Stevie Smith’s memorial bike park gets final funding

According to a report in the Canadian news site The Time Colonist, Stevie Smith’s memorial mountain bike park has recently received the final funding from Nanaimo council with construction expected to be completed next year.

Nanaimo council has approved spending up to $200,000 on a community bike park to be named for Stevie Smith, the world downhill mountain-bike champion who died after a motorcycle accident in May.

Construction of the park has already started at Beban Park and is expected to be complete next year.

The Stevie Smith bike park will be an addition to an existing BMX park. It will include a dirt jump and return trail, pump track and skills park.

Several community groups, including the Gyro Club of Nanaimo and the Stevie Smith Legacy Foundation, have raised almost a quarter of a million dollars to help pay for the project.

Smith was 26 when he died. He was born in Cassidy and honed his skills on Mount Prevost near Duncan. He was nicknamed the “Canadian Chainsaw” because of his hell-bent, swashbuckling technique on the course.