Huntington Beach, CA -- 03/09/2008
http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/3668/03082008amc3.jpg
Photo - Carter Holland, a BMX rider who lives in Orange, said people
come from all over the world to Bartlett Park's advanced course to
practice their BMX biking, which this year for the first time will be an
Olympic sport. He said he and his fellow bikers have cleaned up trash
from the park several times, and he started an online petition in
December to save the area they call Hidden Valley.

The clean-up of undeveloped Bartlett Park is a relief to some nearby
residents and business owners, who say the land is an eyesore that
breeds bothersome, dangerous and even illegal activity.

But for many children and adults who have ridden their BMX bikes
over the man-made dirt hills, changes to the park mean the destruction
of what they call a world-famous haven to practice their sport.

"This is a $3 million-dollar bike park to these kids," said Darren
Foreman,
a longtime Huntington Beach resident who has been building and tending
to the BMX hills since 1979. "This isn't cleaning up. This is ruining an
icon."

The city is fixing up the 30-acre park – which stretches from Adams
Avenue to Yorktown Avenue and bordering Coldwater Lane on the
east -- to make it more accessible for police surveillance. Workers
have begun trimming plants and trees and flattening BMX hills.

City officials say the biking, which is done on an unauthorized course,
is a liability. There is also concern about drug use in the park and
about
transients buying alcohol for minors, who are known to hang out in the
park after it closes at 10 p.m., officials said.

Carter Holland, a BMX rider who lives in Orange, said people come
from all over the world to Bartlett Park's advanced course to practice
their BMX biking, which this year for the first time will be an Olympic
sport.

He said he and his fellow bikers have cleaned up trash from the park
several times, and he started an online petition in December to save
the area they call Hidden Valley.

To an outside observer, the park looks like a quiet, harmless, if
unattractive piece of abandoned land. But a peek inside the chain
-link fence or over the hill that borders the Newland Center reveals
a trove of activity in the dirt and overgrown vegetation.

Near the hills where BMX riders are flipping their bikes in the air,
children play after school in the bushes and swing from a branch
at the end of a rope dangling from a tall tree. People come to walk
and play fetch with their dogs.

But after the sun goes down, the undeveloped land is also a host for
transients and underage kids who want to drink and party, city officials
say.

The bulldozing of the impromptu BMX course is just the latest loss of
a spot where youngsters can gather to practice their sports. The skate
park in front of Huntington Beach High School is slated for demolition
this summer after Huntington Beach Union High District and the city
agreed to close the park earlier this year.

School officials had complained about bad language and vandalism
at the skate park, and said it wouldn't fit in with the new
multi-million
dollar stadium they plan to build.

Holland said he collected more than 2,300 signatures to save the
BMX park but could not stop the city's plans. However, he and an
advocate from the International Mountain Bicycling Association started
a group called the Surf City Bicycle Riders Association to work on
saving
Hidden Valley or getting the city's permission to build an authorized
bike
park.

They plan to meet with the Community Services Commission next
week to talk about where the city can host an advanced BMX course.

"I don't think the city is necessarily unwilling to do something like
that,"
said Travis Hopkins, Huntington Beach's director of public works. "Our
goal is not to take away fun from the youth of the city."

Geneb...Wenatchee,Washington-USA
   All Things Northwest in BMX!
    ***** Gene`s BMX *****
    http://www.genesbmx.com