A group has been setup to try and get things moving with the chairlift/uplift at Innerleithen.

Be great if you could have a look and let us know what you think, early days, but we need as much support from everybody as we can?

null

The page was setup so that people can express their support for the Innerleithen Mechanical Uplift i.e. the chairlift to the top of the Plora Craig or Minch Moor. We know that money is tight, but we want to create a bright future for Innerleithen as a world class mountain biking centre, and we're prepared to do something to make this happen. So much work has been done, let's ,ake this dream a reality!

Thanks

edited out post.

Forget it

good luck. even if you do get the chairlift will the trails be sustainable? anyone signing up now are likely to have given up DHing by the time it happens and bikes will be so expensive no-one will be riding them(DH bikes)

What does this group actually represent? Do you have a business plan or is it just armchair activism?

I don't mean to sound deliberately negative, but Facebook groups that champion issues without any actual substance or clout piss me off

well ill sign up

There has been talk of this for ages but the last set of figures I saw were total pie in the sky. Massive overestimates of capacity and people willing to use it.

Its non viable I am afraid. Nice tho it would be

I'll sign up too.

whats wrong with uplift scotland?
this is a serious question, they provide an uplift don't they?

TJ's just upset cos if it gets the go ahead he'l be made to wear his helmet 😛

wasnt there something like it'd take revenue away from ft bill as people wouldnt be arsed travelling that far?

i think the service they offer at the weekend at the moment is poifect so dont see this happening anytime soon

The uplift as it is now is unlikely to attract massive numbers of people, 8 runs from a 9am start to a 4pm last run means about a 40minute turnaround time for a 5 min downhill, inc drivers' lunchbreak. Not a satisfactory way to get people up a hill.

I use the uplift from time to time as although you can just about push/ride to the top in 40 min you're knackered after a couple of runs(unless you're gluptonesque in terms of uphill prowess). However I find the uphill in the bus quite tedious and don't really want to spend the time I'm allowed to spend away from the family sat in a bus, however good the trails downhill are.

If a chairlift was put in it would be a massive success imo, cut the uphill to say 6-7 minutes and people would flock to use it.
I would certainly use it every week as I'm sure many others would and with the right business plan ie blue, red, freeride trails, cafe, bikeshop etc, like a DH Glentress it would really take off.

I remember going to Glentress ten years ago, there were a handfull of cars (if any) in the car park, no bike shop or cafe and look at it now, new large visitor facilities about to be opened and people flocking there every week. If the business plan for GT eight or so years ago had been based on the existing rider numbers there would never have been a business case to open a cafe and develope the trails, the FC thought that there was a market out there if the facilities wer put in and they were right.
Innerleithen is at this point just now I'd say, someone needs to take a leap of faith and put the infrastructure in place.

'Build it and they will come'

wasnt there something like it'd take revenue away from ft bill as people wouldnt be arsed travelling that far?

i think the service they offer at the weekend at the moment is poifect so dont see this happening anytime soon
I can't be arsed traveling 7 hrs to ft bill atm, it's just too far north. 4 hrs to Inners would be worth it for a couple of days on a chairlift.

i can see the point in having an uplift at fort bill where it'll be used nearly all year for ski/snowboard and mountainbikes but does inners have as much snow to justify having a mechanical lift? or has it a lack of snow all year?
when you look at places like les gets, chamonix, whistler etc they have snow for 5 months of the year and mtb's for 5 months with trail/lift maintenance happening the other 2 months.
i can't see the trails/runs being sustainable without MASSIVE investment above the cost of a mechanical lift.

Plus the ft bill lifts are so horrifically expensive there's no way I'd use them.

new large visitor facilities about to be opened
Therein lies the problem. With £9m(+?) being spent just along the road, then where is the money going to come from? It's not just a chairlift
and a few jerry cans if diesel you need to run this, would need an awful lot of money to build a trail network big enough to cope with the massive increase in visitor numbers that you'd need to make it pay…

All the rest of the stuff has disspeared from the net – all the official stuff
this last raised it head in 2007 with a very ambiutous timetable – the lift should be in by now. However I did find this which is a copy of the presentation. towards the end it has some discussion of the figures so you can see for yourselves.

http://www.storyq.net/boxes/22246

I think the fact that nothing further has been done since 2007 speaks for itself.

TJ – you're obviously on a mission to prove you're "right" Yaaaawwwnnn!!

But for once TJ, please STFU?

here's the link for anyone who still has a glimmer of hope that showing some support is a good thing..

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Support-the-Innerleithen-Uplift/124813904230727

TJ is depressingly realistic… It'd be cool but it was a fantasy even before the economy blew up.

coffeeking – Member

"Plus the ft bill lifts are so horrifically expensive there's no way I'd use them."

Really? It's £28 for a day pass on the gondola, which is expensive in alpine terms but gives you access to 2 great trails with a fast uplift time. Doesn't seem unreasonable to me. The restricted lift times are an irritation though.

As an Alps resident and working in the bike trade I can tell you right now that all of the chairlifts in the Alps which are open in the summer lose money. All of them. Even in really busy places like Morzine & Les Gets. The lifts are open to bring in tourists to the resort businesses in the summer. The lifts themselves make a loss. The numbers of mountain bikers compared to the numbers of skiers are tiny.

Innerleithen chairlift would be awesome, but I can't see any way it would be financially viable.

Northwind, you too 🙄

Stevo – I actually agree.

If I win the Lottery rollover tonight I'll pay for the lift myself, not put it on yet mind 🙄

Yeah, sorry GW, I'd love for it to happen but if we can't even get the wallride at glentress open what are the odds of building a chairlift and the extra trails needed to make that worthwhile and sustainable? Even without the funding question. If it ever seems to have any real chance I'll be there swinging a mattock I reckon…

Stevomcd, you've almost hit the nail on the head but, the point is that the lift itself doesn't have to make money itself, it just has to make money for the wider area. It can be a loss leader and funded from local government if it draws enough people. Getting some sort of levy from local business would be good too of course.

humbly accepted, mate 8)

I have signed up btw 🙂

Am i right in thinking that various bridges/tunnels lose money as well?

And did i read that right, the 'wallride' is still not open? God i detest H&S, when it be replaced with good old fashioned CommonSense?

As for an uplift, it would be good and would compliment GT's xc bias. Is the 7 Stanes world famous, do people fly into Scotland to ride them?
They might if they could spend a day riding xc and a day riding a chair.

As for Fort Bill, we did an afternoon there last sept, 3 red runs and i was knackered (i'm not unfit but don't often get to do that much continuous descending). Had just enough energy to limp my trail bike down the Black, badly…
Great fun but a long way from Bradford. Inners is much closer to all that English business.

Unfortunately stevomcd speaks the truth, it's quite depressing really. Plus it's a double edge sword. If Inners got a lift and more riders came, would the trails hold up to all the extra riding?

The main reason our summer season runs is so that we can keep/pay full time staff throughout the year. With seasonal work it's sometimes hard to keep the well trained staff that are essential. Winter is a different situation, on a busy day up our hill we have over 1500 visitors in the winter, in the summer it is ~100! Lifts costs pretty much still stay the same, simple math.

Unless someone has a spare few mil to sink into Inners for fun, I doubt it's a viable buisness. However, hopefully someone has the spare cash because I'd love to see more lifts in the UK and Inners is a perfect location. Just a shame they can't have a winter season to cover the costs.

Think a chair lift is an ace idea, then all the fat downhillers can eat there burgerkings and shite on the way up.

It aint gona happen.

Next… 8)

Have some vision please people. We can't keep having World Cups at Fort William for all of eternity.

It is not meant to make money on it's own, but to bring in tourists, not just bikers either.

I would sign the petition but I don't believe in Facebook.

mollyiom what makes you really think that DH riders don't go out and ride 40 miles of XC one day and then ride DH the next and then ride 50 miles of road the next day. I do.

Can I suggest you keep your bigoted opinions to yourself.

Or go out and try it and meet some of the riders and realise they're just mountian bikers like the rest of us, assuming you have the skills of course.

A chairlift would be a great idea. Maybe the lift its self wouldn't make money, but the overall net revenue for the area may well make it viable. It's not just full-on DH riders that would use it.

What I can't understand is how places like the "heights of Abraham" make money. Peak district Matlock cable car

I think the point being that most of the revenue would have to come from normal tourists and a tourist cafe/centre at the top.

Is FW £28 for a day pass now? I'm sure it was £25 last year and I remember it was only £12 or £15 when I was there in 2004. Happy to be corrected on my figures, but that looks like some cheeky inflation going on there!

Yes, £28 for a day.

I paid 20 for FOD uplift last week, I thought it was a bargain. Ok PDS lift pass in morzine is about £70 for a week, but I don't see £28 as unreasonable. I haven't' seen the figures so cannot comment but it would be lovely if it worked.

The truth is TJ is a nurse and does not have any experience of large scale civil engineering or its funding so I wouldn't take any of his negativity too seriously. I mean what could he possibly say that would have any relevance?

There is definitely some kind of demand/interest for this so sooner or later someone will come up with a solution and funding package. I think all of us non-experts would be better concentrating our time supporting ideas like this.

Toys – have a look at the figures they use. Some examples in the link I gave. Its utter bobbins as anyone can see. Ridiculously optimistic. This is why its dead in the water and nothing has happened with it for 3 yrs.

Open 255 days per year
73% 0f mtbers will use the facility
Downhillers will use it 23 times a year ( thats from all over the UK)
95 000 mtbers to use it
30 000 sightseerers – thats the most ridiculous one. 120+ people every day paying £7 to look at the view. How many of the 255 days have good weather?

It would require massive subsidy to build and massive subsidy every year to run.

You tell me how much an 11 pylon chairlift would cost to build and run including 2 new forestry roads and all the facilities they want to build – including 30 km of trails. tell me how this will be funded from the turnover they will get.

Its pie in the sky

edit – averaging 500 people a day using the uplift – most of them at least 4 times up and down.

>Have some vision please people<

To be blunt, I'd throw that question back at the DH community.

As far as I can see this just takes off where Descent Worlds ICP fizzled out after 3 years of hot air. The public sector aren't going to touch this with a barge pole and the credibility of the project will sink further and further until a consortium with a solid business plan and the necessary private equity steps forward to "make it happen."

It's not Facebook that's needed, it's a prayer to St Jude.

are there any MTB only resorts/chairlifts in the world?

Nope Jambo – this would be a first – and note the comments above from people with real knowledge of chairlift resorts.

£28 is reasonable as a one-off, but if you go for a weekend or 3 days, it gets very expensive very quickly. In the context of historic prices, it does look like unreasonable increases have been added.

My main gripe is that the operators will charge that £28 after delaying opening for a couple of hours, then shutting the lift an hour or two early because of the weather. I appreciate it's beyond their control, but when you've signed up for 10 runs at £2.80 a pop, to end up with 4 runs at £7 each after travelling miles to get there etc it is pretty frustrating.

A fairer system would be to issue partial refunds depending on the down-time, maybe then they'd be less trigger-happy when it comes to switching the thing off.

But, my general impression from using the facilities and the bike hire has always been that they're out to get as much money as possible from people, with customer service being very low down on the list of priorities.

But, we're way off topic here anyway!

To bring things back on topic; I don't think TJ needs any experience of major Civil Engineering projects, it's pretty obvious that the numbers don't stack up. Also, joining a facebook group doesn't count as 'doing something about it'.

This wouldn't be a MTB-only chairlift and there are plenty of chairlifts that don't rely on Skiers. There's even one earlier in this thread!