Activities that bring together young and old alike have seen many ups and downs in Port Townsend.

Keeping in line with that trend is a group of locals with a vision to bring a pumptrack to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.

A pumptrack is a track for wheeled sports equipment that, when ridden properly, does not require pedaling or pushing, but a “pumping” action to maintain momentum.

Pumptracks consist of a series of rollers (bumps or small hills) and berms (corners) forming a loop.

The “pump” part is the pushing-down and pulling-up action performed by riders in accordance with the structure’s design.

“You don’t have to be good at riding a bike to enjoy the pumptrack,” said Joe Johnson, who has been at the wheel of the project from the beginning.

Johnson first came upon the concept completely by accident.

On a family trip to Central Oregon his family rolled up on a track on the side of the highway the likes of which they’d never seen before.

“We didn’t know what it was but we had the bikes in the back of the car,” Johnson said.

“Our kids jumped on their bikes and started going around this thing and they were having a blast. And then I grabbed my bike and went around and had a blast,” he said.

Part of what makes pumptracks so appealing is that anyone can have fun without extreme effort.

“My wife is not an avid bicyclist, but she saw us having a bunch of fun and she went on a bike and went around,” Johnson said.

“When we were there, there were five or six families,” he added.

Since that first experience, he’s watched Port Angeles build a pumptrack, the Erickson Playfield, which is ADA accessible and designed for both manual and electric wheelchairs, as well as other adaptive devices.

“Drive out to Port Angeles any day and you’re going to see so many families,” Johnson said.

Michelle Christiansen and her son have experienced the benefits of the Port Angeles pumptrack first hand.

“My son actually raced for a year up in PA at that track,” Christiansen said.

“He really learned the self-discipline to take responsibility when he did make mistakes, and pushed himself to succeed,” she added.

Now, she’s joining with Johnson and others to try and bring a track to Port Townsend.

“Seeing that change in my son, it’s something
I can’t help support,” Christiansen said.

To aid them in their endeavor, they’ve enlisted the help of Matt Blossom, a trail builder with the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance.

Evergreen is the state’s largest nonprofit bike organization, helping municipalities build a variety of tracks and trails for people to enjoy.

“We actually last summer did the largest paved pumptrack in Washington,” Blossom said.

His expertise has been invaluable to the local team as they push their proposal forward — especially as they begin applying for grants.

As things stand now, the group is waiting on approval by the end of January for a planning grant through the state. The grant would provide funding for permitting, design, and surveying.

From there, they would need the Jefferson County Fairgrounds Association to approve of the project before hosting a series of three public meetings to take public comment on the design.

The last major hurdle would be construction costs.

But after speaking with Sarah Grossman, the president of the Jefferson Universal Movement Playground project, the pumptrack group has ideas on how to get over the hump.

“We are going to use a similar structure. We’re an independent group that will get fiscally sponsored by a nonprofit so we can collect donations, and the Re-Cyclery has been very supportive,” Johnson said.

Once the paperwork is signed, people will be able to donate to the Re-Cyclery specifically in order for the funds to reach the pumptrack project.

If every hurdle is cleared without a hitch, the track could be completed in as soon as a year, supporters said.