Velopark explained

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For teenagers and adults, it's also a place where a series of skateboard park-style challenges are offered, aimed at performing tricks or developing specific skills.

In the same way as a skateboard park or a snow park at a ski resort, the veloparc offers challenges for all skill levels. Signage is therefore important to ensure that users are aware of the progression of difficulty levels.

Equipment used

Bikes with front suspension only and BMX bikes are best suited to bike parks, especially pumptracks. Rear suspension is superfluous and can sometimes hinder obstacle clearance by cancelling out some of the momentum created by the rider (in a pumptrack).

BMX

Dirt Jump bike

The different components of a bike park

A velopark can feature several elements, including pumptracks, skill courses and jumps, and in larger cases, trails accessible to mountain biking and cyclocross to facilitate skill progression and competitive events.

Pump track (pumptrack)

Visit pumptrack is a track made up of rounded bumps and banked turns that can be negotiated without pedaling. This is achieved by «pumping» the bike over the bumps to build up the momentum needed to go around the track.

For the more advanced, a pumptrack must offer options, and part of the fun consists in using the furniture on offer to perform increasingly difficult maneuvers or sequences of movements.

A pumptrack is similar to a BMX track, but its elements are smaller in scale and put the creativity of builders more to the test, as there are no regulations for practice.

Bikepark Zurich

Brooklyn Bike park

Skills zone

A catch-all category, the skill zones feature a variety of modules designed to develop basic skills in a playful way, often in the form of a course. Most of the time, the various modules are set up at a height that is not dangerous in the event of a fall, so as to eliminate some of the risk and encourage people to push themselves to the limit.

Sunnyside Bike park, Toronto

Sunnyside Bike park, Toronto

Jumping and slopestyle slopes

This category of equipment is rarely found in Quebec in an official, professionally-designed form, but related elements are often laid out on an informal basis. The jump track Dirt Jump) consists of a course where the cyclist starts from a starting hill to build up the speed needed to clear the first jump, and the subsequent jumps are completed with the resulting momentum, in the manner of the pumptrack.

The routes of slopestyle integrate curves and modules made of wood or other materials into the jump courses, increasing manoeuvrability tenfold.