Valmont Bike Park Opens

Jun 17, 2011

Source: Alpine Bike Parks | Jason Sumner

On a sunny Saturday afternoon at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, City of Boulder officials led a ribbon cutting ceremony, marking the official opening of Valmont Bike Park, a 40-acre paradise for cycling enthusiasts of all ages, abilities and interests.

Features of this game-changing facility include a progressive slopestyle course, cross-country trails, a dual slalom track, a UCI-approved cyclocross circuit, pump tracks and dirt jumps. Best of all, the park is free and open to the public.

Fifteen years in the making, Valmont was a true community effort that came to fruition through the united effort of a passionate cycling community, a forward-thinking parks and recreation department, and one of the best bike park builders in the business, Alpine Bike Parks, LLC out of Whistler, Canada.

Video from opening weekend:


Alpine’s all-star team of builders and shapers included professional fabricators and excavation professionals and trendsetters like former World Four-Cross Champion Eric Carter, and pro dirt jumpers Jamie Goldman and Ryan Howard.

“We feel like our team is the best in the business,” said Alpine Bike Parks’ founder and principal owner, Judd de Vall, who spent the better part of a year living in Boulder while overseeing the project. “But just because this park is built by experts doesn’t mean it’s for experts only. Every section of the park is progressive, so it’s a truly all-inclusive experience that allows riders of all skill levels to enjoy the park and safely improve their abilities.”

This uniquely thoughtful approach has made Alpine Bike Parks an industry leader in the field of bike park and natural surface trail development. Their service offerings range from feasibility and planning, to design and development, to construction management, to feature fabrication and installation, to an extensive array of post-construction services, all of which were on display at the grand opening of Valmont.


“This is exactly what we were looking for when we started dreaming of what this park could be,” said Mike Eubank, Valmont’s post-construction project manager. “Just look around. You see such a great cross-section of user groups—and they are all smiling!”


The new park will be open year round, in part because of Alpine’s ability to create trails and features that drain quickly and are not be negatively impacted by precipitation.

And the bike park revolution won’t end in Boulder. Already Alpine has broken ground at the Red Mountain Adventure Park in Woodland Park, Colorado. This will be a collaborative effort between expert skate park builders Spohn Ranch, and Alpine, which will create a set of cutting edge downhill BMX trails.

Alpine has also been contracted to design San Francisco’s McLaren Bike Park. This community-driven project will take a previously neglected swath of land, and turn it into a valuable city resource, where riders of all ages and abilities can safely recreate. The community envisioning process for McLaren Park begins this Saturday, which will allow the community to help draw up the design for their new community resource.

“It’s clear that these types of municipal projects are gaining popularity with land managers and city officials,” said de Vall, a former professional mountain bike racer who founded Alpine Bike Parks in 2007. “When you can bring together a community in a way that’s healthy, sustainable and fun, that’s obviously a good thing.” For more information, visit Alpine Bike Parks.