In the latest sign that Oregon is serious about encouraging bicycle recreation, officials in Salem have just agreed to build the first-ever BMX track inside an Oregon State Park.
The facility will be built this weekend at the Salem Fairgrounds and will be called the Midway BMX Track.
The news comes from Oregon’s Bicycle Recreation Coordinator Iris Riggs. She says they have big plans for the track and want to hold statewide events and even an Oregon State Championships (Team Portland represent!).
The track will be built with 3,000 cubic yards of dirt and will officially sanctioned by the American Bicycle Association (ABA). Riggs says that in order to make the track open to everyone in the community, it was purposefully located in a non-fenced area of the fairgrounds.
With Bike Gallery owner Jay Graves recently named to the Oregon State Parks Planning Commission and positive progress during the last legislative session about using State Parks funds for construction of a velodrome, this is a good sign that Oregon wants to fulfill it’s promise of being, “the land bicycles dream about.”
I am pretty sure there was a bmx track, along with a motorcycle track, right next to the skate park on the fairgrounds in Salem in the past.
They were all covered, in the big buildings, must have been in the 90\’s sometime.
Is it an ABA track or or NBL?
I never really considered that the Salem Fairgrounds are a state park, but that seems to be what is being said here. The State Fair really needs an infusion of some kind of contemporary interest subject. Maybe this BMX track could help in that respect.
As a bit of a side question, does anyone know what happened to that BMX track that was out in Clackamas (a little bit south of the mall if I remember right).
I spent a few weeks back in the late 80s photographing the participants and events at the BMX track that sits (sat?) near the stadium in Eugene.
What a terrific group of families and riders they were!
Anything we can do to get kids (and parents) interested in bikes early is a positive and progressive step as far as I\’m concerned.
[Too bad it seems that I\’m rearing a racecar driver, however. Just one glimpse of the quarter midgets at alpenrose and my 3yo is no longer interested in velodrome goings on at all.]
Yes, there was a track last year outdoors and open, it was really crappy though, they bulldozed it last wenter. Everybody was happy about this track untill we realised that it will be fenced, and only open a couple hours a
week. Another victum of our rediculous letigious society. I hate that I have to do this, but I often hop the gate and ride anyway, I mean its on state land, it belongs to everyone, the fact that it is fenced is rediculous and makes me sick.