Thinking of giving BPW a go either in Feb or March for my first ever uplift experience. I am a bit of a wuss and looking at the videos of the STW crew posted recently, the black runs are out of my comfort zone/skill set.

Is it worth going just for the blue/red runs?
Do I need a full face helmet?

Just for Blue/Red… brilliant.

Need, no…. I felt better having one though.

If you’ve ridden Afan in an XC, then you can ride this in an XC 🙂

Yes, ridden Afan and a couple of other trail centres – everyone seems to bigging this one up (no bloody uplift on the weekends!) so definitely needs to be done.

Thanks!

Marko, as alluded to above, if you think of the blues and reds at BPW as being like the DH sections at Afan or CYB, you’re not far off. They’re not really that much different, IMHO. The real difference comes in that if you’re doing an uplift, your riding style changes a little to adapt to the down only element of it.

Go. It’s fun!

I did it before Christmas and am only really man enough for the blue/red runs.
It was good fun and I wore pads and a normal helmet. To be honest I felt a bit OTT in the pads, as most of the blue/red is no worse than anything at any other trail centre I’ve been to and I wouldn’t put pads on for those.

Definitely worth going just for the blues & reds, the place is brilliant. I’m hopefully going again in June and I’m already excited!

I didn’t wear a full face and didn’t feel the need, did wear knee pads for the first time ever.

Link for the videos from the STW crew? Ta

The ‘need’ question is tricky with safety equipment: most of the time you don’t need it at all but when you do need it, even if just for a few seconds, then you need it quite badly.

I happily rode the reds and blues at BPW with my normal XC riding kit, I don’t recall seeing anybody stormtrooper-ed up.

There is plenty of opportunity on the reds and blues to have an almighty fast stack (especially on the blues higher up, I seem to recall, which were pretty fast) with potentially nasty consequences.

But nothing is committing, it’s all up to you.

Ride within your limits, don’t go full-on, you should be OK.

Blues and reds are really good fun. They are similar to most trail centre descents but the route down the hill is more direct rather than meandering round the hill side.

Full face helmet is not essential but if you have one might as well wear one.

Also each trail is split up into smaller sections all linked with fire roads. So if you start a red decide its too hard you can stop at the end of the section a take break before starting the next section or switch over to a blue to finish etc …

mattjg – Member

The ‘need’ question is tricky with safety equipment: most of the time you don’t need it at all but when you do need it, even if just for a few seconds, then you need it quite badly.

Yup, and it’s always benefit vs drawback too- so uplifts change the equation a lot since most of the drawback of pads goes away when you’re not having to climb.

yeah good point, that I hadn’t considered, in favour of uplift

Yep, as NW says, the disadvantages go when on an uplift day. I tend to pad up for anything uplift.

Also, I reckon there’s something about the way you/I ride an uplift day that changes the dynamic a little. On a big day/weekend at a trail centre, you’re thinking more about the longer view. Uplift day is a bit more wham bam thank you ma’m style of riding!

Never really understood the anti-armour thing on STW. Plenty of people have jobs that wouldn’t tolerate chewed up limbs/faces.

It’s an uplift day, so you can pad up and run a FF no problem. Not all armour is like the old fashioned plastic shell (I assume this is what people are referring to as “stormtrooper” gear) and has moved on a lot.

If putting the right protective gear on makes you more confident and so in turn makes you ride faster, that’s a good thing.

Kit up and work your way up to the blacks over the course of the day as your confidence builds 🙂

No reason not to wear it if you’ve already got it, or at least take it (you can always leave it in a car if you think its overkill after a few runs). Nothing particularly gnarly on the blues or reds but plenty of opportunities to face plant due to the speed of the trails.

I don’t have any myself and never felt the need to buy some specifically for BPW, but then I’ve never done the pro lines either

Link for the videos from the STW crew? Ta

Dunno which you’re on about but here’s my first visit:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scjGNxCG63Y&list=UUp8ZtPHWLjNi44elbZTGPDQ&feature=share&index=3[/video]

… though I am a “storm trooper” on a 26 inch bike designed specifically for going down not up so probably don’t qualify as STW crew?

*Tips hat*

Nice… watching your version makes me think i’ll do that on Weds… other version looked a lot more airtime and gappy than yours and worried me a bit actually

Nice… watching your version makes me think i’ll do that on Weds… other version looked a lot more airtime and gappy than yours and worried me a bit actually

You’ll be fine. There’s only one unavoidable (little) drop on that run above that we stopped first run to have a quick look at before we did it.

Here’s us mincing down the other black (which is a bit harder) into some fast blue:

[video]http://youtu.be/-wzj-TgRCDA[/video]

And an easier run (we found a bit pedally in the middle on the big bikes):
[video]http://youtu.be/RxZYGnaVoIY[/video]

thanks for all the advice and vids. Will give it a go but will take some bubblewrap in the car for some ad-hoc storm troopering 🙂

Bpw looks good. Been meaning to get down there for a while, have to pull my finger out I reckon.
On the subject of armour, I generally wear it myself. Being self employed tends to make one think about getting injured a bit more wisely. I get injured with it let alone without. Although mainly on my DH