By Jean Perry, Neighb News Correspondent
As we crawl our way out the COVID-19 pandemic and back into the community, one particular group is shoveling its way back to pre-pandemic fun.
On Saturday, April 10, some BMX bike enthusiasts with plenty of help from the community converged at the Macomber & Pimental Park pump track to restore that essential edge to the mounds and berms of earth left smooth and eroded over the past year.
Mike Rotondo and Chip Hawthorne have been involved in the formation and maintenance of the
pump track since its inception in 2018. And although the town has always supported the project, the two men said they were amazed on Saturday when at one point there were as many as 20 people on the scene, including a crew of Fairhaven firefighters, who within a couple hours had entirely resurrected the BMX bike track.
“I’m blown away at how much they helped us today,” said Mr. Rotondo. He added that Kia of Dartmouth also provided some funding for sprucing up the track while Igreen Landscaping helped out with some heavy machinery work ahead of the labor the group performed that day.
The months in lockdown and the restrictions on public gatherings and events took their toll on the dirt hills and sculpted berms that need regular use and maintenance to keep the earth packed down to retain their crisp shape.
In the afternoon, the adults continued their work while the kids on their bikes helped out simply by packing in the dirt with the momentum of their bike tires across jumps and rollers and around the elevated turns.
The group increased the flow of the pump track by adding a few new design features while they were at it, and plan to maintain the track by establishing a once-a-week workday to keep the track just damp enough to keep it from getting too dusty and vulnerable to erosion.
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Click here to download the entire 4/15/21 issue: 04-15-21 PumpTrack