The North Saskatchewan River Valley cuts through Edmonton, Alberta, from the southwest to the northeast, providing a natural retreat for the area’s one million-plus residents. Edmonton is now adding even more trails in that urban forest. Over $1 million CAD has been invested in a new bike park — a first for Edmonton— and shovels are expected to hit the dirt very soon.
The news has sparked a wave of excitement in Edmonton’s mountain biking community.
How the North Saskatchewan River Valley became a mountain biking hot spot
For those unfamiliar with Edmonton, it can be easy to envision a snow-capped Rocky Mountain Range running along the outskirts of town. Alberta is associated with places like Banff, and the assumption is that places like Edmonton must be nearby.
“A lot of people are under the impression that we are right near the Rocky Mountains,” Jess Hiebert, Edmonton Mountain Bike Alliance (EMBA) board member, told us. Hiebert pointed at a framed picture over her shoulder. “You can see Lake Louise, one of Banff’s most famous lakes. We’re a four and a half hour drive from that.”
The Alberta Rockies are on the province’s western edge, near Alberta’s border with British Columbia. As the Rocky Mountains leave the United States and enter Alberta, they take a hard left, heading northwest. While cities further south, such as Calgary, aren’t far from the Rockies’ foothills, Edmonton is squarely in prairie land.
This is where Edmonton’s saving grace comes in — the North Saskatchewan River Valley. The river valley provides roughly 200 feet of elevation drop in otherwise flat terrain. It is also where the majority of the 150–200km of trails EMBA is responsible for are located.
“We are lucky to have this heavily vegetated forested valley with a bit of elevation,” Hiebert shared. “And our trail builders have done an incredible job with what we have to work with.”
Individual trails and trail systems are spread out from community to community along the North Saskatchewan River Valley in the greater Edmonton area. Even though Edmonton is a major metropolitan city, many residents enjoy the rare privilege of biking directly from their homes to nearby trailheads. Hiebert said she is roughly a 10-minute pedal from some of her favorite trails in the area.
Trails in the river valley range from green to double-black, offering options for all ability levels. While many of the trails cater to beginner and intermediate riders, there is also a good mix of advanced trails.
“But there’s a lot of technical riding,” Hiebert said. “There’s certainly elements of what we offer that, [when I was] a beginner rider, were too intimidating for me.”
As the North Saskatchewan River Valley grew into an outdoor paradise for Edmonton, the mountain biking culture and its connection to the city have also grown. While typical mountain biking issues, such as illegal trail building, are often a roadblock with any local or federal agencies, EMBA has seen past issues become history.
The organization has seen more connections established between itself and the city of Edmonton over the years. Where EMBA used to go through a process of submitting photos and getting approval for things like trail maintenance, they now have the green light to do that work in the moment.
EMBA hopes the new bike park will continue to play a significant role in bridging some of those gaps between the city and mountain bikers.
Edmonton is building its first official bike park, marking a major step forward for the city’s mountain biking scene
The new bike park will be located in Queen Elizabeth Park, part of Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River Valley. Some riders will be able to ride to the new bike park from their back door, while others, like Hiebert, will have to drive about 15-20 minutes.
Conversations and proposals for the bike park were first sparked with the city of Edmonton in 2018. Like many trail projects at the time, COVID caused delays. However, one factor that helped move the project forward is that the park will be built on former wastewater treatment land.
The river valley has its fair share of wildlife and wild areas that need protection, which can make building new trails difficult. However, building on disturbed land, such as a former wastewater treatment area, allowed the project to move forward and allows for the use and restoration of the land. We’ve seen this clever use of land that would otherwise go undeveloped and wasted in places like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Waynesboro, Virginia.
As the bike park plans progressed, funding followed. A provincial grant covered $613,000 CAD of the budget, while a grant from the city of Edmonton added another $407,000. EMBA will also put another $177,000 from private donations and fundraising toward the project.
The bike park will consist of a skills area with small drops and skinnies. There will also be an asphalt pump track and a dirt jump area. EMBA plans on having green, blue, and black dirt jump lines, allowing all riders a clear path of progression with their jumping skills.
For the pump track and dirt jumps, EMBA plans to hire two contractors, one specializing in each, for the build. They are still processing bids and aren’t sharing who the trail builders are at the time of this writing.
There will also be some new flow trails at the bike park. Since EMBA regularly tackles the building and maintenance of such trails, EMBA will build the new trails.
“We’re building two blues and a black,” Hiebert explained. “And updating an existing blue to be a green.”
EMBA will use all the space the old wastewater treatment land will allow. While many of the specifics of each trail are still up in the air, the plan is to have each trail be between 200 and 500 meters long and have an elevation change of around 25 meters. EMBA emphasized that these are purely estimates at this point.
What is known is that the current blue trail will be converted to green. Currently, the trail is 270 meters in length, dropping roughly 15 meters.
In creating a bike park, EMBA wanted to develop a place accessible to all levels of riders. “This is absolutely a family place,” Hiebert said. “A place for people who are interested in shredding some gnarly mountain trails to find their wheels and their balance a little bit.”
EMBA plans to open the new bike park by the 2026 riding season. That said, they have their fingers crossed for a completion date in the fall.
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