There may be no better endorsement for a new pump track than having to tell a bunch of kids to stop riding it before it officially opens. That’s more or less what’s happening in Ayr, Ont., where construction on a new $568,000 Velosolutions pump track is essentially complete. For the past couple of weeks, the construction fence has remained around the site, but with an opening at one end and nobody actively kicking riders out, kids have been pouring in.
“Every night there’s 25 or 30 kids there for the last two weeks riding it,” says project organizer Jerrett Bellamy.
But here’s the cruel part. The track closed on Sept. 22 while crews put down more grass and hydroseed. The town is asking riders to stay outside the construction fence for long enough for the grass to take root.
“The last couple weeks have been great that we’ve all enjoyed early access and no one was kicked out by bylaw officers so let’s be respectful and stay out so we can get back on the track ASAP,” organizers posted on Instagram.
Imagine building a brand-new pump track, letting a bunch of kids discover it and then telling them they can’t ride it.
Cruel. Necessary, apparently, but cruel.
Years in the making
For Bellamy, seeing the track covered in kids is the payoff to a project that stretches back years.
His wife grew up in Ayr and the couple bought a house there in 2011. Bellamy first turned his attention to building a local skatepark in 2015. That roughly $730,000 project opened in 2020 after a major community fundraising effort.
Before the skatepark was even finished, Bellamy was already thinking about what should come next.
He first took the pump track idea to North Dumfries council near the end of 2019. The timing lined up with the township’s leisure services master plan, which eventually identified a pump track as something the community wanted.
Bellamy’s motivation wasn’t particularly complicated.
“If I’m gonna live here, I’m gonna try to make it cool,” he says, laughing. “Somewhat selfishly, but also, I wanted to bring more options to the community and for my kids’ experience.”
The location helps. The new track sits in a central community park close to Ayr’s more densely populated neighbourhoods and backs onto an elementary school, making it easy for kids to get to.
Raising half a million dollars
Getting it built was another matter. The project was budgeted at roughly $568,000, with Bellamy and his fundraising team tasked with finding about $500,000 of that themselves.
And they did.
Bellamy says $200,000 came through the Ontario Trillium Foundation, another $100,000 came from a major fund and McNeil & Dodd Pharmacy contributed $75,000. The group also sold nearly 50 custom engraved pavers at $250 each, chased grants and went looking for smaller donations wherever it could find them.
The fundraising effort took roughly three years.
“We’re starting this and I’m seeing it through. I’m not stopping,” Bellamy recalls.
He spearheaded most of the project with help from his mother-in-law, who handled much of the financial side, along with a small committee.
Bellamy’s estimate of what it took?
“I basically just ran with everything and sent 14,000 emails trying to get money out of people.”
Anyone who has ever tried to get a municipal recreation project from idea to ribbon cutting probably just shuddered with understanding.
Built by Velosolutions
The township eventually issued a request for proposals. After the town’s evaluation process, Velosolution came out as the winner of the bid.
And what they built is an asphalt pump track that works with everything form kids on balance bikes to local pro-level riders.
Bellamy says the design gives lots of options.
“Oh, it’s killer,” he says. “It flows super good, with the spacing and the rollers, there’s a ton of them that you can double.”
There are different manual and jump combinations, along with a berm-to-berm transfer Bellamy is particularly keen to explore once the crowds thin out.
“I’m really happy with how it turned out.”
The Bellamy Pump Track
There’s one final twist.
The facility will be called the “Bellamy Pump Track,” sponsored by McNeil & Dodd Pharmacy.
When the pharmacy donated the $75,000 they got naming rights. And they chose to put Bellamy’s name on the project.
“I definitely wasn’t expecting that,” he says.
After years of fundraising, proposals, meetings, emails and municipal wrangling, that’s a pretty fitting conclusion. And the track is finally done. Almost. First the kids have to sit on the wrong side of the construction fence looking at a perfectly good $568,000 pump track they’re temporarily forbidden from riding.
Where they can watch the grass grow.
Good luck with that.