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Jamieson sued, arguing the resort had not properly informed him of the risks of mountain biking when he signed the waiver for his season pass and that he had "no idea" that it was possible for him to go over his handle bars and suffer a spinal cord injury.
But in their response Whistler noted that Jamieson had worked as both volunteer trail builder and patroller at the bike park for three seasons and had already completed two years training to be a medical doctor at UBC prior to the accident.
from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/whistler-lawsuit-1.4167886
This is why we have to do this stuff
Jamieson sounds like a *, an understandably desperate *, but still a ****
So pretty much your first contact on arriving is them saying “we’re worried you’re going to rip us off”. That’s why I say that they give the impression of hating bikers
It's their way of saying if you're a weirdo who has unrealistic expectations despite the token fees and goes to application meetings and wants to bring his own food yet use our facilities for paying eaters and is seeing illegal clauses that don't exist and can't understand we don't want people to use the trails without paying and that we don't want to be sued by compensation experts, then don't come to BPW. I fully support them in doing that.
^that 🙂
So pretty much your first contact on arriving is them saying “we’re worried you’re going to rip us off”. That’s why I say that they give the impression of hating bikers
Give over. Their operation is based entirely around mountainbikers. Without mountainbikers being involved at pretty much every level there's no way they'd be able to provide what they do in a way that appeals to you.
There's also no way they could provide what they do if they had no protection against unfortunate/opportunistic people who wanted to sue because no one told them mountain biking is dangerous.
Without spelling it out, without telling riders to read, and sign to confirm that you've read what to expect and how to behave, there's a risk that the whole place goes under, mountain bikers lose their jobs and mountain bikers can't ride there anymore.
It's really basic business foundation stuff and they're doing it, just the same as they put together jumps and berms so they work and continue to work.
ajaj mate, as am aside to all of the above, I'll be honest that my initial response was prompted by a number of unproductive, lazy comments. I don't envy the guys behind BPW - they're committed riders and passionate about what they do. They're human and I imagine they struggle to see past the snidey comments which suggest a lack of understanding about what it takes to run a multimillion pound venture which employs 50 odd people. I suppose that's the beauty of the Internet, empowering people to pass comment. Rather than digging yourself a deeper hole why not put your energy into engaging with them. Im sure they'll have a dig day coming up soon.
I didnt even know about the food ban, last time I was there we bought a load of chips and drinks from the cafe then ate our own sandwiches at the same time. Nobody said anything and we weren't banned from the bus after dinner.
Not eating your own food in someone else’s cafe is very very standard across the whole country, why people are thinking it’s weird at BPW I don’t know - have you never been out for dinner?
That warning/disclaimer reads really well and is quite nice I thought. Remember there are probably thousands of people who’s first go at a trail centre might be BPW. “Bike Park? sounds like fun!” they might be thinking, having only ridden a £200 Carrara before. The warnings are to those sorts of people who make up the vast majority of MTB riders in this country. People riding £1000+ MTBs, easpecially downhill and jump capable bikes, are a very small minority.
Not being able to eat your own food in the cafe isn't a problem. There not being anywhere to get out of the rain to eat your own food is a problem. You can only eat in your car if you drove there.
The weather can be particularly filthy round there and when you are soaking wet and tired it is frankly miserable trying to eat your lunch outside in the pouring rain.
Obviously if you are made of money you can just use the cafe.
I appreciate that many other trail centres don't provide any covered shelters but they also don't charge an entrance fee.
Obviously if you are made of money you can just use the cafe.
The main meals are only £7-8, really well priced for a hot main meal IMO
Eat sandwiches on the bus, get more runs in to compensate for the earlier closing time.
Eat sandwiches on the bus, get more runs in to compensate for the earlier closing time.
Was just about to post something similar. It's a short day (even before the lastest change) so having a sit down meal is just wasting a good chunk of it (and who wants a big meal mid-ride anyway?)
(and who wants a big meal mid-ride anyway?)
I don't I just want somewhere dry to take a 20 min break and eat my sandwiches. When the weather is properly wet the bus is quite an unpleasant environment. I don't want to eat on there.
The main meals are only £7-8, really well priced for a hot main meal IMO
That's 40 odd pounds for a family of five. Not everyone is a committed stormtrooper and capable of a full day of uplifts without a break. If you market your business as family friendly then you need to provide appropriate facilities.
They have. If you can't afford £40 to feed 5 then it's probably not the place for you. Stay at home and avoid all the other costs. I don't want them to charge everyone more to make free facilities for tight gits who think you have to be wealthy to buy a £8 burger. But I am sure this is a wind up timid.
That’s 40 odd pounds for a family of five.
if you've taken the whole family on the uplift, thats ~£200. i don't think a crappy burger is going to break the bank...
Also lol at comparing BPW to a place like Morzine or Tignes. Those places are huge resorts in the Alps where they're serviced year round, ski in winter and bikes and hiking in summer, with multiple hotels, activity companies, infrastructure that's been there for decades.
You cannot in good faith compare them to BPW which is a modest, completely new park built with the help of EU funding in a relatively neglected part of the country.
I really don't understand why it is so controversial to want a sheltered seating area?
Not everyone buys a day's uplift pass.
Not everyone has £250 to spare for a day out.
Try and see things from other people's point of view.
Do they actually stop you eating your own food in there? pretty sure I have on occasion, maybe oblivious to whatever signs they have... admittedly I wouldn't take the mick, someone else in the group will have purchased something, and I'd have got a drink or two so maybe they don't care if you spend a bit. Other times I've just sat in the car as I don't want to waste time going back and forth.
It's an awesome place though, only thing that annoys me with the change is that I'll get less riding time in which is a shame, I'm on the first and last bus every time when we go - might have to plan riding back up from halfway on the last run now to push it out to 4:30/5ish. It definitely gets quieter on the last few buses.
I really don’t understand why it is so controversial to want a sheltered seating area?
Not everyone buys a day’s uplift pass.
Not everyone has £250 to spare for a day out.
Try and see things from other people’s point of view.
Fair enough but at the outset of the project I imagine that a sheltered picnic area was pretty far down the wish list of future punters who expected world class, well maintained trails, quality, well maintained hire bikes, efficient, well maintained uplifts etc etc. I'm sure they'll listen to people who wish for a gazebo. After that they can bow down to calls for a smoking shelter. Sorry to be facetious but I can't believe this thread has boiled down to criticism over a lack of shelter at an outdoor facility.
maybe they just assumed everyone would sit in their T5's?
but it has a shelter.. a massive building with a wood burner and sofa, a cafe, and a bike shop...nobodies gonna stop you using it. And another shelter at the top. Can't see the need for any more shelters! The rest of the time just get riding!
I really don’t understand why it is so controversial to want a sheltered seating area?
Not everyone buys a day’s uplift pass.
Not everyone has £250 to spare for a day out.
Try and see things from other people’s point of view
Try and see things from other people's point of view too then : many think that a hot dish for £8 is impossibly cheap and don't want to subsidise any non riding facilities that would be offered FOC to tight gits.
Already bought myself a syringe driver to allow me pump glucose directly into my veins and thus skip eating at all and get in the most runs ever!
And now there is no mandatory lunch break with everyone trying to cram in to said shelter, there should be enough room of everyone to have a break.
If they did want to put another shelter in, my vote is for over the queue for the buses. Not needed though, as I will have anticipated the 3 activities of queuing, busing, and riding; along with the weather; when deciding what to wear that day.
OK, let me try again. If you read the legalese it’s designed to protect BPW from riders. That’s not a particularly friendly thing to do – when you invite friends round to your house you don’t ask them to sign a disclaimer. It’s perfectly acceptable commercially, of course. What it’s doing is saying that the management of BPW see riders as a potential liability. So pretty much your first contact on arriving is them saying “we’re worried you’re going to rip us off”. That’s why I say that they give the impression of hating bikers. The lawyers and underwriters who wrote that see us as a threat. Which we are, from their perspective.
When it contains unenforceable legal threats that just adds to the sense that you’re dealing with someone more like a car clamping firm than someone with your interests at heart.
Can you please give some specifics? You're saying things, but not giving any detail?
From the previous BPW thread three weeks ago:
trisysjoint Subscriber
We stayed here: http://tunnelcottages.co.uk/
Literally 1.5 miles from the start of all of the BPW runs…..get your first run down for free then pay at the desk when you get there for the rest of the day:-)
From the BPW website:
Any rider caught tresspassing on the trails without a valid pass will be fined on the spot, this will be enforced by our marshalls.
So BPW don't want trisysjoint in their park. And they want to demand money on the spot. There's a name for that - it's called "robbery" and most people are told that it's wrong by their parents.
Yawn
Literally 1.5 miles from the start of all of the BPW runs…..get your first run down for free then pay at the desk when you get there for the rest of the day:-)
I can't see where they advertise that on the Tunnel Cottages website?
From their website -
BikePark Wales is a pay to ride venue and revenues from entry fees are used to fund trail maintainance and building new trails. Please respect this and buy your trail pass at reception upon arrival. Anyone found riding on site without a valid pass will receive a £50 spot fine.
Is that much different for being fined on train for not travelling with a ticket? Seems fair enough to me.
"Is that much different for being fined on train for not travelling with a ticket? Seems fair enough to me."
Yes, because there's specific legislation that allows it for trains (Railways Act 1889). It might seem fair. It might even be fair. But it isn't legal, and some of us believe in rule of law.
As an aside I've seen that the people on the ground, being nice sensible biker types, aren't this draconian and take a relaxed, polite attitude if they encounter someone with a pass. It's just whoever writes the rules.
It just sounds like your being deliberately obtuse to be honest.
So BPW don’t want trisysjoint in their park. And they want to demand money on the spot. There’s a name for that – it’s called “robbery” and most people are told that it’s wrong by their parents.
Call the police. And never visit BPW ever again please Mr Meldrew.
Stop engaging with Ajaj. He’s quite clearly the sort of mentalist who writes letters to councils about the thickness of the gap between double yellow lines not being standard and therefore not enforceable.
Wow - the loon fringe is out in force on this thread.
You'd have have to be crazy to run a business of this kind and not have some sort of disclaimer to protect you from litigation. If you think you can't why don't you just set up your own little bike park, let it be a free for all and see how well you get on?
Fining people riding on the trail without a pass is probably a result of people taking the piss. It's a business FFS, and they have to have some mechanism to deter people from just turning up and riding without paying.
The food is decent for the money. If you don't like it you can sit in your car. They have a limited footprint and really can't be expected to accommodate people who aren't paying for food.
Also - no one is forcing you to ride there.
JP
Like the sound of that accomodation. Surely if you’d pre booked uplift and showed them the printout voucher they’d be sensible ?
Wow, you pretty much have to be dertirmined to be offended if boggo T&Cs (written by lawyers, no doubt) are ruining your day.
3 years ago you could get 11/12 runs for less money.
Now lucky to get 8 so shorter hours it’s down to 7.
If your a Pinner it’s shite, but if you want a expensive jolly with your mates then it’s fine.
Shorter hours and a slower uplift sucks!
They will be getting less of my money.
I couldn't do 11/12 runs in a day even if it was free.
This thread does have quite a lot of mentalness... But... OK, look at Antur Stiniog. Antur built their own road, it was a pretty fast way up anyway and when it became a limiting factor with bus damage, comfort, speed etc, they tarmacced it. Every trail ends by the bus, and the bus goes almost perfectly to the start of the trails. They really went out of their way to make their uplifyt service awesome.
BPW's cafe and car park isn't at the uplift circle, the uplift doesn't start at the bottom nor run quite to the top, and the trails eject all over the bottom of the hill. Want to start your day, get something from the car or go to the cafe? Have to pedal back up to the uplift. Want to do the longer trails? Have to pedal back up to the uplift.
Took people a while to convince me of what should have been obvious- none of that's by mistake, they've worked quite hard at reducing the efficiency of the uplift, in other words to reduce the number of runs you can do in a day, in other words to increase the amount of tickets they can sell per bus. That is basically a bit crap.
Similarly, the uplift road wasn't built by them, it's the original FC road but you can't tell me they couldn't have improved that if improving the speed of the uplift was important. They've improved the passing places but you still go through about 9 postcodes on the way to the top.
Now i'll still go, next time we're down there, and I'll have a good day too. But that doesn't stop me being a bit peeved at their cynicism, and the fact that they've intentionally built a worse centre than they could have.
Yes a lot of mentalness indeed, including blaming them for the topography of the place.
Northwind, some interesting points there but as with some of the comments above, I take issue when you call their decisions cynical without knowing the full story. I'll admit that I don't either but i imagine that there is reasoning behind their decisions (beyond that of making cold hard cash). Imagine that the Welsh Asembly/NRW/FC said that they could use the land. It's not perfect but they could work with it. Maybe that meant some sacrifices e.g. the haul road is a pre-existing forestry track, therefore it likely wasn't built with efficient uplifts in mind. Presumably it is longer than the road at Antur. A macadam surface would cost hundreds of thousands. More so if they were to construct a new road straight up the hillside. As for the location of the visitor centre relative to the uplift, again, maybe they just had to work with what they were given - its current location is possibly the only suitably flat parcel of land which wouldn't need regrading (again, £££).
I don't wish to argue for the sake of it but it's a bit harsh to cry cynical without weighing things up.
Maybe I'm a bit of a cynic and while I might not go as far as Northwind I can certainly see where he's coming from.
Antur really feels like they are trying to give you the maximum bang for your buck, BPW 'feels' like they are trying to make as much money as possible with the least amount of wear on the trails.
I used to go quite a lot, not so much these days, only if a group I want to ride with decide to go there, were as I used to instigate rides there. I'll still go and enjoy riding the trails, but certainly feed more jaded about the whole experience. Frustration that it just doesn't feel efficient, and paying more money for less runs.
Edit: I was always first bus till last bus, so the reduced hours will certainly make me reevaluate the VFM.
Building an unneccesary asphalt road in a forest. What a stupid thing to do. This thread has gone full mental.
I'm there with laddo 3 weeks tomorrow, so i will report back to this very thread with, busyness of uplift, busyness of uplift during lunch for the drivers, number of runs and whether we got kicked off the outside seating whilst eating one of our own sandwiches whilst no doubt consuming their chips at the same time!
I really like BPW and think they've done a great job considering the complexities of building and running such a big operation. But the shorter hours is downright annoying. I know the number of people riding drops towards the end of the day but why can't they run fewer buses then?
To be honest, I tend to avoid BPW these days because the uplift is bobbins and way to slow. I get way more runs at Revo, Stiniog and BMC which means more bang for your buck. I'm less concerned about the café etc and more concerned about getting as much riding in as I can.
I liked trails like Fifty Shades but you may as well finish in another county - it's a bloody mission back to the start of the uplift and costs you a run or so I'm guessing.