They said no
The opposition website is down, the signs are all removed and the dust has settled on the Shadow Mountain Bike Park.
In late 2020, signs appeared on Shadow Mountain Drive for a Jefferson County Planning and Zoning proposal for the meadow halfway up the road. Information wasn’t easy to find on the website but soon links and documents were shared on Conifer Facebook page. The proposal was for a full-send bike park in the meadow.
Near the yellow planning and zoning signs, two protest signs popped up. One near the meadow and another near Jill Drive. Underneath a cheery “Merry Christmas” was a list of no’s.
Included with the contact information for the case manager was message to call.
The sign got people riled up; those who are website and information savvy began to suss out the vastness of the project. Others picked sides and got angry. Facebook was the venue of choice. The entire Conifer community learned what a “NIMBY” is.
For the uninitiated the word, “NIMBY” means “not in my back yard.” This project was literally in the back yards of residents on both Shadow Mountain and Conifer Mountain – a commercial enterprise in the middle of relatively quiet mountain and residential neighborhood.
Early plans for the meadow included a full-send bike park, a hotel, bar, restaurant and retail shops.
The bike park proponents are two young men who love the sport of downhill biking. It’s a growing sport nationwide with many options in Colorado alone. Major ski resorts open their terrain to downhill bikers in the summer and I can only imagine what a thrill that is. A new bike park opened in Idaho Springs last year. Virginia Canyon Mountain Park has easy access from I-70, is very popular, although parking is a problem.
The yellow signs stood along the road until weather, vandalism and snow plows took them out. The mountain and its residents waited.
As the project progressed, community meetings both in person and online were held by the applicants. They set up booths at local fairs, interviewed with the local radio station and newspaper. They seemed to listened to neighbor’s concerns and complaints and made it clear they wanted to be part of the community.
The opposition got organized and set up the Stop the bike park website. They hired an attorney and asked for volunteers to help focus on individual aspects of the park. They sold signs, banners and t-shirts.
Shadow Mountain is about 2 miles outside of Conifer, just off Barkley Road and Hwy 73. Shadow Mountain Drive is a two-lane windy, narrow road with it’s fair share of accidents, speeders, aggressive drivers (the white truck stories are legend) and is sometimes impassable in bad weather. The accidents are usually weather or speed related. Once or twice a year there’s a fatality. From the south, the meadow is just after a mile-long section of monster spruce trees. After winding through tight corners the road opens to the meadow once used for cattle grazing with a sign that said “beef for sale.” The grazing lease was pulled in 2024 and the cows went away just like they would every fall.
The meadow is also home to local elk. Massive bulks, cows and calves are a daily sight. It’s considered a migration route and in the spring and cows calve there. Drive by the meadow at 5:00 a.m. and you’ll see “nurseries” of calves with mothers nearby. They graze along the creek that flows by the road and move into the pine and aspen trees during the heat of the day.
When the herds move en masse they can be a hazard. They saunter across busy roads and are almost impossible to see in the dark. I saw a huge bull elk get nailed by a Pathfinder on US 285 near Log Trail. That section has a street light over it so I witnessed the whole thing. The truck knocked the elk down and he sat in the middle of the road kind of dazed. I stayed and called Jeffco and tried to help the people in the Pathfinder. The driver was OK but the passenger clocked their head. Once they found out I’d called, they got into nearly destroyed vehicle and lit out of there. The elk got up and walked away as if being hit at 55 mph was nothing.
For nearly four years residents stewed over the park. In 2024, a Jeffco planning and zoning community input meeting was held at the Taj Mahal. People filled the main chambers, overflow rooms and there was online access. The vibe was angry. The opposition wore red t-shirts and in lieu of red, the opposition handed out their brown and white stickers. Approximately 120 people offered testimony and a handful were in support of the park. Teams from the opposition organized their 3-minute time limit so that 10 people could present in depth on a specific topic. Their presentation was seamless. The applicants presentation was regarded with skepticism and the group received an admonishment from the planning and zoning commissioners to be respectful. The “this is the best option” tactic came out when it was mentioned that if the park isn’t approved that hundreds of homes would be built, or even a rock quarry. Less emotional information drilled down into water use, taxes, revenue, traffic, parking accommodations, wildlife, noise, lights, EMS services, landscaping and blending in with the surroundings. The proceedings took two days.
At the end the three planning and zoning commissioners asked questions. They asked hard, intelligent and insightful questions of the applicants. One question was how many people would visit the park in a season. Not a year – a season. The answer was 60,000- 70,000 people. The planning director said something regarding the meadow, the area and why people are fighting so hard against the bike park. “Not all that matters can be measured.”
At the end, commissioners would vote to approve or deny. They denied recommendation.
Next was the meeting with Jeffco commissioners. Over the course of two days, the applicants once again presented their side. The testimony from the month before was entered into the record. They said if they didn’t get approved they would never come back and try again. People in the chambers clapped and yahoo’d. Again, we got admonished to behave ourselves. A second day was needed to continue testimony and for the commissioners to ask questions and review the material. In the end, they voted 2-1 to deny the application.
Jefferson County commissioners deny Shadow Mountain Bike Park proposal
The applicants made statements to the Denver Post about the NIMBYs and the outdated the Conifer community plan. That’s fine, maybe even true. I’m sure they spent a lot of money over those four years tweaking the plan to meet a multitude of criteria with a wall of angry, well-informed neighbors in the background. The applicants narrowed their proposal to suit recommendations by experts and officials time and time again. In the end, two criteria ended the project: a time schedule accommodation for calving season and traffic.
Residents I’ve talked with resent the four years wasted being stressed out and the powerlessness of having their neighborhood torn up for bikes. There’s relief the proposal went away and if another proposal is made for some other entity, then the homework is already done and the line is drawn in the sand: Elk and traffic.
From the applicant’s website they’re onto other things and I wish them well. They’re now experts on planning and zoning and hopefully “reading the room” of the community where they want to build. Planning and zoning commissioners encouraged the pair to find another location and make their dream a reality and do it soon. Two of the P&Z commissioners are riders and were excited at the prospect. A local closed ski resort, complete with infrastructure was recommended. Through all of this they now have resources to help them navigate their dream and that means they don’t have to re-invent the wheel.
There’s a saying among the opposition and it’s true: This bike park is a great idea – just not on Shadow Mountain.