When a group of local bikers showed up at the Slope Line bike park on the afternoon of May 5, they were shocked at what they saw.
Their hand-constructed park was ruined. Wooden jumps had pick axes smashed into them. One was torn down. Dirt features had had shovels taken to them, ruining the smooth edges and rims that had taken years to construct. A water hose that flowed down to the creek had been cut in two places. A garbage bin, bike rack and recycling container had been pushed over. The tools the bikers use to construct the park were scattered, some thrown into the creek itself.
“I was livid. It was like a punch in the face,” says Dalton Anderson, one of the founders of the park. He’s been working on the area for over three years to turn it into what it is today.
“Anything that had a bit of a wiggle, they pushed it out.”
Clayton Chamberlain, who also helps to manage and maintain the area, estimates that the damage would have taken several hours and more than one person to complete.
“When I came up this morning, I just sat down, I was so frustrated. So much time and effort just destroyed overnight,” he says.
The timing is particularly heartbreaking for the bikers.
One of their friends, Tyler Tenning, a 17-year-old student from Williams Lake who helped construct a number of the jumps in the park, died in a rollover on April 29.
The bikers are planning on hosting a memorial jam for the teen over the May long weekend.
They say it’s been a tough week already.
“It is two weeks until we are hosting this memorial jam for Tyler and somebody comes up and does this. It’s just like icing on the cake,” says Chamberlain.
Anderson and Chamberlain have been working on the park for years and pay for insurance so the park can stay on district land. The park is located up from the purple bridge in Centennial Park.
They say they have no idea who might have caused the damage.
The park has faced controversy in the past, because of its location on district land, but the group now has an agreement with the District of 100 Mile House to maintain the location.
Their dream is to make it more accessible for a variety of levels of riders.
But before then, they have to repair the damage.
On Saturday afternoon about 10 people were up at the park, with shovels, chainsaws and pickaxes already working to put the jumps back together.
“We’re just going to rebuild everything and start from scratch. Sturdy everything up so if they try to do it again, it doesn’t really happen,” says Anderson.
“We’re just going to make it beefier so they can’t take it down.”
The group says that they would appreciate any help in order to make the park usable before the memorial jam on May 19. They also ask that anyone with any information on who might have caused the damage contact the RCMP.
Anderson can be reached via email at dalton727@hotmail.com or via the group’s Facebook page: The Slope Line.
They plan to be at the site every day until the jumps are usable again.
“This is our life, this is what we do every day. It’s what we love to do,” says Chamberlain.
