In 2015, Sean Melinn had a job refurbishing bikes at Old Spokes Home in Burlington when he noticed an interesting trend. Kids would buy BMX bikes, ride them for a bit and then give up the hobby.
An avid mountain biker, Melinn wondered if the kids just needed a place to ride. The closest dirt track was in Essex, about a 20-minute drive away. So he set about creating one in town himself.
Today, after navigating regulatory hurdles and fundraising challenges, Melinn and his supporters are preparing for the fall opening of the Burlington Bike Park at Leddy Park.
What started as one guy’s observation turned into a true community effort, with college students, city officials and cycling enthusiasts joining forces to take an underused slice of land and turn it into a destination for bikers of all ages.
“If it was just me, I’d just build this thing in my backyard and be done with it,” Melinn said. But in a community bike park, “you’ll get to know everybody. That’s the thing that I saw that was lacking.”
Back in 2015, Melinn soft-launched the idea on Facebook and received some enthusiastic responses. He linked up with a friend at bike advocacy group Local Motion and a professor at the University of Vermont, who taught a course that sends students to work on projects with community organizations. The undergrads helped the nascent Burlington Bike Park Coalition write a mission statement and map out a park proposal.
“Mountain biking and being on bikes, it’s always been my therapy, my church, whatever you want to call it.” Sean Melinn
It took time to find the right spot. Early on, the cyclists considered spaces near the waterfront and at the former city landfill in the Intervale, but the city rejected the first idea, and contaminated soils complicated the latter one. Then, in 2019, the coalition met with officials at the Burlington Parks, Recreation & Waterfront Department, who identified Leddy Park as a possible location.
The city eventually incorporated the bike track into a master plan for the park, a 75-acre tract in the New North End that’s home to a beach, athletic fields and the Gordon H. Paquette Ice Arena. Conveniently, it also connects to the Burlington Greenway, part of the Island Line Trail that brings bikers from Burlington’s South End out onto the Colchester Causeway in Lake Champlain.
Fundraising, particularly during the pandemic, delayed the project. But the group got creative. They recruited Outdoor Gear Exchange to ask customers to round up their bills to support the campaign. A pop-up bike park in the Old North End, with handmade wooden ramps, drummed up interest and created an opportunity to ask for cash. The coalition also raffled off a bike. The winner’s last name, in a fitting twist, was Leddy. The group eventually raised more than $146,000.
After years of surveys, outreach and planning, the city’s Development Review Board unanimously approved the first phase of the bike park on July 1. Construction can begin in late July, after the permit’s 30-day appeal period expires, with a goal to open by October.
The bike park will occupy a slice of wooded land between Leddy Park Road and the nearby Lakewood Parkway neighborhood. Plans call for 2,070 linear feet of trails, including a “jump line” with ramps and berms and a “flow trail,” a smoother downhill course.
To build it, crews will use an excavator to dig up dirt and create the jumps and berms. The parks department has also been stockpiling soil there in anticipation.
Because part of the fun is weaving around trees, only four mature ones will be removed to create the trails, which will be accessible from both the Leddy Park entrance on North Avenue and the bike path.
The majority of the $125,000 cost will be covered by grants, with $15,000 in city funds coming from the Penny for Parks tax.
So far, the bike park has been better received than a previous proposal for the site. In 2009, a group of disc golfers pushed for an 18-hole course on the wooded lot. The proposal rankled neighbors who worried that the discs would damage trees and hit walkers on the area’s well-established footpaths. Their advocacy eventually torpedoed the plan.
One of the opponents was Mark Barlow, a Democrat who now represents Burlington’s North District on the city council. Barlow said that unlike the disc golfers, the cyclists did a lot of outreach and have considered the impacts of their project. The trails, for instance, will be built north of the walking paths to prevent collisions.
Still, Barlow has mixed feelings about the plan.
“Do I want to see the wooded area used in the park? I don’t know,” he said. But “there’s always concern when there’s change. My sense is this has been well planned, and there’s been a good process around this for a while now.”
New North End resident Renée Lauber, for one, can’t wait for the park to open. A longtime rider, Lauber said she looks forward to taking her two daughters, ages 6 and 9, to trails in their neighborhood instead of in Essex or Richmond. She envisions future summer camp programs at the park.
“It’s also great for the community at large just to have another opportunity for kids to move their bodies together and have fun,” Lauber said.
As part of the Burlington park system, the bike park will be owned and managed by the city. The bike coalition will stay involved in an advocacy role, including fundraising, while the nonprofit Fellowship of the Wheel will help with daily maintenance.
“It’s really exciting to build something that you know is going to get a lot of use.” Max Madalinski
Max Madalinski, an associate project manager in the city parks department, said he’s been surprised by the range of people who have expressed interest in the bike park. He’s heard from “young dudes,” middle-aged women, and parents of both schoolkids and college students.
“There’s a huge number of people in our city who are mountain bikers,” he said. “It’s really exciting to build something that you know is going to get a lot of use.”
Melinn, the coalition founder, hopes the park can expand someday. The Leddy Park plan calls for several more trails, ranging from beginner to expert level, that would cost upwards of $1 million to build. For now, he’s grateful for what’s in the works — his passion brought to life.
“Mountain biking and being on bikes, it’s always been my therapy, my church, whatever you want to call it,” he said. “It’s great just seeing other people get excited about it, too.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Wheel Deal | Cycling enthusiasts rally to build Burlington’s first-ever bike park”
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This article appears in The Connections Issue.
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