BMXers Playground
To the passerby they look like perfectly sculpted natural lays in the land; nothing about them seems man-made or engineered or touched by human intervention. The dirt is shaped in to huge glass smooth daggers that seem to literally grow out of the ground as if they were always there. None of it seems connected, until a rider appears, pedaling towards the first jump at the bottom of the hill, when everything – the plan behind the jumps, the carefully planned structure of the place – becomes absolutely clear.
Suddenly he takes off, blasting over the enormous pit that separates the first dagger from the second – a landing located around four metres away that disappears in to the ground and re-appears out of a giant bomb-hole. This is when the magic happens. Over the next few seconds the rider boosts and flows through the jumps with what appears to be little effort, sometimes hitting his head on the leaves hanging down from the trees metres above the jumps, actions that you may expect from a skier at chalet val thorens, but are surprised to see in the back woods of the UK.
All of this is man-made, you see. Every single take-off and landing has been put there for a reason; designed with clear purpose in mind and built with pure raw grit and determination. No chance is involved in the making of this playground, and all these humps were built over one rainy winter when everyone else was wrapped up warm inside their home.
The thing is, the next day a JCB appears and destroys all this magic. It happens every year, the council deem it dangerous and there you have it – it’s gone. Not that that stops the riders. The next year the jumps will be back stronger than ever, just you wait and see.
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