Getting it done on their own

By Chris Lewis | July 22, 2021

CBS youths tackle construction of bike trail

A group of Conception Bay South youths have set out to build a mount bike trail all their own, without a cent of help or shovel of clay from any level of government.

After growing tired of their usual riding spots, Pacey Stoyles, Cole Walsh, Henry Richards, Braydon Evans, Zachary Lawrence, and Nathan Windsor – alongside a few other friends – have been spending the last couple of weeks making a new trail.

“We just got kind of tired of our usual jump spots,” said Evans.

“We’d always see all these cool trails around and decided we wanted our own,” added Stoyles.

Usually, the group would take their bikes to the T’Railway and make do with what that trail offered, but as time went on they found themselves wanting a trail that was a little more customized for their hobby.

So, they found a dirt path near Sgt. Ned Nugent’s Park in Kelligrews that they felt would be the perfect fit for them and their bikes.

And they got to work.

For nearly two weeks, the boys have been spending sometimes upwards of eight hours a day with tools they bring from home, clearing the path and turning it into something suitable for their biking adventures.

“We have to clear away a lot of moss. That’s one of the biggest things,” said Walsh.

“We’ve chopped away branches and small trees, clearing it all out of the way. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also a lot of fun,” Richards added.

While they hope the trail will be used by many others, they are also sprucing it up with features that are specific to their own wants when it comes to biking. This includes things for them to jump their bikes from, and berms, or small inclines in the dirt, to help make turns easier to manage.

The boys are all between the ages of 12 and 15 and have picked up mountain biking as a hobby over the course of the last three or four years. That being said, they all claim to have been riding bikes since they were toddlers.

“We want this to be a bit of a downhill trail, where you can pick up speed and do jumps and stuff like that,” Walsh explained. “It’s all about getting airtime and having fun.”

They suspect the trail will be pretty big once all their work is done and hope to show their progress to more people soon. The goal is to have it done within a month or two.