One man quit his job to build his dream gravity-bike park. It opens on June 18th.
Ben Eggleston quit his day job in 2015 and set about building the sort of bike park that he wished existed in the UK.
Ben’s bike park is called Gnar. It’s very much based around sessioning descending tracks and jumps. Its opening weekend is set to be 18-19th June this year.
Gnar will also be the venue for Round 6 of the PMBA Enduro Series on Sunday 4th September.
MTB training facility
Gnar is intended to be a sort of mountain bike training facility as much as it will be a bike park to play in.
Taking inspiration from his BMXing youth – in particular ’80s Brit BMX legend Andy Ruffell’s sage advice to improve steadily – Ben’s Gnar park is all about offering riders small stages of incremental progression. Getting bigger and better via a series of steadily more technical or bigger jumps and drops.
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Gnar bike park is set in 46 acres of Cumbrian woodland. An early rudimentary trail map shows a total of 38 tracks. The plans have changed since this early draft map but it gives an idea of the project’s ambition.
Early draft of proposed trail map
Pay to play
Gnar which will offer daily tickets to ride the trails. Gnar’s future growth plans also include launching a mountain bike race league, bike hire, servicing and mechanical expertise, parts and retail sales, events, training and coaching courses.
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The official Gnar Bike Park website is a work in progress so your best bet for further information is Gnar’s Facebook page.
Eggleston also puts regular and in-depth Video-blogs up on the Gnar Bike Park’s YouTube’s page. So if you want to know the full story and keep up to date from the man himself, visit the YouTube page.
Ben Eggleston said: “Gnar will be the the only UK bike park to offer a Canadian or European style riding experience on trails that will allow visitors to enjoy and improve their mountain biking experience.”
Eggleston said: “What I am is a passionate mountain biker with a background in business within the cycling industry. I could also be described as ‘somewhat impatient’!”
“I’ve spent my fair share of time watching videos of people riding amazing trails in Canada whilst thinking, ‘I’d like to go and ride something like that one day’. So, two years ago, I grabbed the bull firmly by both horns and made the first steps on this journey.”
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“I got myself to a point where I secured 46 acres of prime gradient woodland for a period of 20 years. GNAR Bike Park is my full time job as well as my long term passion. Now it’s time to share it. Big plans! Why dream small?”
Gnar certainly looks like it’ll be trying to offer something a bit different to UK riders. We wish Ben the very best of luck.