Phil’s Trailhead was packed with young riders like Loki and Rylan Monday.
“It’s so fun,” Loki said. “Just like getting off the jumps. Like riding out in the wilderness. It’s just fun.”
“I just like flying through the air and challenging myself.” said Rylan.
It wasn’t just the great weather that brought the riders to the popular trail. Volunteers at Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA) have been working hard this month, reshaping the jumps and pump track at Phil’s Trailhead West of Bend.
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“There’s dirt jumps right now, and we have some vision for some additional features so that people can practice skills and just improve and have fun riding their bikes,” said COTA Executive Director Emmy Andrews.
The improvements are thanks to funds from memberships and donations. COTA also hired a professional trail builder.
“He kind of reshaped the features so that it is more sort of mountain bike specific and has better flow, and so it’s still the same concept, but better,” Andrews said.
You’ll notice a significant change immediately. The pump track moved next to the jump line in preparation for future additions and expansions.
“The vision there is to eventually kind of fill in that blank area with additional skills feature so that my focus more on rocks and drops and so you’ll have your jumps, your sort of classic dirt jumps in the part that we’ve already done and then you have some additional features in that next part,” Andrews says.
Monday was the grand reopening, where adults and kids came to check out the new features.
