Make Goose Gossage Great Again
Tax deductible
Note: As of 4.16.2021, we have revised our fundraising goal to meet an urgent need for Goose Gossage Bike Park’s continued success. If you feel your prior donation intentions do not align with our current plans, please contact us via our facebook page @goosegossagebikepark and we will be glad to explain our change and/or issue a refund as requested. We have provided a brief summary of the original mission at the bottom* at the bottom of this page. Should you wish to donate instead to that cause, please do contact us directly as well. Thank you for your continued support and patronage of our wonderful park, her users and volunteers.
The Goose Needs Your Help! Our dirt jumps are in desperate need of a reliable source of water and suitable soils to make workdays effective. The dirt doesn’t shape itself, and jumps will crumble constantly without consistent watering. Additionally, we hope to bring in a few generous loads of “hero dirt” to restore all the jumps, rollers and pump track. Your donations will help us fund these items, allocations of which may vary depending on whether we near our fundraising goal:
- Funding plumbed water on-site (currently no utilities exist on our side of Mark Dabling Blvd to inexpensively connect our park. Part of our fundraising will help secure an operation by COS to install water underneat the road to our location for use on workdays)
- Refilling of above-ground water tanks (temporary measure until plumbed water can be funded and installed)
- Purchasing rock-free, high-clay soil for repair and building of existing jumps, berms and rollers (currently our soil needs are met by excavating between existing jumps and sifting manually the rocks from the poor quality soil)
- Hiring of equipment/operators that may be needed to help make work days more efficient
You may have noticed that Goose Gossage bike park has recently undergone significant maintenance. Did you know that this park is/was built, maintained, and enhanced purely by volunteer efforts and personal funds? While the park space has been given permission by the city of Colorado Springs to exist as public dirt jumps/bike park, the park has historically operated on the “dig to ride” philosophy – meaning, the only thing keeping these jumps alive are community individuals dedicated to doing so. This said, we have often struggled to provide the materials needed to keep the park running at its finest. Our hope is that this fundraiser will help fund some key items (water!!!) that are the most essential element to maintaining the park. In time, we believe a well-operated and functional park will help develop a stronger riding community, which in turn may inspire operations to truly turn the park around as was the intent of our initial fundraiser wording.
*Initial fundraiser goals: Our initial goal included not only some the aforementioned water and supplies funding, but also (and perhaps principally) funding to purchase PLANNING services from vendors involved in the design of Denver-area bike parks like Ruby Hill, Broomfield Bike Park, and Valmont. This operation would have cost approximately $7500 and would result in schematics that could then in turn be used in the writing of a grant proposal. Most likely, said PLAN would run in the neighborhood of $200,000 - $300,000 to execute. These estimates are based off construction costs for similar sized/featured parks across the state of Colorado. We still believe such a plan would be instrumental in helping our community see the potential for a more permanently built bike park at Goose Gossage. That said, our board of volunteers had to make the difficult choice of choosing whether to fund what is needed to the keep the park operating NOW vs funding a plan for what the park could be, and risk the park falling into disrepair. Given our limited funding is currently provided by donors like yourself, and those of a few committed volunteers, we believe we have made the choice that best benefits the park and its users today. We are thankful for your support, and glad every day we see riders at the park with a smile on their face. We hope to sustain the joy this park brings its visitors, and grow our riding community one dig day at a time!
The Goose Needs Your Help! Our dirt jumps are in desperate need of a reliable source of water and suitable soils to make workdays effective. The dirt doesn’t shape itself, and jumps will crumble constantly without consistent watering. Additionally, we hope to bring in a few generous loads of “hero dirt” to restore all the jumps, rollers and pump track. Your donations will help us fund these items, allocations of which may vary depending on whether we near our fundraising goal:
- Funding plumbed water on-site (currently no utilities exist on our side of Mark Dabling Blvd to inexpensively connect our park. Part of our fundraising will help secure an operation by COS to install water underneat the road to our location for use on workdays)
- Refilling of above-ground water tanks (temporary measure until plumbed water can be funded and installed)
- Purchasing rock-free, high-clay soil for repair and building of existing jumps, berms and rollers (currently our soil needs are met by excavating between existing jumps and sifting manually the rocks from the poor quality soil)
- Hiring of equipment/operators that may be needed to help make work days more efficient
You may have noticed that Goose Gossage bike park has recently undergone significant maintenance. Did you know that this park is/was built, maintained, and enhanced purely by volunteer efforts and personal funds? While the park space has been given permission by the city of Colorado Springs to exist as public dirt jumps/bike park, the park has historically operated on the “dig to ride” philosophy – meaning, the only thing keeping these jumps alive are community individuals dedicated to doing so. This said, we have often struggled to provide the materials needed to keep the park running at its finest. Our hope is that this fundraiser will help fund some key items (water!!!) that are the most essential element to maintaining the park. In time, we believe a well-operated and functional park will help develop a stronger riding community, which in turn may inspire operations to truly turn the park around as was the intent of our initial fundraiser wording.
*Initial fundraiser goals: Our initial goal included not only some the aforementioned water and supplies funding, but also (and perhaps principally) funding to purchase PLANNING services from vendors involved in the design of Denver-area bike parks like Ruby Hill, Broomfield Bike Park, and Valmont. This operation would have cost approximately $7500 and would result in schematics that could then in turn be used in the writing of a grant proposal. Most likely, said PLAN would run in the neighborhood of $200,000 - $300,000 to execute. These estimates are based off construction costs for similar sized/featured parks across the state of Colorado. We still believe such a plan would be instrumental in helping our community see the potential for a more permanently built bike park at Goose Gossage. That said, our board of volunteers had to make the difficult choice of choosing whether to fund what is needed to the keep the park operating NOW vs funding a plan for what the park could be, and risk the park falling into disrepair. Given our limited funding is currently provided by donors like yourself, and those of a few committed volunteers, we believe we have made the choice that best benefits the park and its users today. We are thankful for your support, and glad every day we see riders at the park with a smile on their face. We hope to sustain the joy this park brings its visitors, and grow our riding community one dig day at a time!
Organizer
Boris Simmonds
Organizer
Colorado Springs, CO
Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates Inc (Medicine Wheel)
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.
