A bloke i train with does guided rides and is struggling with custom. He charges £15 per rider for the first 3 hrs and £30 for 4hrs plus.

Half decent routes and a good lad, only getting a couple of bookings a month. Is he barking up the wrong tree?

I would be interested in that sort of thing when the weather gets good – never been to the Peaks and wouldn’t know where to start.

Limited market I would have thought. Does he advertise widely? I certainly wouldn’t pay for a guide

His advertising is shite – local radio and 3 months in an MTB mag. Website is shite also

tom – email me at robjackson@hotmail.co.uk

I wouldn’t pay, only because I’m a Peaks regular and know it quite well.

Maybe he could knock the price down according to the numbers in a group. Also he needs feedback from the riders he did take out. I’m sure business would pick up in the spring and summer.

Has he been into all the bikeshops handing out flyers and such?

TandemJeremy – Member

Limited market I would have thought. Does he advertise widely? I certainly wouldn’t pay for a guide

Lol doesn’t suprise me – the thought of you listening ANYBODY ever is a laugh in its self

He has done i think but trailmonkeys (now deceased) were doing their own rides

To be honest I’m surprised he gets as many takers as he does. People will happily pay for a guide abroard but that doesn’t translate to over here.

I reckon the Peak is a difficult spot because it’s well known as are many of the trails, somewhere like Skye might make people think about hiring a guide … I believe the only real way to making guiding work in the Uk is for it to be part of a package, 2 nights B+B with 2 days riding, try and project it in a social / holiday type way.

Sorry, I know none of the above really helps your friend out.

Where’s he expect his market to come from?

I wouldn’t- I spent 18 months there a while back- just bought a vertebrate guide, maps and rode around exploring. It’s not like some areas where local knowledge is necessary to pick from a maze of bridleways- navigation is quite straightforward. Unless somebody’s after an ‘escort’ for a few hours, for safety reasons or companionship, I can’t see the need.

Unless, of course, he’s going to pass on knowledge of some of the cheekier descents.

r_r – get him to email me – tom@muchbetteradventures.com
we may be able to help.

+1

Sometimes we come across Southerners riding up where they should really be going down and such like, and I guess if they don’t know the area they might regret not paying for a guide. But a lot of the peaks trails are very well known and easily google-able tbh, so I’d have thought it presents limited opportunities?

Combining with skillz course or something might be an angle?

I think when you look at the UK, there is a lot of competition in many different forms

i) The UK has amazing ordnance survey maps which places like Spain lack
ii) The magazines print ride guides
iii) Plenty of books on the market suggesting routes
iv) Internet forums offer advice
v) Internet forums mean people can meet locals and join in on rides

The places he is advertising are probably not target market, but he would have to do very extensive marketing to reach the people who may want a guided ride. I would say that the marketing costs would surely be far higher than any business generated?

I do not want to be negative, but I would have thought that there would be business, but as part of a wider leisure business, such as a hotel or adventure holiday company offering this as part of a larger package?

I don’t want to be negative, but I am not too sure it is a sustainable business in the UK, although obviously a great job if you could make it work commercially.

I would use such a service if I was visiting an area I didn’t know that well. But I suspect it is quite a niche service. Living down south I have no idea what the trails and riding in the peak district is like, where to stay or if it is worth going to over somewhere like Afan so I suspect a good detailed web site would help and may presuade me to take a trip up there in the first place. I’ve used guides before because I didn’t want to travel miles to an area I don’t know and not find the good trails.

Vgraphics book covers it too well imo. I’m crap with orienteering but even with their book I don’t go wrong

I’d think there would be some sort of market for novice / improving riders. A lot of people won’t fancy just heading for the hills and exploring, particularly a place like the dark peak.

There must be a decent number of folk who enjoy a good ride, but don’t consider themselves MTBers as such – they aren’t connected to any MTB community. A guided ride from a good rider (rates look reasonable as well) could work.

1st, £15 for 3 hours is below the minimum wage.
2nd, He should try to add some skill coaching into the mix which he could charge more for.
3rd, he needs to canvas bike forums and shops to build up some reputation, not unlike Jedi does!
4th may be he should cover a larger area, to include North wales or Northern Pennines and Yorkshire?
Just a bit of brain storming!
Good luck to him

Problem is, in the UK, OS Maps are so good, and there’s so many good guide books, websites, and routes in magazines etc. theres less need for a guide. I think most “proper” mountain bikers would be able to work something out on their own, and those just looking for leaisure cycling would be content riding anywhere.

Maybe he could look at setting up some kind of deal with bike shops and B&Bs. Things like the Dales Bike Centre work because they offer the full package.

Hungry monkey can you email me – robjackson@hotmail.co.uk and let me know whats on offer

cheers

rather than £15 on guiding i would probably buy a map/ guide book.

there are plenty of routes available for free on the net. i’m used to planning my own rides etc.

to be honest the other problem is if anyone wants to be “guided” you pop a note on the forum and a kind, like minded soul will either give you a route to follow, or agree to meet you, for free…..

to be honest the other problem is if anyone wants to be “guided” you pop a note on the forum and a kind, like minded soul will either give you a route to follow, or agree to meet you, for free…..

+1
Most people going for a day trip will just look on the net or in a mag or buy a route guide/OS map, they’re capable of guiding themselves – OK you might miss out some of the cheeky stuff but frankly, if an official guide is showing someone illegal trails they’re not fit to be a guide…

I’d have thought his market isn’t really “proper” MTBers (the sort who buy the mags, look at the MTB websites/forums), it’s the sort of person who might hire a bike for a day or two in which case he needs to either run a hire business or hook up with someone who does.

Or do what Dales Bike Centre do: run a whole B&B/meals/guiding/skills course setup and attract the proper MTBers who want to stay for more than a day and are willing to pay the extra for good service rather than go it alone.

rob – ygm

cheers, tom

If he’s focusing around the Hope valley then he’s on a hiding to nothing. There’s not really a lot of riding in the area, what there is is mapped and guidebooked to death. Definately a lot lot less ridding than the number of routes in the area would suggest.

Develop rides in the areas less frequented by visitors (those who dont live within say 10-15miles of the Peak Park.- SW Peak, North of Glossop and round to Delph, Marsden, Holmfirth, Chesterfield

hmm…

i do pay for guiding in the alps/spain.

i’d probably pay for guiding in scotland – cos the access rights are really good, i’m sure a good guide could show me some really peachy stuff without all the drowning in a freezing bog that is the usual result of me doing it my way with a map.

but i’m not sure i’d pay for guiding in England – i’m about to be shouted out of town – ’cause i’ve never ridden a bridleway in England that i’d be happy to ‘pay’ for.

£15 for a 3 hour ride? – that’s 3 descents, or £5 per descent. or £1.67 per corner at best.

not a chance, bridleways are basically a non-tarmac way of joining up the good stuff.

please don’t misunderstand me, i know some lovely trails around the peak, but without exception they’re footpaths/off-piste.

what first class bollox ahwhiles

bridleways are basically a non-tarmac way of joining up the good stuff.

please don’t misunderstand me, i know some lovely trails around the peak, but without exception they’re footpaths/off-piste.

Surely you jest?

Put it like this, if you were to go to the Lakes / Wales anywhere else for biking would you consider getting a guide?

The majority of people will refer to books, internet forums, trail centres and so on. I imagine the sort of people that revert to a guide are very few and far between. One of the great things about our restricted bike access means that places like the Dark Peak make it very easy to piece together a decent ride. If the Vertebrate Graphics guides didn’t exist, do you think you could really put together a bad ride in the Peaks, apart from maybe going the wrong way up / down trails and maybe the odd trail being a bit muddy in the winter?

The only thing I think that may drum up more trade would be to offer it as a whole package i.e. include a decent bike to ride, pick them up and so on – tapping into the ‘bike curious’ market.

His main selling point is first aid training/confidence for newer riders

Richpips tried this in the same area and even had bike hire

I think it fizziled and his photography took off

ask him what happened

Adam has a point about the best bits of the Peak being off piste.

I know about guides in Calderdale and the Lakes but not on my own back yard so I’d say his marketing needs significantly improving to start with.

Also I can’t really see uk guiding being a full time thing, it needs mixing with skills courses and similar

Richpips tried this in the same area and even had bike hire
I think it fizziled and his photography took off

Richpips had a fleet of On One Inbred hire bikes plus a couple of Ti 456’s which he’d built up – he basically set himself up as a “shop” so it involved a fair bit of outlay.
He found he was either rushed off his feet delivering bikes all over the place or dead quiet and although he combined it with photography of the riders out and about, skills courses, guiding etc, it just wasn’t viable.

Hats off to him for trying though and it lead indirectly into pro photography which he’s very good at.

Back to the OP: there really aren’t *that* many legal trails in the Peaks, it’s not like Calderdale or the Lakes where there’s a huge density of trails. Pretty much anyone can navigate their way round the Peaks. An official guide can’t go taking random people off on FP’s so really you’re there to show/tell people the correct way to ride stuff which you can find out from the local bike shop or internet forum…

Guided poaching, thats just cheeky and would make you a very easy target to prosecute. I’d have thought the market for guiding would be, foi example, places like borders / northumberland or mid / south wales. Few people, few shops or clubs and lots of stuff to go at.

monksie – Member

“bridleways are basically a non-tarmac way of joining up the good stuff.

please don’t misunderstand me, i know some lovely trails around the peak, but without exception they’re footpaths/off-piste”

Surely you jest?

nope. we rave about trails like ‘cavedale’ or ‘the beast’ – but they’re little more than a few minutes bouncing down a stream. i’m happy to ride them, but i wouldn’t be happy if i’d paid for the experience.

‘cut gate’ is a 3 hour ride with a few seconds worth of singletrack at one end, and 3 corners at the other. and a freezing bog in the middle.

it’s alright, but i wouldn’t pay to ride it.

i’m off for a ride in a bit, and i will only be using bridleways/boats as a way of joining up the interesting (cheeky) trails.

how much do you think the descent off shatton moor is worth? or the one-corner-wonder devil’s elbow?

strangely, i do enjoy the roman road climb out of Edale, but paying for a climb would be sick and wrong.

However,

i wish this guiding chappie all the success he can dream of, would he please let me know when he finds some swoopy singletrack bridleways, i’d be delighted to pay him £15…

A big plus for using a guide is if you`re limited to amount of visit tiem you can get best bits without initial mistakes and struggles; no matter how good guide books / online routes / GPS downloads may be a guide can seamlessly lead you along the trails, and save you on nav time (thanks again here crazy-legs for your guiding in Peaks after the Sportive, made a good day out a graet day out :). Local knowledfge cannot be bettered, yes you can diy and many people prefer that. However if you are away from honey pot areas soem of the tracks on the ground may be obscure and some on the ground may not exist on the map. It can be very difficult to convey correct route finding in a written guide for a user as someone writing the guide can be so familiar with the route as to overlook salient points of reference. A riding guide does away with all these issues and allows you to make most of the time spent riding rather than navigating

GOOD LUCK TO HIM! and yes rates of pay are low but I believe within industry standards

Friend of mine started the exact same business in the Peak about 10 years ago, granted there are more mtb-ers these days but it didn’t ‘take-off’ for him either.

He put it down to the Peak just not being ‘Out there’ enough to warrant a guide. He had interest enough, but not enough to forge a sustainable living.

I could quiz him for more info if you like?

It’s certainly fair to say that the Peak is a nice enough place to ride but there isn’t that much riding and as Love Tubs (and others) have said, the riding, for most folk doesn’t warrant a guide.

The majority of our work is instruction/courses. We do offer guiding in many different guises, everything from a gentle tootle to multi day epics through the mountains. We’re also in a location that has that out there / wild feel, bike hire and free accommodation. The area is also pretty untapped (certainly compared to the Peak) with the highest number of legal ROW anywhere within England/Wales …. and people don’t knock our door down requesting guides.

If your mate wants a chat, emails in my profile. 😉

as other good maps and ability to read so why pay when the local info I need – which descent will this bit be boggy etc is availablefrm here for nothing.
Skills training would make more sense than just guided rides IMHO

Is he marketing through guess houses, hotels or bike shops?
Obvious modelmis increase the price a bit and include it as part of accommodation packages, then the hotel takes 5 or 10 percent for bringing him the riders
Also might be worth investing in a few hire bikes, or getting mtb coach qualified to add on skills training

I’m sure high peak council or someone round there has funding for rural start ups?