The seeds of Danny Hart’s two World Championships were sewn at the Descend Hamsterly bike park and now, after his most successful season ever, he has taken on ownership of his childhood training ground.

The bike park will now be known as Danny Hart’s Descend Hamsterly Bike Park but Craig Hunter and the rest of his team will remain a part of the business. Danny also plans on offering coaching sessions when the park is up and running.

With a tantilising press release promising Danny would “breathe new life into the facilities” and also help to “take the park to new heights”, we had to have a chat with him to see what the plans were:

What prompted you to take ownership of the bike park?

“When me and my Dad heard that Craig Hunter [previous owner] was wanting to get out of it, we thought it would be a great oppurtunity for us to get into it.

“I have rode up there from day one over me switching from BMX racing to DH racing, when I was about 10-11, so it is going to be great for us to put something back into the venue that has got me to where I am now.

“I don’t think I could have done what I have done without Descend Hamsterley.”

What are the major changes you want to make to the bike park?

“For the time being we are just learning how things work with the Forestry and all the other things that go into running a bike park, and to be honest with you, the bike park as it is right now is brilliant.

“Granted, it is not the biggest hill in the world but what we have is great, and I believe you could get every section on a World Cup track, it is all just pretty small.

“We do plan on building some new stuff, we would like to cater for the younger generation by building a kids track, hopefully get a pump track in somewhere. But as I said before we are just learning how it all works first. But we will definitely building some new stuff.”

How big do you see the bike park growing under your ownership?

“I am really surprised at how well it has gone down so far, lots of people are interested, our Facebook page has gone crazy, and the uplifts are filling up thick and fast… So if it carries on like it has started it is going to be massive!”

How many coaching sessions will you offer a year? What level of rider will they be for?

“Right now it is hard to say because I am very busy, but if everyone keeps an eye on our facebook page everything will be going on there, also keep an eye on my athlete page aswell as I will be keeping people updated on there too.”

Danny Hart’s Descend Bike Park Facebook
Danny Hart Athlete Page

Plans are to have an official opening day in the near future with Danny on hand and riding the track with the general public. Here’s a video of Danny Hart shredding the par back in 2011 with Guy Martin: