“It’s just the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Jim Severt says of motorbikes recently tearing up parts of Sun Valley’s Biggest Little Bike Park (see part of photo collage).
The 52-year-old has been building up “this refuge for kids,” spread over 14 acres, for over two decades, “with very minimal support from Washoe County parks,” even though it’s now part of the Sun Valley Regional Park.
Severt was back in town for a happy family moment on Memorial Day weekend, when he received news of videos tagged with the westcoastpittycommittee handle on Instagram.
The Tracy, California-based page, which bills itself as a sports team, uses the tag line “the smaller the CC the bigger the PP.” It recently posted several videos of its riders going through Reno.
“There’s millions of acres of BLM land where they could have gone instead,” Severt told Our Town Reno during a phone conversation this week, after we were alerted to an angry back and forth taking place on his Facebook page.
One commenter called Severt a “martyr,” which didn’t surprise him.
“There should be a mutual respect between the bicycles and the motorcycles where if they show up at a place like that they just know better,” Severt said. “But there’s a younger crowd that will say, ‘yeah we are going to ride it, no matter what.’ Even if I was there telling them not to ride it, they would still ride it. Or they would talk shit to me.”
He said repairing the damage would take several hours. “In the high desert, the ground itself when wet or dry, if a motorized vehicle uses it, it will literally tear it up to where it forms these ruts. The damage they did recently, that’s about four or five hours of hand work,” he said.
We reached out to people criticizing Severt on Facebook, who referred us to the so-called westcoastpittycommittee.
Via Instagram, one representative from the group quickly responded to our Instagram message, saying:
“We couldn’t even see a sign from where we entered, after this we rode to the top and found different jumps that we weren’t aware were also part of the bike park due to the lack of maintenance and overgrowth all over them so we sessioned those instead of the actual bike park.”
In a follow-up, the representative added: “Also we would’ve been happy to go back and help dig the jumps with shovels if the guy would’ve reached out to us but instead he made a post attempting to slander us on Facebook.”
After indicating this article would include the comments and thanking them for the reply, the representative made a few more statements: “Make sure you mention that we were polite and respectful with the bikers the whole time. We weren’t attempting to start any issues with anyone. We were just going for a ride and came across some jumps. As far as digging goes we have dug plenty of spots in Nevada and California and welcome everyone and anyone to come and ride. We aren’t planning on stopping any time soon either. I even reached out to the guy that made the Facebook post and no response. I don’t even know how to get to that spot personally I was led up there by a local. 🤷♂️ It would be awesome if we had a facility that we could do both in harmony without having to clash with another sport over it. Also, this is our first time at that spot and if we were aware that the guy would be dozing it if we came and rode it we would have never come.”
The representative didn’t give their name but did include the below screen grabs.
Severt doesn’t buy the excuse they didn’t know the park is off limits to motorbikes.
“They need to be held accountable for their actions, and they need to stop what they’re doing,” he said.
The entrance to the Biggest Little Bike Park has a rules and regulations sign which indicates no motorized vehicles, e-bikes or RC cars.
“There’s a whole code or law thing for one,” Severt said. “They know they shouldn’t be there. They can’t claim ignorance because it’s posted on the website and it’s posted at the site.”
Severt says he’s fed up with the lack of community support. He says he received ten signs for the park but that it took officials eight years to get those to him, and that he also received a grand total of two picnic tables in additional help.
Severt says building the park has totaled over 40-thousand hours in volunteer work, with himself providing most of that time.
Despite the current challenges, Severt says he’s proud of the legacy the Biggest Little Bike Park has, including being a foundational training area for Perris Benegas. The Reno native won the gold medal in BMX freestyle park at the UCI Urban Cycling World Championships in Chengdu, China in 2018, and finished fourth in women’s BMX freestyle at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Severt’s own son also practiced hours and hours there, becoming an accomplished rider as well.
“My idea was always about it to be a safe place to be, and also giving kids an opportunity to learn. You’re learning failure, you’re learning success. It was a place to learn and have fun,” said Severt, previously a former professional BMX and dirt bike racer.
He says the park has 200 jumps, 30 “corners,” a dual slalom course and wood features, making it fun for all skill levels.
Severt, who also worked for an architecture firm in Reno, and for over two decades for the Washoe County School District in maintenance and environmental programs, says he helped design the nearby Truckee Bike Park, the Incline Village Bike Park, and the Bijou Bike Park in South Lake Tahoe, which he feels all get much more community support.
“They have water there. They have trash cans which get emptied by personnel. They’re fenced. They’re signed. And that was all paid for by either the county, or the parks department or the land owner,” he explained.
After writing on his Facebook post that he was considering sending out “letters to the Washoe County commissioners, Washoe parks and the county manager requesting the termination of my agreement to have the Biggest Little Bike Park continue in the SV Regional park,” Severt says a few people reached out saying they want to help save the spot.
Severt is currently pursuing a Masters in Architectures at the University of Idaho, so he no longer lives in Sun Valley as he used to. He wants others to now lead the way
“They need to find a group of people that will step up, not just talk about it but actually go out and can deal with Washoe County parks, that can get a fence around it, running water there, getting a safety access road to it, because those things right now are not there. We need people like at the Biggest Little Trail stewardship to step up, take the reins and then do it,” he said of those wanting to help.
After seeing the video last weekend, Severt says he called the non-emergency line for the Washoe County sheriff’s office, but even though some of their officers then drove to the Biggest Little Bike Park, he says they couldn’t be bothered to get out of their vehicle.
In his exacerbated Facebook post he wrote: “this last little act of vandalism and a collective disregard by the Washoe Sheriff's department along with only one person even attempting to do upkeep has brought me to the decision of having Washoe County level the existing jumps and features. It was a good run of 22 years and it will be a huge weight off of my shoulders to get rid of it. Hope you all enjoyed over the years.”
When we spoke to him on the phone, Severt was now hoping this local magical place for non motorized dirt bikers of all ages could still be saved.
“I don’t want it to go away,” he said, “but I want to keep my sanity,” he concluded.