It was an early morning in Frick Park. A ghostly fog wove its way through the trees, wrapping itself around everything it touched and suppressing all sounds from escaping. I rolled up to the trailhead. The air was crisp and damp from the fog. The sun had just risen from the far hillside casting a bronze light over everything. I pulled my gloves on tighter and put up my face mask just high enough to cover my nose. The sound of a bike punctured the tranquility as I wove my way through the damp forest. My bike left behind scars in the wet dirt as it cut through it. Specs flew up in the air in my wake. The bike perfectly followed the line of the trail beneath it, tilting itself on the berms underneath me. The trails of frick park weave through the hillside intentionally, every turn, berm, jump, bridge, and drop is perfectly placed. When I looked down the side of the hill in certain spots I could see the river below, little waves creating white caps on the surface. There were big old industrial warehouses across the river with old docks for barges coming off of them into the water. Carrie Furnace, an old steel mill, sits along the bank rusted out from years of sitting vulnerable to the elements. A skeleton of old Pittsburgh.
Frick Park is an interesting place. As the largest park within the city limits of Pittsburgh, it is a known place where people find asylum to escape from the loud busy city. The main section of the park, or park proper, is quite large, and when you’re deep in it you wouldn’t even think you were in the city. The park as a whole is about 644 square acres. Lush trees grow tall and moss-covered with creeks winding through them. Owls and hawks fight over food and deer roam free, un-entertained by the passing cyclists and hikers.
The other part of the park with most of the flow/jump trails sits upon old piles of slag from the old industrial steel mills. The hills and valleys were filled with leftover debris from the age of steel in Pittsburgh. It is barren in some spots and looks almost like an old overgrown parking lot out of an apocalypse movie. They would ship it out of the mills on trains and just dump it. They continued to dump completely, changing the topography of the land. Filling in valleys and creating new hills. This also changed the texture of the dirt. It is almost like asphalt. Loose rocky dirt that holds well on berms and rips up your legs when you fall. You get the feeling that you are in an abandoned industrial park. But one with hills. When I ride through the slags, as it’s called, I always see big blocks of concrete randomly littered in the woods, shopping carts half buried in mud, and old rusted-out bodies of cars, all just sitting there as if a reminder of the history that shaped the land. While it has a more industrial feeling it is still lush with trees, bushes, plants, and moss. There are birds chirping, and deer running away with their fawns as they hear me coming. Slivers of long grass fill cracks in the ground and create walls of tan and green. Deeper in the woods everything is green.
What people say makes this part of the park great though is the astounding quality of the trails. It is unheard of to get this within city limits. Freehub magazine named it a premier singletrack destination. Although some argue it’s biased. The surprising part to most people is that a lot of the trails started out Illegal. And many of them are still unsanctioned. As I rode through Redemption Center, one of the formerly illegal trails, at the very edge of the park along a hillside, I came across two men digging in the dirt with hand shovels and rakes. It was still early, the sun was barely up and beams of light were cutting through the trees and fog. I pulled on the brakes and came to a stop with a protesting screech from the wet calibers. The men had on dirt-covered work pants and t-shirts with bike graphics on them. “Slagforce” was written across the front pocket. I recognized their faces from bike events before and generally knew what they were about. They both looked up with a relieved look in their eyes as if they had reason to fear that I may be someone else. I gave them a friendly greeting and slowly continued through, pushing my bike past a pile of loose dirt. They temporarily stopped their work to let me pass. As I rode away I heard the metallic clang of the spade hitting a rock under the damp dirt. When Frick Park does trail building projects and has volunteers help, the majority of the time it is in the afternoon. 12:30 to 2. 2 to 3:30. 3:30 to 5. The park hosts these trail service days to keep the trails in good maintenance and keep improving them. It was not one of those days. It was 7 am.
The Slagforce website is pretty barren. It is completely devoid of any information regarding the people who run the operation and who control the site. On the site, there are only two options for what you can do. There is a button “Sponsor a project”, which just leads to a faceless Venmo to give money, and a “Slag Swag” button, which takes you to a page with t shirts, hats, and other branded merchandise. The first featured t-shirt on the page has #notfrick written across the front in hot pink. #notfrick. A casual person just glancing at this might not think anything of it or just not understand what it means at all. But this hashtag is plastered across social media and their name.
“It’s like half a joke. Since we are not technically allowed to build in the park, we just say that we aren’t in the park. We say that we #arntbuildinginfrick,” Said Rob, one of the builders. They say #notfrick to jokingly take the blame away. It is more than just a joke though. It represents a small act of defiance against the creativity-diminishing regulations of the park. Their creativity thrives when they have no rules restraining them. They can create the best trails they can by going in secret. It is ironic though that although what they do is technically illegal the trails they build are many people’s favorite.
I’ve watched them work. They’re always talking some slang about an angle on a berm being too “Soft” or too fast. Then a few minutes later they start reshaping it to fit their version of perfect. They do this efficiently. It is evident in the time they’ve spent perfecting the craft. They aren’t just amateurs. They ride as well and are good at it. Darren actually used to be a semi-pro bmx racer. Although it was a lower professional level. He still is very skilled. And Rob has just been riding since he was a kid so he has a lot of experience. This helps them know what works and what doesn’t. What is perfect? They build what they want to ride.
To the industry, they are rouge builders, but their trails are what keep riders coming to parks like frick. The authorized crews come in with big budgets, blueprints, and plans, while Slagforce comes in with a “feel for the dirt,” and a belief that “good trails don’t need permission.” By the time the park fills up with riders, they’re gone. No credit, no names, just fresh-cut lines in the dirt and the name Slagforce across metal nameplates.
The hiker shook his head, as he carefully stepped around a big puddle of mud in the middle of the trail. Wrought with tire marks. “No patience,” he muttered under his breath as his boots sunk into the damp ground. There’s another point of view on their work. The view is that it’s selfish and hurtful to the park. He wasn’t necessarily wrong, however. The trail was a mess. A line of deep fresh cuts of tires and piles of mud here and there. Through a section of the park that should have been left to dry before building anything new. The moss was torn away and roots were ripped up from the damp earth. Water pooled in spots that couldn’t drain. Usually, their work had a sort of craftsmanship. But this time it felt rushed. Not as slowly and fragilely crafted. Like they couldn’t wait a few days for the ground to dry out and craft a trail that would stay. Further down on the trail erosion had already started. A pretty small section of the trail had slid down the hill and there was a steep gap that one had to go around up the hill to get past. The damage was more than just cosmetic. That new line didn’t last long. Within a month it had been abandoned and Slagforce didn’t bother to fix it. The entrance was blocked off with debris from trees and foliage. Maybe they didn’t fully think their plan through. It had consequences. The underground, rogue mentality didn’t work out this time.
A week later there was a meeting. An official meeting. Not in Frick Park. Not in the woods. But in a small, cramped office. The park ranger claimed he had a lineup of complaints. They spanned from damaged trails to dangerous features to the destruction of property. He then went on to state how there were a lot of liability issues.
“He asked us to work with the park,” Rob said. “We could keep building we just had to get projects approved.”
He shrugged, claiming that he built trails that people wanted to ride and the park didn’t. Which was partly true.
“We build good trails. Fast as hell. Smooth as hell. The kind that people like. We don’t want to wait six months for a permit to fix a berm or jump or whatever that needs fixing now.” “We’re not doing this out of some act of defiance against the system, that’s just petty. Its simple, we just like riding bikes and building stuff,” said Darren.
The two men both run Slagforce together. The majority of the time it’s just them two together. Building alone with their own ideas. However, they sometimes for the official days get volunteers to help. On these days they get whole crews of people that come out to help them clear and perform maintenance on trails.
“They want to help out on the trails that they love to ride,” said Rob.
“They probably do it for the same reasons as us. They never ask for credit or anything they just like to come out and help. They find it fun you know.” Darren added in.
As I rolled away from the trails, I contemplated the work that went into building them. The dedication that groups like Slagforce have, whether illegal or not, shaped them into something that the community loves. Maybe there’s room on both sides for an argument. Their passion can be too much sometimes and damage what they are trying to foster. What’s clear though is that in Pittsburgh the passion riders have for these trails is deep. Whether it’s digging secretly in the early morning or volunteering with the park late in the afternoon, the passion is what keeps the trails alive.