By Caitlin Brezinski

Bike festival gives back to community

Nov 23, 2014 | 7:55 AM

Months after its annual fundraiser, the Pine Needle Bike Festival passed on a $6,000 cheque to the City of Prince Albert.

The Friday donation will go towards fixing the deteriorating retaining wall along the river trail in Little Red River Park. 

“The donation really allowed us to, rather than just replacing aging infrastructure, was to actually do some improvements to it,” said Alissa Baker, Parks Manager.  “It was a great opportunity to widen the trail as well, to increase the usability of the trail and make it more accessible to all user groups.”

She said the river trail is the most used by walkers, joggers, hikers, mountain bikers and cross country skiers within the Little Red River Park.

“Just making sure that we have the infrastructure in place to support those uses is really important to the city and to a lot of user groups,” she said. “The $6,000 that the Pine Needle Bike Festival donated really went a long way.”

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The full project cost was $41,700.  The remaining cost was funded through the Pehonan Parkway Reserve. 

“We’re very appreciative of the Pine Needle Mountain Bike Festival people for having done it this way and we just are more than happy that they’ve taken us this year as this project,” said chairman of the Pehonan Parkway, Coun. Don Cody.

Over the past four years, the Pine Needle Bike Festival has raised $22,500. They work with a different community agency or group each year.  

Organizer Mike Horn said they picked Little Red River Park because it is the home of the festival and used by so many people. 

“We met with the community services department with the city and we wanted to target a project that was kind of on the radar and the retaining wall was one of them,” he said. 

The project was completed in October and Horn said he said it was important for them to have something that was achievable this year so they could show people the progress.

“We’re happy to contribute to projects within the city and really encourage people to get involved and to come out and participate in it,” he said. “See what it’s all about and come out and enjoy an experience in the park.”

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