Pump Track Design and Construction w Peter Mills, Elevated Trail Design

Old Fort, North Carolina

Train and stay in beautiful Old Fort, NC. This is a destination training! Stay in town at an Airbnb or Bed and Breakfast or camp at one of our nearby campgrounds. Attend classes, complete trail training and play. Old Fort boasts world class trails for MTB, hiking and trail running as well as stocked trout waters for fishing. Enjoy our breweries, winery and great food. Shuttle the famous Heartbreak Ridge trail for a 13.75 mile downhill with 4,280 ft descent. Bring your bikes!

Note: Peter will operate an excavator through part of the class. This will be a great chance to see how you can get a lot of heavy lifting and shaping done with a machine. However, this class is not a machine class and students will not be operating equipment. *See available classes for the next machine class. **Ask about machine independent study for gaining time on our school’s mini excavator CAT 301.7.

Throughout the class you’ll participate in discussions about design considerations and building while you help to build actual public track. This class will be held 3-4 times through Fall 2024 culminating with a final tune up in Spring 2025. These classes will result in a 15,000 sq ft public pump track and skills park which will be open and rideable from the end of class 1 and will evolve throughout the season.

About the Old Fort Community Learning Pump Track:

This pump track is a passion project of Jeremy Poore of McDowell Tech Trail School and Mountain Top Shuttles in Old Fort, NC. As a lifelong rider, Jeremy grew up with BMX tracks and wood kickers in the 80s and switched to mountain biking in the 90s. When the F3ST (Friends of the Fonta Flora State Trail) organization started construction on their town trailhead, a pump track was included in the design. A proposal and a few meetings with their Executive Director led to an agreement to fund and build the track through a series of classes hosted by McDowell Tech Trail School at McDowell Technical Community College).

When Peter learned of the project, he jumped in with both feet and requested to teach the whole series! Peter was also born to bikes and grew up riding everything Western North Carolina has to offer. His company Elevated Trail Design is a PTBA (Professional Trail Builders Association) member company and builds bike parks, trails, pump tracks, skills parts and anything bike related all around the country. Peter is stoked to be part of this project and we’re lucky to have him.

This project is a partnership between: F3ST, The Town of Old Fort, McDowell Tech Community College, Mountain Top Shuttles LLC and Elevated Trail Design.

For more class info: https://mcdowelltechconed.com/classdetails.php?id=1723138563

To register: https://mcdowelltechconed.com/registration.php

Location

49 East Main Street
Old Fort, North Carolina 28762

Trail Competencies

• Trail Construction
• • Hand-Built Trail Construction
• • Mechanized Trail Construction
• • Trail Finishwork
• • Water Management/Drainage Features

Relevant Trail Types

• Mountain Biking Trails