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Tucson has some of the best mountain biking in the Southwest — and some of the steepest learning curves. When most of your local trails are raw and rough, getting new riders up to speed takes more than encouragement. It takes infrastructure.
Thanks to $340,000 in funding from a variety of sources, including Arizona State Parks, the Trek Foundation, Sonoran Desert Mountain Bicyclists (SDMB), Athletic Brewing Company, and numerous community donors, the 100-Acre Wood Bike Park is set to re-open this year. According to the city’s materials, the park “will provide Tucson’s growing outdoor recreation community with a unique, purpose-built space for riders of all levels to build skills and connect with nature in the urban core.”
To find out more about the park and the history behind its development, Singletracks spoke to Nat Lopes with Hilride Progression Development Group, LLC (Hilride); Stephanie Kopplin, the Capital Planning & Development Project Manager for the City of Tucson’s Parks and Recreation Department; Bob Burns, the Executive Director of the Trek Foundation; and Dave Slagle with SDMB.
The park first opened in 2019, but it didn’t last long
Pima County and the City of Tucson had incorporated the idea of a bike park into long-range planning documents back in the late 1990s. However, no further action was taken until 2014…