There was a meeting at the etnies Skatepark of Lake Forest last Friday night to discuss the expansion of the park. Now, I know most of you reading this don?t live in southern California and could care less about it, but since this is my local park and it?s associated with etnies, I thought a little write-up was in order. And really, it?s about the big picture of getting bikes into parks.

The etnies park already allows bikes (albeit a measly three times a week, for a couple of hours each session), so the purpose of us going was to make sure that whatever new stuff they build in the expansion of the park is 100% bike friendly?not off limits to bikes. The park already has a bowl with pool coping and a granite ledge that bikes are not allowed to touch, so it was important, to me, to go to this meeting and see if we could prevent more of the same with the new additions.

In typical BMX fashion only about a dozen riders showed up to the meeting. Pathetic. Why is it so hard to rally bike riders together for a cause? Tuesday morning sessions have over 20 people at them and the two other sessions have between 60 and 80 riders at them. The turnout bummed me out. And of course, they held the meeting during a Friday night skate session, so there were plenty of little skate rats there.

The company who built the park and who will be doing the expansion is Site Design. I?m not as up to speed as I probably should be on the different park builders out there, so this meeting was good for me education-wise as the Site Design team had a slide show of many different, and well known parks they have built (including the Chandler bikes-only park). They also showed lots of photos of different park features they can build, which was cool.

The Site Design team, believe it or not, has a bike rider working for them. His name is Jeff and I got to meet him and talk with him that night. Jeff actually went to school for architecture and design. It?s good knowing there?s a bike rider in the mix, for sure. Jeff was super cool and listened to all of us and our concerns.

At the meeting they had surveys for everyone to fill out, rate different obstacles you?re into, give suggestions, write comments, and some other BS. They also had layouts of the expansion area and things you could cut out and paste down to help with the design. It?s hard to know if all of that was just for show and tell or if they?ll really use any of the input. Ultimately, though it?s going to come down to a number of things that are out of our control when a final design is submitted and building time comes.

I?d like to say that I feel good about the expansion and that everything will be built with bikes in mind as well as skateboards, but I have my doubts. Unfortunately the only city council member who was there is a skater with bias and an agenda.

So where does it go from here? Who knows? I?m glad they had the meeting and are open to input. I?m going to do my part as a bike rider and as a Lake Forest resident by writing to all of the city council members to voice our concerns. It can?t hurt. I?ll also be researching when the town meetings are and will try to go and make them aware of the issues.

I?ll keep you posted?

Jeff from Site Design Group (above left) sits with our crew as Ben Snowden, Koji Kraft, John Povah, a guy I don’t know, and Lawrence Werrell fill out the surveys.

Nuno from Odyssey, Ride ad sales guy Bill Dies, and a few bikes at the meeting.

If anyone has ever ridden the etnies Skatepark of Lake Forest, you know they let bikes in, but it’s not necessarily “bike friendly.” Since the day the park opened there have been, pardon my honesty, asshole skaters working the place, a number of confrontations between them and bike riders, and tons of intentionally shitty moves (playing the worst possible music during the bike sessions, not drying up puddles in sections until after the bike session is over, etc.). There’s also a bowl there that bikes can’t go in because of the pool coping. Did I mention that there are only three bike sessions a week for a total of 6-1/2 hours of riding time? Want to know how many hours the skaters get during a week? 68-1/2. If you’ve ever been to the mid-week night session or the Sunday morning session you know it’s packed with bikes to the point that it’s not even that fun to ride because of the volume of people everywhere. To add to this, it seems that whenever there’s a special event of some sort it happens to fall during a bike session. It’s happened many times, and still happens, as you can see from this note that was posted today at the park. The only positive thing, BMX-wise, is that they hired a BMXer to work there?Dillon H. Dillon is super cool and has probably kept a lot of riders from writing the park off completely. I know many guys have gone there once and because of all the BS have never gone back.

I own a house in Lake Forest, one of the reasons I moved there was because of this park. My taxes go towards helping pay for that place to exist. It’s great that they allow bikes (every park should, but we know how it is), but this is lame.

Do us a favor, take a second to call the number in the photo and complain, and e-mail the people below and let them know how unfair the skatepark is to BMX. Even if you live far away and never have the chance to go to this park, you’ll be helping other riders and fighting for a good cause. If you do write or call, please try to sound intelligent and not just go nuts. Done the right way, it could help things, done the wrong way will only hurt.

Thanks!

?Keith

*Just so you know, this park is run by the City of Lake Forest, and etnies doesn’t have much say on what goes on there, so please don’t go hating on etnies.

Here are the people you should complain to:

Nick Gates: NGates@ci.lake-forest.ca.us

Vicky Blethen: VBlethen@ci.lake-forest.ca.us

Rob Gaylord: RGaylord@ci.lake-forest.ca.us