PORT ANGELES — The largest Velosolutions pump track in the Pacific Northwest, and the first public adaptive track in the nation, will open in Port Angeles on Wednesday.
The grand opening of the 14,442-square-foot pump track will be at 5:30 p.m. at Erickson Playfields, which is on Race Street across from Civic Field.
Record-holder Ian Mackay of Agnew will be present and special appearances are expected by pump track pros Kialani Hines, Jeremy McGhee and Aaron Fotheringham.
After the grand opening, which is free and open to the public, the track will be opened for public use.
The city of Port Angeles Parks & Recreation and the Lincoln Park BMX Association worked together bring a pump track, a rolling series of looping paths that offer a way for children and adults to build bicycling skills in a contained environment away from traffic, to the site in central Port Angeles.
The idea of riding on a pump track is to build enough momentum to slingshot through the turns and fly over the hills so the rider doesn’t have to pedal.
It is designed primarily for bicycles and other wheeled play vehicles.
Planning for a Port Angeles Pump Track started over three years ago when community members discussed installing a pump track as a place where children and adults could freely ride all day long.
Lincoln Park BMX track operator, Sean Coleman, Catharine Copass and Victoria Jones approached Corey Delikat, Port Angeles Parks & Recreation director, about building it.
“Three years later, Port Angeles will have the largest pump track in the Northwest and the first in the country to have an adaptive track element to it,” Delikat said in a press release.
”Projects like this do not happen without public and private sponsorships and support from the community. Sean, Catharine and Victoria are another example of dedicated volunteers that make amazing things happen for our community.”
The track is large enough to host Red Bull UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) National Qualifiers, which needs a minimum track size of 8,000 to 10,000 square feet, organizers said.
It is the largest Velosolutions pump track in the Pacific Northwest, the first adaptive track ever built in the USA by this company and the second of this kind in the world, they said.
The total cost of the track was approximately $880,000.
Of that, $669,950 came from grants including $350,000 from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office (RCO), $200,000 from Clallam County lodging tax funds, $100,000 from City of Port Angeles lodging tax funds, $15,000 from the Outride Fund, $2,500 from Ben and Myrtle Walkling Memorial Trust and $2,450 from Port of Port Angeles Community Partners Fund.
First Fed, the presenting sponsor of the Pump Track, donated $50,000.
In addition, the Kiwanis Club of Port Angeles donated $15,000, Nor’Wester Rotary Foundation, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe each donated $5,000.
Other community businesses that donated funding included Fogtown Coffee, Bedford’s Soda, Agnew Grocery and Feed, GSD Concrete and Construction, Earth Tech Roofing & Construction, Green Crow, Randy Parker Logging, Hartnagels & Angeles Millworks and over 60 individual community members whose combined donations topped $10,000
In addition to cash donations, local businesses donated over $100,000 worth of materials, supplies and services to help build the Pump Track. They included Red Lion Hotel Port Angeles, Angeles Concrete Products, Ferguson Waterworks, Bruch and Bruch, Zenovic & Associates, Clark Surveying, Alex Anderson Concrete, Jockey’s Landscaping, Interwest Construction IncLakeside Industries, Contech Engineered Solutions, GeoTK, C & J Excavating, Green Crow, Fogtown Coffee, Barhops Brewing & Artisan Pizza, The Rail, Shirley’s Cafe, Little Devil’s LunchBox and Buena Luz Bakery.
