Uplifts To Restart With New Company At Innerleithen

For a hefty chunk of this summer, there was no uplift service at Innerleithen. The Forestry Commission have just announced that from now, it will be run by Adrenalin Uplift, and the first of their vans is (drum roll), Vanny MacAskill! Of course.

The new uplift will be covering trails at Innerleithen and Ae forest. As well as that, they’ve struck some emergency maintenance deals with local bike shops, so if you have a mechanical you should get a chance to keep your bike rolling rather than be told there’s a two week wait for workshop time.

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Their website, www.adrenalinuplift.co.uk, is blank at the time of writing, but you can find out plenty for now on their Facebook page. Day passes remain the same as before at £32 per rider, and they’ll also be offering weekend passes for £60, and private hire of an entire shuttle for 16 people at £480 per day.

Doing a bit of sneaky facebook photo comparison, it appears Adrenalin Uplift may have bought their trailers from Uplift Scotland, who ran a similar service in the are for the previous 14 years. They’d previously announced in February that the business would be up for sale, and as they explained in a Facebook post this June though, apparently an unfortunate confluence of insurance renewal falling months before a tendering process meant it just wasn’t viable to continue through the summer (Tally, who ran Uplift Scotland, has recently made a fresh start building frames as Talon Cycles).

Hopefully this is a happily ever after for everyone. It’s good for riders to know they’ll have an uplift service in 2018. Full release from Forest Enterprise Scotland below.

“Tuesday, 05 December 2017: New uplift service at Innerleithen and Ae forests in top gear

“Forest Enterprise Scotland is joining forces with a new company – Adrenalin Uplift – to provide a new bespoke shuttle service at both Innerleithen and Ae Forest’s downhill mountain bike routes. Run by two enthusiastic biking entrepreneurs, Gordo Hodge and Gary Anderson, the new service will provide regular uplifts for downhillers at both the venues. In addition, Adrenalin Uplift aim to widen the service so that transport will be available to mountain bikers between Glentress forest and Innerleithen.

“Also, a new mountain bike uplift season pass, the first of its kind in the UK, will provide regular monthly use, priority bookings and a range of discounts for regular users. Malt Iden, recreation forester with Forest Enterprise Scotland said:

“We’re very keen to keep mountain biking at the top of its game in the south of Scotland in order to continue supporting the tourism sector. The guys at Adrenalin Uplift are very enthusiastic and have plenty of new ideas to keep bikers coming back again and again”. Adrenalin Uplift has also secured agreements with the local bike shops at Innerleithen and Ae to provide priority mechanical services or spare part rentals to keep riders riding.

“Gordo Hodge of Adrenalin Uplift added: “Both Gary and I are super stoked to have the uplift contract and cannot wait to spin the buses for both downhillers and enduro riders looking to get more descents in a day”. Gordo started riding mountain bikes in the 80s whilst working as a bike mechanic in Ayrshire, before moving to Italy and travelling in other parts of the world. He also runs the mountain bike tour company Adrenalin Rehab and winter sports tour operator Snow Rehab. Gary’s two wheeled adventures started in the early 90s riding mainly in the north of England. An engineer by trade, he’s been enjoying riding all over Europe recently and across the many trail networks in Scotland.”