Uneven Ground?: Exploring the Steve Smith Bike Park Pump Tracks as an Inclusive Leisure Space

Abstract

As advocacy for inclusion has become more prevalent, there has been a growing expectation for leisure spaces to be welcoming and accessible to all populations. Concurrently, there has been a substantial increase in the development and use of pump tracks as urban leisure spaces. Pump tracks are bicycle riding surfaces designed as loops or multi-looped tracks consisting of rollers and berms. Creators of promotional materials for pump track builds and contributors to online forums have identified pump tracks as sustainable and inclusive leisure spaces for diverse user groups. Yet, despite their popularity and proliferation, no empirical research has been published about pump tracks, who uses them, and why. Exploring claims of inclusion must be conducted with members of equity-owed populations. As such, I conducted 34 interviews with self-identifying Indigenous and newcomer Peoples (Indigenous = 10, newcomer = 16) and pump track planners, builders, and leisure professionals (n = 8), and over six months of participant observation at the Steve Smith Bike Park pump tracks. I addressed three topics in three separate papers in this dissertation. First, I explored my observations of what inclusion did (or did not) look like at the Steve Smith Bike Park. Second, I explored Indigenous Peoples’ relationship(s) to the pump tracks at the Steve Smith Bike Park, which is located on Snuneymuxw First Nation ancestral and unceded territory. Third, I explored newcomers’ experiences of inclusion at the pump tracks at the Steve Smith Bike Park. I used intersectional and settler colonial theories to inform my approaches to this research and conducted reflexive thematic analysis in all three papers. Within the first study, I asserted that while the pump tracks at the Steve Smith Bike Park were observed to facilitate inclusion for some individuals of various ages, genders, and skill levels, they are not inherently inclusive by design. Ultimately, I argued that meaningful inclusion requires an intersectional approach, involving constant effort and ongoing attention. In the second study, participants expressed concerns of limited representation and engagement of and with Indigenous Peoples at the pump tracks, noting a reflection of broader settler colonial structures within the space. Interestingly, participants simultaneously described the pump tracks as sites of resistance and resurgence, where embodied, land-based practices asserted Indigenous presence and (re)defined the space. In the third study, participants underscored that factors including language, migration history, and cultural background intersected to shape their engagement with and at the Steve Smith Bike Park. Importantly, a significant barrier to participants’ engagement at the pump tracks identified was not how to participate, but rather the awareness that participation was possible, pointing to an overarching gap in leisure education and participation services. Collectively, I argue that inclusion at the Steve Smith Bike Park is neither neutral nor guaranteed but is experienced as negotiated and uneven, and shaped by intersecting identities and power relations, including settler colonial logics, racism, and classism. Overall, my research underscores the need for ongoing, intersectional and decolonial approaches to the design and implementation of pump tracks.