Young riders jumping for joy after building bike park

After months of hard work, three Lincoln youths can finally show off their efforts.

Fergus Barnsley, Erik Williams and Josh McCarthy have been upgrading the Lincoln bike park, which included building a big new jump, at the end of Meijer Dr.

Their work has become a popular feature at the park with a group hanging out there after school and on the weekends.

The park is about three-years-old, but it was not until recently people had taken an interest in it.

Selwyn District Council owns the land and has let the trio build up the park.

Fergus and his mates have spent a lot of time with shovels building and shaping the ramps.

“We spent hundreds of hours digging and it’s probably been four or five months trying to organise it all and get it all set up.”

Fergus said residents and companies donated materials and money to build the park up. Their fundraising included selling homemade baking.

Erik said he has been slowly crafting the jumps after the district council helped build the original mounds.

He said the hardest part has been organising the workers and the digging.

Erik is one of the few people who use the park who can do a backflip and he competes in mountain biking events around Canterbury.

He said while the big jump is the main attraction at the park, there are a range of different challenges.

“There’s some smaller jumps that we’ve built so there’s different levels of riders.”

The bike park will make way for an extension of Meijer Dr as part of a district council's plan to build a new sports facility in the area, which is due to be completed by 2028.

No date has been set for the planned removal of the park.

An official opening of the bike park is planned for September.