The Avondale-Meadows and Martindale-Brightwood neighborhoods of Indianapolis, Indiana are high poverty, high crime. They are not places that immediately come to mind when one thinks about mountain biking. And yet, the IMPD (Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department) Headquarters Mountain Bike Skills Park is demonstrating what can be done, regardless of zip code.
The HQ Mountain Bike Skills Park was born in 2015 as the brainchild of Officers John Wall and Steve Smalley of the IMPD, North District Bike Unit. I first met Officer Wall on a Zoom call for which I was underprepared, and was more than a little surprised to sign in and have a uniformed cop in the room. Did he know about my speeding ticket? That one time I poached a trail?
If he did, he didn’t let on. Officers at IMPD, cyclists themselves, noticed an underutilized piece of land across the street from their headquarters, adjacent to an existing City park. They asked if they could use it to teach kids how to mountain bike.
“The idea, unique at the time, was to build relationships between youth and officers in areas that were under-resourced and experiencing high crime rates. The IMPD Youth Mountain Bike Project was and is the only mountain bike park in the urban core of Indianapolis,” Officer Wall said.
The Park was built through the labor and donations of IMPD officers, who also volunteered their time to staff the bike skills park as it was getting off the ground. They understood with a quickness that as the only bike park in Indy, transportation to and from the park for kids wanting to ride was going to be a problem.
Or not. They raised money and bought a modular, mobile bike park. But wait, how to transport this thing? They raised money and bought a van. Deployed by bike police officers in neighborhoods throughout Indianapolis to reach kids unable to travel, bikes, helmets, snacks and professional instruction are provided by police officers. The modular, Shoretrax mobile mountain bike track (think Ikea but with less swearing) can be set up for beginners or can be modified for more advanced riders.
Fifteen-year-old Jaxon Crissman started coming to the Headquarters Bike Park in 2019 with his dad, Clayton. “I hadn’t really mountain biked before, just some neighborhood riding and some BMX. It’s really fun to ride at the Park, and now I’m on the high school mountain bike team.”
Jaxon is a sophomore and when I asked if he thought he’d stay on the team through graduation, and/or beyond, he gave an emphatic ‘yes.’ As a result of their experiences at the bike park and with the team (sponsored by the Headquarters Mountain Bike Park), the dad–Clayton–has become a level 1 NICA coach.
“I’ll continue to coach ’til Jaxon graduates, but come to think of it–I’ve got another kid who’s gonna be nine when Jaxon’s done, so I guess I have more years of coaching to come!”
At the outset, the park ran on donations of time and money from a small clutch of IMPD officers who kept the wheels turning while off-duty. Since its fledgling days, the community has strongly embraced the park with donations of labor, gravel, equipment, fuel, hardware and cash coming from myriad directions, including professional trail builders at High Country Trail Solutions.
The HQ Mountain Bike Skills park is currently undergoing a remodel after an unfortunate event where a contractor removing invasive species inadvertently wiped out several of the existing trails. High Country has been volunteering time, providing advice and direction to ensure sustainable trails and features are being built to industry standards–an incredibly valuable contribution.
IMPD takes a unique, innovative approach to violence reduction by deploying the mobile pump track within days after a violent incident has occurred in a neighborhood. The main goal is to replace the negative impacts and images of the incident with a positive, supporting and empowering neighborhood event that will draw the community outdoors and foster relationships that can help with community crime prevention.
Officer Wall told me that the mobile program has been instrumental in opening up a dialogue and building trust in communities experiencing difficulties.
“By providing an atmosphere where the cops are there in the community simply to provide a fun activity for kids and not focusing on the negatives, it has provided a conduit for members of the community to feel safe in approaching us with their concerns.”
The program is now included in the PE curriculum at middle and high schools where the police have one-on-one interaction with students in a fun, neutral setting. Officers who participate report more positive experiences with youth who recognize them from the program at their school. To date, over 14,000 kids have been introduced to the sport of mountain biking through the mobile pump track and bike park programs.
“Last summer drew more families and kids to the park than any other season and we are seeing visitors not only from the neighborhood, but from all around the metro area. We even had people stopping off the highway with their RV’s to get a ride in as they were passing through the state” Officer Wall told me with obvious pride.
And he should be proud. Fourteen thousand is A LOT of kids getting a taste of this sport that offers connection in an increasingly isolating world, physicality in a dauntingly digital environment, and a bit of green in a concrete jungle.
While it would be naive to think that a mobile pump track and a few miles of singletrack will solve the problems that plague policing and those who are policed, it is hard for those of us who have experienced the profound, oftentimes transformational effects of cycling to not feel deeply that this, this is something real–seemingly small threads that can provide essential connection both in the everyday, and in times of crisis.
So no–mountain biking is not a panacea that will solve all problems. It’s no silver bullet for what ails our cities. But in this part of Indianapolis, in this community, with this particular fabric and weave, maybe it is.
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May 23, 2024