an easy task. Real estate agent Tim Rist helped Parks and Recreation in their search for the right property. Few people, he said, were willing to sell property in the area at a price that the city could afford. But things worked out. Plans are in place to purchase the property once Parks and Recreation receives land use approval for the site.
Construction on the park is set to begin in the summer or fall of 2026 after the design has been refined. Cyclists can expect the park to open in early 2027.
Whether all the trails will stay open year round is yet to be determined. The construction team plans to use wood features in some areas of the park and these will likely need extensive maintenance throughout Oregon’s wet season. Rock and dirt features, so long as they have proper drainage, Parodi explained, often hold up better in the rain.
The project is estimated to cost $2.1 million from start to finish. It is funded partly by Parks and Recreation’s System Development Charge Fund, which collects one-time fees on new development across the city. The money is saved for projects, like the bike park, which benefit the broader community and alleviate stresses to infrastructure caused by population growth.
The project team also hopes to receive money from corporate sponsorships, donors, and grants. Extra funds that they receive will be used for future park maintenance.
The project team is excited for what’s in store. “It’s a really beautiful site,” North said. “You really can’t have a more beautiful site.”
