Jay Hoots

Good News on the Sunshine Coast: Hoots & Sprockids Team Up!

If you live on the Sunshine Coast you should be celebrating. Recently, our very own Jay Hoots teamed up with Sprockids to rebuild the Sprockids park outside Gibsons, BC. To make this all happen, Hoots harnessed the energy of the enthusiastic class from the Cap College Mountain Bike Operations Progam. Here's the result (straight from the man himself)...

It has been a few years now since I first helped build in the Sprockids park and I have been back every year to refurbish. I am stoked on the vision from the MBO students in the new park and I look forward to working with the Sprockids program at every opportunity.

The 2008 Sprockids Park build was awesome! It was great to be such an active part of the park refurbishment in my capacity as an instructor for Capilano College. It was also great to fire up the chainsaw and shape some sick jumps!!!

I have been involved with the yearly redevelopment of the park over the last 4 years in different roles and even though the park had fantastic riding opportunity, 2008 was the time for overhaul.

I am stoked on IMBA Mark’s vision and the efforts and creativity from the MBO students in the new park and as always I look forward to working with the Sprockids program at every opportunity.

After a really good start in the first semester of the trail building course it seems that the guys have a good grasp of basic sustainable trail building but I know everyone is just itching for advanced building techniques in semester 2 and their final project, the rebirth of the Sprockids Park.

Design submissions were presented by the students and myself who approached projects in group format. Each design was evaluated on progression, safety, creativity and of course ‘the plan’ by the lead instructor Mark Schmidt Canadian Director of IMBA Canada.

Once everything was set, the class set out to the park and in under 4 hours the entire existing Skills Park was leveled! All reusable timbers and materials were stored and all junk was piled waiting for removal.

As with most Skills Parks a limited budget was available so the class got straight to work with a local contractor setting base grades and sorting out all the major excavation needed for their projects. Each group got machine time and had to use it as effectively as possible in order for everyone to benefit.

Over the period of 5 weeks the students worked on the park with scheduled supervision from both Mark and myself. It was great to see the enthusiasm, the stress and the pride that these guys all went through… Through the build Mark and I helped with actual construction as well as advice and the new Sprockids Bike Park began taking shape...

One of the courses in the Mountain Bike Operations Course (events management) empowered and challenged the students to learn and prepare for running a volunteer day. With that course under their belts the students organized 3 full volunteer trail days, 2 serviced and maintained local trails in Roberts Creek and the third was a volunteer day held at the Sprockids Bike Park.

In true Sunshine Coast fashion over 80 people showed up for the student organized Volunteer day in the Bike Park and a ton of work got done putting all features within striking range of finished for their final evaluation scheduled 2 weeks later.

The event day ran smooth and lots of industry support stoked the locals! Naturally there was some riding, just to make sure that th bike park was on the right track.

With the blessing from Doug Detwiller and the meticulous eye of IMBA Mark everyone passed their projects and the new age Sprockids park is now ready for riding!

Year 2 of the Mountain Bike Operations Program held by Capilano College has produced a group of incredibly prepared individuals whom I would consider hiring on the spot.

The intensity of the students matched with their desire to learn and of course their passion for riding makes them extremely employable and I believe all but one person is now working in the bike industry. Bravo! Our sport takes yet another huge valuable step towards legitimization!

- Hoots!

For more info on how Hoots is transforming BC into skills park heaven check out: hoots.ca