are people wtill dreaming of a chairlift at “Inners”? LOL!

The Party is Over – see item 10 here

For FES, Alan [Stevenson] highlighted the fact that a consultation exercise was underway for the first draft of the National Mountain Bike Strategy for Scotland* – to date there had been no reaction to our stance that no financial support would be forthcoming for new technical or specialist mountain bike facilities on the national forest estate.

if FES/FCS isn’t going to invest any more then it’s dead in the water. huge capital costs, huge running costs, f*ck all chance of making money. go ask glencoe mountain and nevis range how much they make out of mtb…

* still not published btw.

proteus. FCS were never going to be providing any funding.

you don’t get it. step aside.

proteus – stop being a cock end.

Smee – think of a famous phrase using the words kettle, black and pot.

The financial case for the chairlift is rubbish – it would need many millions to build and many many thousands a year of subsidy to run it.

Its dead in the water / pie in the sky.

sorry for that, a reaction to the chairlift nonsense i’ve read over the years.

as you seem to know who is paying the bills, can you enlighten us on:

* sources of funding (and i don’t mean “the lottery”) for the chairlift (install and run)
* sources of funding (and i don’t mean “the lottery”) for the trail network (build and maintain) you’d need going need to support the rider numbers you’ll need to come close to paying the bills
* how to going to encourage non-riders to use chair to subsidise the mtbers – cafe at the top? add that into the chairlift number above.

if you can’t answer these then you’re just one of the dreamers.

although to be honest. garry_lager hit the nail on the head a few hours ago.

innerz vertical iz saracing.

(but i still like it)

>
For FES, Alan [Stevenson] highlighted the fact that a consultation exercise was underway for the first draft of the National Mountain Bike Strategy for Scotland* <

Aye, he’s rather adept at leading consultation exercises and strategies that dont get published…

>
to date there had been no reaction to our stance that no financial support would be forthcoming for new technical or specialist mountain bike facilities on the national forest estate.<

Och, don’t worry about that – ’twas primarily for consumption by the Bolsheviks over at Carron Valley…

>Whistler is an entity that will never be equalled or rivalled. <

Liking the advert Bearback 🙂

You’re right though and these public agencies / quangos will create another Cairngorm Funicular at their peril. FES (who recently refused to take on the Cairngorm choo choo remember) have sensibly, on this ocassion, stepped away from the fire.

As far as I can see the leading lights in the DH community are conspicous by their absence – have any private equity partners stepped forward to help bankroll this racing certainty? IIRC there was a fair number of private investors (ordinary punters basically) who put £hard earned into Nevis Range – they’ve got a cafe, skiers,DH runs, trail network, Mountaineers etc etc and I don’t believe any have seen a penny in return.

As the man says, Whistler is a highly successful business with a pre existing / intergrated uplift infrastructure serving a massive ski network. Innerleithen needs to plonk a cafe at the top to bolster the business case and talking of cafeS – aren’t FES currently sinking a cool £5m into building a new cafe / visitor centre just 5 mins up the road? This is surely another reason why FCS are walking backwards on this one. If a sensible case was to be made then surely the location, the cafe, the uplift could only be centred at one of these locations?

Of course if we’d had sight of FES MTB strategy then all of these seemingly disjointed ideas would be much clearer 😉

Sorry, another helmet muncher here.

Is the girl in the middle of the Whistler photo a zombie? Anyhow, I think I have more chance with the Innerleithen girl. Apparently, the chairlift is going to open on the same day as the reopening of the Peebles to Walkerburn railway.

if you can’t answer these then you’re just one of the dreamers.
sweet dreams…

Been reading this thread with interest.

This may be a naive question, but since the motorised uplift only runs every other weekend (in the warmer months?) – doesn’t that show a lack of demand for the service anyway?

I’m not local and haven’t used it – just looked into booking it recently and was surprised how infrequent is is by comparison to Cwmcarn.

I’ve never ridden whistler (well not yet anyway), however, I know the answer to the question. Tweed valley is just leith hill on steroids.

chakaping – the uplift at inners runs fortnightly through the warmer months but the trucks/busses will be in use on another hill running racers to the top one week a month and the other week will be doing uplifts at Ae. so they are busy most weekends.
I’ve been pushing at inners most weekends this year and some non-uplift weekends the car park has been as full as an uplift day.

Whistler was dusty in early June when I was there, and that was two days after pissing down.

If I had to choose between 6 months Whistler and 11.5 months Tweed Valley, I’m afraid it would be Whistler no contest. I’ve never had so much fun on a bike, nor been so confident on a bike afterwards. The hardest stuff in Tweed valley is about 60% in Whistler, and I’m far from having godly bike skills (especially right now). Throw in fantastic skiing for the other 6 months rather than 2 minute runs for your 30 minutes of queuing in Glenshee and there’s really no argument.

What was the point of this? I think the chairlift should go ahead if a full on bike park is developed. Just wish it could have happened 5 years ago.

Car park might be full for truck/bus uplift, but you’d need a much bigger car park and for it to be stuffed to the gills every weekend (if not everyday) to make a chairlift feasible.

Still no comment from Smee I notice? LOL!

Looks like he’s done a runner!

Even if i lived so close to great trails i wouldn’t be so arrogant as to compare them to Whistler!!! 🙄

There are dozens of smaller ski hills in the states that have better bike trials than Glentress or Inners would ever have.