Current Status

2nd Referral Comments from Agencies Received

On December 8th, the developers submitted their responses to the 1st referral comments.  The application has now gone through a second referral process where state and local agencies review the application and the developers’ responses again. You can find the agencies’ comments for the 2nd referral below in the Read the Application for Yourself section in the right-hand column of the table. The developers now have up to 180 days to respond to these comments. The first public hearing in front of the Jeffco Planning Commission could be as soon as the end of February depending on how quickly the developers respond. We will keep you updated on timelines here. This public hearing is when we will have our first chance to present all of our concerns with the bike park.

Be sure you are signed up on our Get Involved page to be notified when the public hearing date has been set. You can learn more about the Jeffco zoning process here.

Of Note: The developers’ response to the first referral comments were due on December 2nd. Because they missed this deadline the developers requested and the Jeffco Planning and Zoning Director granted them an extension and they submitted their responses on December 8th.

 

What is the Proposed Bike Park?

On January 5, 2021, Phil Bouchard and Jason Evans from New Hampshire met with the community to propose a lift-access downhill and freeride mountain bike park to be built on 273 acres of a Colorado State Land Board parcel 2.2 miles west of Route 73 on Shadow Mountain Drive. The bike park name was originally Full Send Bike Ranch, but was renamed Shadow Mountain Bike Park in 2022.

The property is zoned Agricultural Two (“A2”), currently undeveloped, and occasionally used for agricultural and grazing purposes. The developers are asking for a special use permit to begin construction of their bike park. They believe the project will have minimal impact on matters of great concern for area residents, including wildfire risks, excess traffic, destruction of key wildlife habitat and vegetation, overloading emergency response teams, and impairing the public health and welfare (learn more about why we disagree with this here).

The proposal calls for construction of a four-passenger chairlift to transport guests and bikes to the top of Conifer Mountain, creating 16 miles of trails, constructing access to and space for a 300-car parking lot to accommodate guest vehicles, a day lodge with restrooms, changing rooms, bike and equipment rentals and other guest services. To address food and beverage needs there will be locally based food trucks (whether they will be allowed to serve alcohol is not addressed in the application).

The developers propose to operate the bike park from March 1 through the end of November, a 9-month season (in some places they talk about operating from April – December). Special events such as fat tire events or other winter activities may be held from December 1 to March 1- in essence making for year-round operations. During the winter special event time, they propose that select trails within the bike park could possibly be open to the local community for hiking and snowshoeing.

They are expecting an average of approximately 700 downhill and freestyle mountain bikers daily, with the developers estimating at the Community Meeting in 2022 there would be more than 1,000 bikers on peak days in 500 cars that would be driving to and from the Bike Park (1,000 vehicle trips) on Shadow Mountain Drive.

You can review the developers’ application for a special use permit here, along with the 1st referral comments from the county and the developers’ responses to those comments

Learn More About the county’s process to review the application

Where Would the Bike Park Be Located?

A map done by a neighbor helping to depict where the proposed bike park location is.

The developers submitted site plan.

Read the Application For Yourself

The application and associated files are many hundreds of pages, so we have broken them down into smaller chunks. Below you will find links to all of the various parts of the application the developers made for a special use permit along with comments agencies made back in response. We have grouped these files by topic so that you can find a topic you care about, read what the developers submitted in their application then read the comments from all of the applicable agencies that responded on those sections, then you can read the developers’ responses to those comments and lastly you will be able to read the new 2nd referral comments as they come in.

Topic

Application

1st Referral Comments From Agencies

1st Referral Developer Responses

2nd Referral Comments From Agencies

Entire Application (please note these are very large files)

Our Top Concerns

We oppose the Bike Park because they plan on developing a pristine meadow into a commercial enterprise putting our mountain, our community, wildlife, and environment at risk.

Safety

Adding 940 vehicle trips per day like the developers propose on a road that is a winding, narrow two-lane road with no shoulders and blind driveways puts everyone at risk

Emergency Responder Resources

The Bike Park will provide only first aid, leaving Elk Creek Fire volunteers to respond to all serious accidents on the property reducing avalability for the rest of the community.

Wildfire

The proposed development area is in an extreme wildfire risk area with no evacuation plan.

Wildlife

The proposed development area provides habitat and migratory corridor for a diverse wildlife population. 

Air & Water

The car pollution, human waste, and water needs of hundreds of mountain bikers a day will have detrimental impacts.