We were thrilled to partner with Newland Homes, REI, and Triangle Off-Road Cyclists (TORC) to build the first bicycle skills park in Chatham County. Briar Chapel has been a growing destination for mountain bikers in the Piedmont region and now it has even more reason to attract visitors.
In designing and building the skills park, we focused on three main goals:
- Sustainability – Build features and obstacles to minimize erosion and that can be easily maintained by volunteers. Each run aligns with natural topography and includes subsurface drain systems and natural rock reinforcements where needed.
- Accessibility – All constructed trails were designed to integrate seamlessly with existing infrastructure. The staging area and return paths use existing trail to minimize new construction and provide convenient access to parking and local dining at the Veranda shopping center.
- Safe Learning – Each obstacle is designed to have progressive options scaling up from the Intermediate to Advanced to Expert trails. Riders are offered safe and variable size obstacles to learn within their comfort zone and slowly progress to larger features.
Be sure to visit the Briar Chapel Skills Park behind the Veranda shopping center at 79 Falling Springs Dr., Chapel Hill, NC 27516. Once parked, you can access the trails / skills park from the concrete path next to Breakaway Cafe.
