Only theoretical at this time. I may possibly have a site of 250 acres to build a trail, its based in the SE of England in lovely grounds.

1st question is really are 250 acres enough?

Second question is if you build a trail is it possible to make money on it? By charging a permit? On-site facilities i.e. a cafe/bike shop? Running events i.e. races..

Like I said only an idea at this stage, no more than that..

have a look at deers leap – seems to be ok for them?

also Friston Forest and Bedgebury although they are also available to other users.

I’d guess the money would come more from charging rent for any shops/cafes that might use the land, plus money from races, plus money from carparking. Charge people to use the trail itself and I doubt they will. I know I wouldn’t.

When you’ve sussed that out let the forestry commission know.

Main revenues are from parking, cafe and shop, all of which need big up front investment and a decent number of visitors through the door.

I guess that it would be had to enforce a permit system – much easier to charge for parking or run a cafe/shop

When you say “build a trail” you may find the costs shocking. Or do you simply mean scraping the leaves off the ground in the woods. The cost of actually building a trail, with burms, drainage, flow, etc is very expensive. Simply building say a set of doubles and a table top in the forest can cost £100k – you may find you need to pay for a road so the ambulance can get there, not just several months of labour, machinery hire, earth, gravel etc and so on.

I would be very surprised if you can make it work as a business. I thought the trail centers we normally ride make a massive loss, not a profit.

At Llandegla I believe it is something like this

Tahill own the forest any way (and make money from it as a sourse forbwood, unsurprisingly) and pay for the trail building and maintenance. They make there money from the carpark and charging the guys who run the shop and cafe for the privilege.

The guys help (or do it all, not sure) design and with the building of the trails. As above they make there money from, the shop, cafe, bike hire, courses and anything else the can think off. Seems like hard (and stressful) work to me, but I am basically lazy 🙂

Always pondered the same question. Obvious ones are parking, snacks & spares but would of thought there would be grants available as you would be bringing in so much tourism to the area.
If there is grants available the hard work of proving success has already been done for you.
I wouldn’t have liked to have gone asking for help in this field 15 years ago but now seems a perfect time.
Good luck!

When you say “build a trail” you may find the costs shocking. Or do you simply mean scraping the leaves off the ground in the woods. The cost of actually building a trail, with burms, drainage, flow, etc is very expensive. Simply building say a set of doubles and a table top in the forest can cost £100k – you may find you need to pay for a road so the ambulance can get there, not just several months of labour, machinery hire, earth, gravel etc and so on.

I would be very surprised if you can make it work as a business. I thought the trail centers we normally ride make a massive loss, not a profit.

This is the crux of it. Im not sure money can be made..

On a side note I’ve always thought something like ray’s indoor mountain bike park would work very well in the uk. I just need to find somewhere big/cheap enough…..

Agreed! I love the look of those indoor bike parks!

I think the biggest barrier is affordable insurance.

I vaguely thought about it a few years back when I was looking at redundancy. Worked out I was unlikely to make a living out of it.

I’d speak to others who are doing the same –
http://www.redhillextreme.co.uk/

johnikgriff – Member

At Llandegla I believe it is something like this

Tahill own the forest any way (and make money from it as a sourse forbwood, unsurprisingly) and pay for the trail building and maintenance. They make there money from the carpark and charging the guys who run the shop and cafe for the privilege.

Llandegla’s privately owned but heavily publically subsidised- I doubt it’d be a viable venture otherwise, at least in its current form.

Without a sub from someone/thing, I think it would take years before there was an income in it, never mind a ‘return’.

So look for public money…

I seem to remember seeing some numbers here recently showing that FC made a loss on mountain biking activities. The FC has no insurance costs, as it’s a government organisation that self-insures.

I was approached by the Forestry some years back with a proposal that the group I was in lease a chunk of FC land that we’d built trails on (with FC co-operation) for a set number of years. I don’t think I’m breaking any confidences by saying that.

At the time, the group was composed entirely of volunteers, ran happily on a tiny budget (tools, insurance and a cake fund for lunch for people who turned up at build days). We regularly talked to a variety of different landowners and local groups (including the council rights of way peeps, the county access forum, and the AONB group and advised on mountain biking issues and lobbied for action on behalf of mountain bikers.

The cost of the lease itself (for an area far smaller than 250 acres -think maybe 60-odd) equalled our total budget for three years, before we started paying for insurance. We couldn’t fence the area off and charge for access (and really, really didn’t want to) didn’t have the means to pay staff to raise funds, couldn’t organise races on the site (lots of great local venues already, lots of RoWs across the site, previous experience of watching a very dedicated and passionate DH race organiser work himself into the ground to make a small loss, year after year) and simply had no idea of how to make it pay. We said no. We got three more years out of the organisation, talked to lots of landowners and continue to have a positive impact on mountain biking in the area. There are volunteers who worked on the org who are now doing cracking stuff with other landowners. None of this would have happened if we’d said yes.

My advice? Talk to Ian Warby at CTC. He did all of this with Firecrest over a decade ago, and he knows the ins and outs like nobody’s business. Really – talk to him.

bent udder – Member

I seem to remember seeing some numbers here recently showing that FC made a loss on mountain biking activities

I’d be astounded if they don’t… FC doesn’t really operate on that basis, they have an obligation to provide recreational benefits and their public funding means that instead of having to make money for themselves, they’re still succesful if they provide benefits elsewhere (including making money- jobs, B&Bs, cafes, supporting industry in general)

Insurance.

That’s going to be your killer.

On a side note I’ve always thought something like ray’s indoor mountain bike park would work very well in the uk. I just need to find somewhere big/cheap enough…..

What the hell do you want to ride your mtb indoors for? 😉 😆

Build a load of jumps etc on it and have fun rather than trying to make money on it.

Second talking to Ian Warby (CTC MTB advisor and sound bloke) he built the Aston Hill tracks and made a living. It has been done at PORC as well which works as long as they don’t get burgled too often.

At Bedgebury we reckon on a pro build of around £20/meter for a trail, but that would depend on your geology.

If you can build it round another attraction like, oh I don’t know a zoo or something then you will probably do better.

And finally, expect MTBers to break in and ride for free. A good proportion of bikers will happily spend £50 on fuel to drive their £20k Audi hundreds of miles to ride their £3k bike but refuse to pay more than a couple of quid to ride a trail which has cost hundreds of thousands to build for them.

Good luck and if you want any advice or even just someone to bounce thoughts off, please feel free to email me!

happily spend £50 on fuel to drive their £20k Audi hundreds of miles to ride their £3k bike but refuse to pay more than a couple of quid to ride a trail which has cost hundreds of thousands to build for them.

100%. Agree, don’t get me started… Must control rant…….

Don’t be discouraged keep looking into it, great idea.

Charge for car parking, riders daily permits for insurance, shop, on site camping, events, forestry / farming, etc

Some great stuff here, thanks guys.

I am sure I read somewhere that FC’s £3/day parking charge at the 7 Stanes covers 1/3rd of the trail maintenance costs (not the original build cost) – so you will have an uphill struggle.

250 Acres – am I right in thinking that is about 1km x 1km? I don’t think you can fit much in that other than some skills loops etc.

Charge a pittance for parking, but steal all the Audis and fence them to Eastern Europe.

If you need to top up your funds, mug the owners for their 3K bikes, too. 😈

As above posts, feel free to mail me if I can be of help – although Ian’s still your man, I reckon – top fella.

£ 25 per metre plus materials, features, drainage pipes etc are extras.

Grants are available but often need matched funding, aren’t as abundant as they used to be and are often a full time job for someone to apply for them and that’s a skill in it’s own right.

At Deers Leap we make most of our money from hire bikes and instructed rides/kids parties. We also charge £2.50 entry fee, have a shop/workshop and cafe. To be honest we only make a tiny profit.

As far as 250 acres goes, we have the same and it’s small. You’d have to have good steep hills and some clever trail building to keep riders entertained.
I’m currently struggling to find a way to get more local riders to come. I’d love to get more trails built here but it’s time and money that we just don’t have. Saying that, I’m still doing my best considering I pretty much run the show solo. Dirt jumps anyone?

If there is a hill, you could offer uplifts. Have a look at places in Europe like Provence extreme and ridekore, they are aimed at the younger more gravity orientated end of the Market and seem to survive ok.

Otherwise, I guess aiming at families would probably generate more money and would require less investment in the trails.

250 acres = just over 1sq km. If the site is totaly square then its a shade over 1000m by 1000m. Something like Lee Quarry shows you what you can do in a small area but as above hills are key or more correctly topography. If its flat and say 500m wide 2000m long then you may get a five km cross country circuit out of it without excesive folding of the trail line.

How to make money?

It small so your not going to fit hundreds of people in – car parking income will be moderate. Your going to have the cost of building and maintaining all the trails. You could get a volunteer group formed to help you.

Cafe’s bring income – you can get other tourist trade. Downside – all the different statutory hoops you need to jump through to get it off the ground. Do you want to run a cafe?

Small trail – about bike demo length. Open up a bike shop instead of or along with the cafe use that to generate additional funds for the trail.

Small trail – build parts of it so they can be used for skills training.

Small trail – look at building it so ‘temporary’ loops can be added to the main circuit to take it up to race length. Run a summer night series and winter night series. Then you’re on pay to ride income.

Llandegla has been mentioned. You could aim for that type of model if you’re the owner then its prob better to provide the basic infrastructure. Trail, car park, building and then let the business premises to others – cafe, shop, training centre, cycle race organiser. You can still go after funding but it would be more business development than community support.

at the old Esher Shore bike park we had 3.5 acres but managed to fit nearly 4km of North Shore and a huge Pump Track into the space

the bike park was “not for profit” was built by free by volunteer labour, and all materials and tools, etc. paid for by industry sponsors like Specialized, DMR, Banshee, Devinci, Freeborn, Giant, etc.

no one was paid to run it, or work directly for the park, the freeborn bike park on site handled all the memberships and entry fees, etc. (admin) as well as supplying shop staff on a free basis to help with maintaining the bike park

the bike park never made any real money to reinvest despite during its heyday seeing 200+ riders a week from all over the UK and annual “jams” with 150+ riders and 200+ spectators

the takings covered expensive insurance, rent and ongoing work to maintain the trails

I’m sure if this worked, golf clubs up and down the land would scrape out a trail around the perimeter.

Or maybe not.

Keep it open at night and charge the doggers to use the car park, fit hiidden cctv, and put the films on the net as pay per view, or just blackmail them, not legal, but what they doi is not strictly legal.

Have a trained Jedi as a trail guide /teacher.

Just allow it to be used by the over 40,s as they have plenty of time at weekends,and lots of cash to flash in the shop.

esher shore – Member

the bike park never made any real money to reinvest despite during its heyday seeing 200+ riders a week from all over the UK and annual “jams” with 150+ riders and 200+ spectators

Out of curiosity do you think it brought money to Freeborn? And did they pay for the site or was it payment in kind for the maintenance and support?

Esher looked a superb spot, sad that I missed it.

You won’t make masssive money out of mountain biking, leasing the grounds for concerts etc (music with a view) would. Then you would have money to spend on trial building 😀

Cannock Chase has Will Young, Jools holland and many more coming.

Out of curiosity do you think it brought money to Freeborn? And did they pay for the site or was it payment in kind for the maintenance and support?

Esher looked a superb spot, sad that I missed it.

@northwind

it certainly brought some trade to the Freeborn Esher bike shop, in that it established a “venue” that freeriders and serious mountain bikers were prepared to travel to, because the shop had high stock levels of high end bike components, frames, forks, wheels, DH/FR tires and lots of full face helmets and body armour – these items were almost impossible to find in London shops

I know that Freeborn never got back the money (many £1000s) that was invested in the bike park setting it up, although it can be assumed that some of the profits made from selling kit in the shop would have gone back towards this investment

I also know that Freeborn did not charge the bike park for the admin side (memberships, day passes, etc.) or for their staff who worked in the bike park when the shop was quiet (typically winter), but their time was already being paid for by Freeborn, at no direct cost to the bike park.

we used to get lots of enquiries from people keen to set up bike parks, but when we met and explained that no one was actually getting paid solely to either build / maintain or operate the park

and that both the shop and bike park were paying a “peppercorn rent” with no business rates or utilities bills, for a piece of land they was useless to anyone else..with the shop tacked onto the side of a larger sports complex, they suddenly lost interest

Thanks for that, very interesting.

berms.

I was involved with PORC – Penshurst Off Road Club – in the early 90s and we found it hard to make a buck in the beginning despite owning the land. I think sponsorship was important in getting going; cafe and bike hire critical.