Jasmine Malabed and Dennis Hoskins are digging up dirt in Richmond.

The mounds of dirt they shovel are for BMX and mountain bike riders on a stretch of the Richmond Greenway, a 3-mile bike and pedestrian trail.

Malabed and Hoskins are the founders of Dope Sauce Bike Club, the group building Dirt World Bike Park, a 2.1-acre bike skills course. They continued to pour their energy into the park even as they struggled to keep a roof over their heads.

In September, Malabed and Hoskins were served a 60-day eviction notice, one of a spate of evictions in Richmond in advance of the city’s vote to establish rent control. The couple appealed in court and lost. And the new place they moved into on Jan. 1 is more than double what they were paying.

They’re scraping to make ends meet, but it hasn’t stopped them from building the park — and giving free bikes to local kids. Instead of moving away, they dug deeper into Richmond.

I went for a ride with Malabed and Hoskins one afternoon last month. We met at Dirt World, which is at 21st Street behind a U.S. Postal Service annex station. We were joined by Jim Zahradka, who introduced us in September before a Richmond City Council meeting for an emergency 45-day moratorium on evictions.

The bike Hoskins brought for me only had one brake like my own, so I was comfortable using my feet like Fred Flinstone to brake. The four of us took the greenway trail to John F. Kennedy Park, where Dope Sauce built a small course in 2015.

Back to Gallery Richmond couple, barely making rent, dig in to build... 8 1 of 8 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 2 of 8 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 3 of 8 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 4 of 8 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 5 of 8 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 6 of 8 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 7 of 8 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle 8 of 8 Photo: Michael Short, Special to The Chronicle















A BART train rumbled on the track to our left as we peddled past bikers taking a smoke break. Hoskins hopped a sunbather’s towel laid onto the path. He pointed out the cul-de-sac where the bloody scene from “Kicks,” the movie about a young man’s quest for sneakers and status, was filmed. The movie featured Mahershala Ali, the Oakland native who recently won an Oscar for his role in “Moonlight.”

Both Malabed, 33, and Hoskins, 37, are San Francisco natives who were priced out of the city. Before moving to Richmond in search of cheaper rent, they lived in Daly City. They have two sons — Zakell, 8, and Demitrius, 5 — and both ride BMX bikes.

“I love Richmond right now,” Malabed said as Hoskins rode the track at JFK Park. “When I moved out here, I’d never been to Richmond at all. This was completely new to me.”

They rented their former apartment on Lincoln Avenue for five years. Now they’re paying $2,350 for a house, a rent increase of $1,300. But the house has two floors and three bedrooms. And since the boys share a bedroom, there’s room for a bike workshop. I asked Hoskins how many bike frames were stored inside their house.

“I’m going to tell you if he’s lying or not,” Malabed said, her arms playfully folded.

He wasn’t. The answer was 25.

“But we give away a lot of bikes,” Hoskins, who is known as D2, said in his defense. “Clean ’em up and pass it on. There’s always kids walking up — ‘Hey, can I get a bike?’”

Malabed and Hoskins get a lot of donations. Trips for Kids has given them bikes and Norcal High School Cycling League has given bike parts, tires and jerseys. Course architects have pitched in. Even the dirt was a gift. And when the berm at JFK Park was leaning on a homeowner’s fence, city workers delivered spare cinder blocks that were used to erect a retaining wall.

At an event on Saturday, part of a monthly cleanup of discarded mattresses, furniture and other garbage dumped onto the greenway, the Richmond Fire Department will provide and serve food. Dope Sauce will give away more bikes and helmets.

Every Tuesday night, there’s a BMX bike ride through Richmond, but there aren’t many BMX parks in the Bay Area. The closest to Richmond is North Bay BMX in Napa. McLaren Bike Park in San Francisco is tentatively scheduled to open in May. When finished, Dirt World will have a racetrack, jumps and obstacles.

Malabed and Hoskins refused to stop even when it felt like they were peddling backward in life. When they couldn’t find another affordable apartment, they challenged the eviction in hopes that rent control, which passed, would allow them to stay.

“Unless you had a lawyer there, you were gonna lose,” said Hoskins, rubbing his hands that were still chalky white from working at a construction site in Oakland earlier in the day.

“We’re just broke right now. All the time,” Malabed, a housekeeper, said. “We just don’t have any money for us.”

Still, it hasn’t kept them investing in their community.

“It’s either let it bring you down or keep going,” Hoskins said. “Who wants to be sad all the time? Just ride your bike. If you go ride, you’ll be tired. Worry about it later.”

“We can either give up or we can keep going,” Malabed said. “And really, the only problems we have are money problems. Everything else is good.”

They dig living in Richmond.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr