The Contagious Mountain Bike Club hosted a media briefing today, showing off the mountain bike park currently under construction at Mt. McIntyre.

The bike park has been an idea in the works for more than a few years and is expected to be finished by early September at the latest.

"It's going amazing," facilitator Kate White told the Star on Monday "I just can't wait to see the park in action."

Roughly 900 cubic yards of dirt was needed to create the bike park.

There has been no shortage of help in building the park, which is being designed by professional park designer and mountain biker Jay Hoots.

Local business have also stepped up, including Castle Rock, Versatile Rentals, MacPherson Rentals, Glacier Drilling, AFD Fuels, Coyne H and Sons, Cee and Cee Dirt and Gravel, Ketza Construction, Arctic Backhoe and Wolf Creek Bobcat Services and McClintock Contracting.

The City of Whitehorse also contributed, donating 300 yards of dirt and loaned three employees to assist with the construction.

"In the end I wasn't sure it was all going to work and at the very last minute it all kind of fell together," White said.

The bike park includes everything from drops to a pump track to jumps. The jumps range in difficulty from being fairly basic with easy transition to bigger and more difficult jump lines through the trees.

Hoots, who is also a professional mountain biker, has been constructing bike parks for the past five years and he guesses this project, is his 44th park.

Besides the Yukon, he has built parks in B.C., Alberta, Wisconsin and Idaho.

"I think it's a really cool opportunity to sort of create natural landscapes that just encourage people to get on bikes," he said. "The cool thing about bikes is it's really social, so it's great to have an opportunity to be part of that."

Two years ago he visited the territory, chatting with local biking enthusiasts about what they wanted in a park. He said the park is a reflection of those conversations.

"Everybody wanted a jump they could do," he said. "It sounds so basic and rudimentary, but it really is an inclusive thing, so that definitely came out in the build and the design."

Another aspect, Hoots said was Yukon mountain bikers didn't want all of the jumps to be the same, but preferred diversity and a range of challenges.

He said the project is nearly finished and expects it will take 12 hours of machine work, between two people, and then 100 hours of handwork before it is completed.

Hoots is leaving Whitehorse on Thursday, but said if it isn't completed by then, he has full confidence the city employees will be able to finish it up.

He commended the city for its investment with the project that isn't as common as putting in a baseball diamond.

"This is outside the box for sure," he said. "I think it demands attention."

Devon McDiarmid, along with Mike Stevely, have been working to realize the creation of a bike park in Whitehorse for the past four years. He said so far it's looking good.

"We are just really excited that it's happening," McDiarmid said.