Swedish MTB Community Rallies to Save Gothenburg Dirt Jumps, Emil Johansson's Old Stomping Grounds
Felix Törnqvist airing it out while filming for Red Bull's Swede Shreds. Photo: Hanna Jonsson / Red Bull
Kallebäcksdirten is a well-known dirt jump spot in Gothenburg, Sweden, and perhaps its greatest claim to fame is it's the place where Emil Johansson spent his weekends as a teenager working to become the slopestyle rider he is today. Now, Gothenburg City has made the decision to demolish the jumps with no known plans for how the land will otherwise be used.
Mountain bikers in Sweden and beyond have protested the demolition and have started a petition, especially as there are few dirt jump spots in Sweden and this change will dismantle an entire community built around the park. "Almost every weekend, all year round, a bunch of bikers gather here with an age range between 5 - 50 years to shred together and learn from each other," the petition organizers wrote.
The petition has collected 2,346 signatures at the time of this writing and is available here.
 | The city now wants to tear these jumps down but we hope that by collecting names we can try to save this place. These Dirt Jumps in Gothenburg was where I spent most of my weekends as an early teenager growing up progressing my riding skills & hanging with friends. This place has played a huge role for the whole local scene & the amount of joy the place have brought is countless. Without this place there is nowhere to ride so for the adults, teenagers, kids & the next generation. |
Simon Johansson's enduro-ish tour of Gothenburg. The dirt jumps are featured from 0:26 onward.
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100% agree, these people are so out of touch.
Our city bike park gets a bit overrun by kids, but the intermediate and advanced lines have small gaps off the roll-in as a strainer and boulders on top of the table tops. Keeps out the kids and the people who aren't ready to gap a jump.
For some reason Pinkbike made a smiley face out of the link
I would have thought since it is computer controlled, they would have no problem with other languages!
A) Adults ride bikes too
B) Bike riders are disproportionately middle class
C) Sports facilities do not need to justify their existence through appeals to social justice. Do you see planning applications for golf clubs stating “If these men don’t have a space to swing their golf bats around they might become football hooligans”? Of course not because it makes it seem that your providing facilities for dickheads.
The argument should be the people that have built this are good people, they are sorry for having taken over someone’s land but they deserve the opportunity to show they can run it properly. This is the approach we took at Brockham Trails and it worked.