Chatfield visitors who want to rent one of the twenty new e-bikes can head to stations at the marina, swim beach and campground office, unlock a bike for a buck and then pay 25 cents per minute — or $15 for an hour. "It's a safe way to learn how to use any bike, and we hope that it's something that you might want to consider for commuting to work back and forth or for everyday lives," Polis said.
Or for riding around the reservoir's eleven-mile loop. Since the program debuted in May, people took 387 trips with Chat E-Bikes, for a total of 543 miles of use at Chatfield.
The bikes are part of a public-private partnership between the state and Chris Morgan, who is providing the bikes at Chatfield. Morgan told Westword that he services the bikes out of his garage; when a battery dies, he will pick up the bike and switch out the battery on his own.
Morgan has previously partnered on Chatfield projects with other public agencies such as Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Army Corps of Engineers. "I have nothing but great things to say about them," he said. "What they've done in this park in the last seven, eight years has been incredible."
One of the biggest projects was the Chatfield Storage Reallocation Project. Approved in 2020, the $171 million project opened up funding for, among other things, the ability to increase the reservoir's capacity by 20,600 acre-feet for municipal and agricultural use.
The Trackchair is developed by Action Trackchair, and a base model can run for nearly $15,000.
Jack Spiegel
"It's not just for people that might be confined to a wheelchair in everyday life. It's for people like my mom, who's eighty," Polis said. "If we are going to do something in one of the state parks and hike for a few miles, she would need to have one of these track vehicles."
While there's no Trackchair at Chatfield (yet), the state is on a roll with increased accessibility programs.
