Thinking of buying a new home? Perhaps some neighborhood amenities would persuade you, like a gym or a community pool. Maybe a golf course or, I know, pickleball courts.
While some of these subdivision extras may be a nice touch (actually, I don’t know about golf or pickleball), a new neighborhood in Idaho is doing it right. The new housing development, Valnova, just outside of Boise, hired Braydon Bringhurst to build a bike park for the neighborhood. And when it is all said and done, Valnova’s Kirkhills Bike Park will be much more than just, well, a bike park.
If I buy a home right now, what am I riding?
“We just finished up the bike park,” Bringhurst told Singletracks. “It has three directional downhill trails — a green, a green/blue, and a blue.”
Along with the three DH trails, the new bike park also has a climbing trail and a “rhythm pump track for kids.” Bringhurst told us that it wasn’t a traditional circular pump track, but rather more like “two straight rhythms.” The track is designed essentially as two separate tracks, with rollers on one side and small “doubles” on the other. Both feed into a quick trail that leads riders back to the top of the tracks.
The trail builders also wrapped up roughly two miles of XC trails at Kirkhills, which Bringhurst is particularly excited about. “I’m making sure there’s constant rhythm to them. I just get so sick of a straight trail. So whether it’s grade reversals or oscillation of up and down or right and left. So you’re constantly moving, you’re constantly cornering, you’re pumping.”
Phase 2 is coming
But a handful of DH trails and two miles of XC is truly just the beginning. When Bringhurst mentioned that they “just finished up the bike park,” he also noted that this was the “first bike park” in the neighborhood plan.
Valnova’s Kirkhills will have multiple bike parks connected by the XC trail network running between them. Bringhurst said phase two will add more XC miles, a slalom track built by Kyle Strait and Strait Acres, and “four directional, purpose-built trails” off the XC system.
While he didn’t mention the exact number of “bike parks” throughout Kirkhills, Bringhurst did say that the area will have “designated bike parks throughout.” With so many parks planned, and knowing XC trails will connect them, I imagined there must be a good handful of XC miles planned as well.
I didn’t expect 20-30 miles, however. But Bringhurst explained that’s really just the limit of the 6,000-acre Valnova and Kirkhills. In time, he will connect the trails to hundreds of miles of singletrack running through Boise’s foothills.
His involvement spawned a trail-building company, and Bringhurst moved into upper management
“[Valnova] came to me last summer and said, ‘Hey Braydon, we would love to have you involved. We want to build homes by trails, but we don’t just want to put trails around the homes. We really want them to be extra special.’”
Obviously, Bringhurst knows a thing or two about trails. The professional mountain biker has not only tackled some of the most difficult trails (usually in the wrong direction), but also founded Hard MTB League a few years ago. I assumed he founded his trail-building company, Bringhurst Trails and Company, in response to that. However, Bringhurst told me it was Valnova’s inquiry that prompted him to start his trail-building company, not Hard MTB League.
Despite having his own company, Bringhurst’s vision was always to work with other trail builders — reputable builders whose work he enjoyed. “That’s why my company is called ‘Bringhurst Trails and Company,’ because the company that I’m bringing along are some of the best builders in the sport.”
Along with hiring Strait Acres to build the Kirkhills slalom track, Bringhurst has been working extensively with Rob Hollerman and his company, Dirt Gnome Designs, on the project. Hollerman has done a lot of work at the nearby Eagle Bike Park and leads the charge as Hard MTB’s head builder.
Not your average neighborhood trails
Now, Valnova likely isn’t the first housing development with “neighborhood trails.” In fact, a new neighborhood just a few miles east of me boasts “bike trails.” But these trails clearly weren’t built by Braydon Bringhurst and crew.
It is probably safe to say that most people don’t live in a neighborhood with any trails. Instead, all they get is an HOA and pickleball courts. And while I’ll likely never be able to afford a house at Valnova, where prices range from the low $400 thousands to over $4 million, I love seeing a housing development think outside the box with its buying perks.
But perhaps the most significant, and coolest, aspect of the Kirkhills Bike Park is that Bringhurst isn’t just getting these trails done and “moving on.” Rather, Bringhurst is setting aside funding for future maintenance and upkeep of the trails, something many “neighborhood” trails desperately need.
More than just being invested in leading the trail build, the Kirkhills Bike Park trails will be where Bringhurst rides, and where he brings his family to ride. While the park is technically Valnova’s, it will be open for anyone — Valnova resident or not — to ride. For Bringhurst, his greatest hope is that the trails will positively impact the Boise mountain bike community. He also understands that the undertaking is a huge responsibility.
“Yeah, it’s a total honor that they thought of me.”
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