Regardless of where you live, you can find a place to ride your bmx and mountain bike. Dirt jumps, freeride drops and bridges, mountain bike trails and bmx tracks are all great places to ride. If you don't have any trails or jumps, you can build them. All you have to do is find the right spot and get to work.

If you are fortunate, your city may have trails or parks developed specifically for riding. Many times the city or county can provide you with access to land if they do not. You just have to use a little tact in getting this done. If you don't have any luck this way, there is always your backyard or you may be able to find an empty lot or some woods near by. Many trails have been made on abandoned lots or in desolate wooded areas. Be careful here because most landowners do not like people riding on their property. If you want to do it the right way you can try and convince the landowner to lease or loan you the land for riding.

On to the building. Depending on what kind of riding you want to do, you can build a track or trails in the woods. You can rent or borrow equipment if you have major land clearing to be done or you can start with the basics a shovel and some clippers. These tools can also be helpful; A handsaw for cutting up downed trees, a chainsaw for cutting up downed larger trees, a hatchet for roots, a yard rake for clearing and smoothing, a iron rake for moving debris and dirt and a hammer and nails if you will be building wood structures. Be careful to not cut down any live trees more than 2" in diameter, this can be very detrimental to the environment and how others will look at your project.

You can get wood from a number of places the obvious of which is the local lumber store. But, if you don't have funds you can always work with scrap. If you see a house being built, ask the contractor for any scrap wood. Make sure you only do this while the contractor or owner is present or you may be arrested for theft or vandalism.

Once you have the right place the next step is to get busy. Get your friends and design something you think will be fun. You can borrow ideas from places you've been or you can be creative. This is what makes it fun, but you also want to make sure that what you build something that is functional. If you've never built anything like this before you definitely want to pay close attention to places that have been successful. Once your spot is built you will enjoy hours of countless fun here as well as take pride in what you have built. Have fun! Barry Page

Dig and Build Part II http://atbmx.com/articles/buildII.html

Barry Page is an avid bmx and mountain biker with over 25 years racing experience and multiple state, national and international titles. Now retired from competitive racing he enjoys freeride and publishes http://atbmx.com