BI’s first mountain bike park may open this summer
Published 1:30 am Thursday, May 1, 2025
The first mountain bike park on Bainbridge Island, almost four years in the making, may now open as soon as this summer.
Two construction companies broke ground on the Strawberry Hill Bike Park April 20, carving 1.5 miles of trails, jumps, berms and flyovers into eight acres of wooded hillside in the northwest section of the park.
The project is the result of a massive effort by community organizations, volunteers and companies, kicked off by an anonymous $1 million donation in May of 2021 to the BI Parks and Trails Foundation for purchase of a 10-acre chunk of forest west of Strawberry Park for use as a dog park and bike park.
Until that point, the parks district had been considering building a mountain bike facility in the Grand Forest North.
The donor had “become aware of community division over the proposal to build a mountain bike facility in the Grand Forest and wanted to help alleviate the situation, while conserving land and enhancing dog park uses,” the foundation wrote in a 2022 announcement. “Existing trails and land contours make it a great site for mountain bike use.”
With the Grand Forest North project tabled, community tensions quickly evaporated. The park district began ecological restoration at the site that same year, removing invasive plants, relocating and adding native species and thinning the crowded Douglas firs to support the understory, drawing on thousands of hours of volunteer labor.
Two years of restoration later, the site was ready to transform. Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance and local mountain bikers designed the course, including tracks for all skill levels, and the park district set a funding goal of $416,000 for construction. If the project can reach its goal by early summer, it can open right away, explained BIPTF director Mary Meier.
“Strawberry Hill Bike Park is community inspired, community designed and community funded,” Meier said. “The time to give is now, so the community can be riding this exciting park this summer.”
Several construction companies will contribute to the project, including some working pro bono.
Oceanside Construction and Shire Built, known for their work on the Galbraith Mountain and Bellingham Harbor bike parks, will sculpt the trails. BI’s Isley Construction will assemble one of three “flyover” structures where trails cross for free, and Dissimilar Metal Design of Bremerton will donate a custom-designed metal entrance arch to the park.
Gifts to complete the Bike Park can be made at www.bikestrawberry.org.
