listening to tales radical riding, from someone who nearly kills themself going off the drop into Vicious Valley
Oh we're onto to "i'm superior to everyone else" discussions 😀 awesome.
I'm too cool to be on the bus 🙂 . I may get some t-shirts made 🙂
@joe BMCC?
Sorry bit out of touch with bike stuff these days….
Black Mountain Cycle Centre near Abergavenny. Literally just a car park with a portaloo, sign on cabin and usually a burger van.
Tractors towing open trailers up quite a rugged path.
Mostly hardpack mud style trails so best when it’s been dry - just swoopy / bermy/ jumpy fun.
Watch the below video to get a feel for the trail style - although this is Bomper which is one of the black trails. The blues have no drops or mandatory gaps - the reds also have no mandatory large gaps or drops either. Just a lot of tables have quite steep lips on them so usually take the first few runs steady to get into it.
Yeah BMCC is really good, I'm not a fan of flow trails but that place has it dialled. The uplift seems to take a while but you're never waiting more than a minute for it so it always feels like you're moving and making progress
Trailforks suggests 280m for the climb, so 6-10 runs must be doable riding up, I think I'll try that next time!
sounds like i have been lucky with my BPW experiences over the years. Maybe go once or twice a year at most, as its a good 3 hours from home.
Never had a bad experience myself. Buses always available. Trails always running well, come rain or shine. Shop well stocked, cafe serving food. Plenty of parking spaces. Plenty of variety for all skill levels.
Is it expensive... like most things, i rather pay less, but i dont ever feel ripped off. usually have booked a couple of months in advance, so using 'man maths', that money is long gone, so on the actual day i dont feel like i am paying for the experience (in a weird way).
I think you can make or break your own day, depending on what time you turn up, how much faffing you do, which trails you choose to ride, if you are competent at putting a bike on a trailer, if you decide to stop for lunch, or keep going, bring your own food or stop at the cafe etc etc.
And whilst it is now being run like a business (as it should), i still believe it has a 'rider run' feel, all you have to do is look at the trails... they are no council made bore-fests!
Then you don’t have to sit on a stinking uplift bus, listening to tales radical riding, from someone who nearly kills themself going off the drop into Vicious Valley 🤦♂️
That's normally me, but it's crying over the start of Bonneyville.
Oh we’re onto to “i’m superior to everyone else” discussions 😀 awesome.
I’m too cool to be on the bus 🙂 . I may get some t-shirts made 🙂
Genuinely, couldn't give a sh*t how well or badly someone can ride a bike if they are out having fun 🙂
But chatting like you're Sam Hill's lost brother, insiding corners everywhere & sending everything, at volume, on repeat, is boring. Especially when, in 99% of cases, the previous comment applies.
but the thing is, in their (and my) perspective they ARE.. they're pushing boundaries, pushing limits, doing things they'd not done until today and riding harder and scarier stuff than they (I'd) ever ridden before. It's passion, excitement, fun and adrenaline.... I can't see a downside to it.
Same reason that the purpose-built visitor’s centre with the bike shop, cafe and sign-up point isn’t beside the purpose-built bus drop-off location. Cynical but clever.
Not really. The landscape dictated the layout in the main. The uplift runs from virtually the lowest part of the site, but there isn't room there for the centre and a huge car park(which they've recently increased a lot) without building some sort of massive level area on a steep slope.
In the olden days of yore, when we used to do the Dragon Downhills and it was just Gethin woodland, I think the trails pretty much stopped where the centre was. The uplift took various forms, most memorably massive quarry trucks you'd pile you and your bike into.
The uplift dropped you at the start of what is really the final part of the climb, up that rocky doubletrack before crossing the top to the start area. You had to push your dh bike all the way up there. It was all bog on top too, not a gravel trail like it is now, and it were all fields.. 😂
The uplift road never went around the back like it does now.
You lot don't know you're born! 😉
I agree though. The faff of waiting and queuing, loading and unloading, sweaty buses and rising costs make the ebike seem ever more appealing.
I used to get really frustrated with the drivers faffing so much and taking so long. You'd had a good day on twelve or so uplifts but folks are frequently getting much less than that now.
Was up there the other day on the eeb. So nice not dealing with all the bus faff. You put a few miles in riding up though. The steep ebike route up is defo a battery drainer!
Best part of the day was lunchtime when presumably the buses stopped. So nice and quiet!
The start area completely stinks of piss now if you sit on the picnic benches, what with everyone ducking into the trees for a wazz. Minging.
Always preferred the smaller venues that have a more old school dh feel, but BPW have taken the ball and really run with it so fair play to them.
Oh we’re onto to “i’m superior to everyone else”
Isn't that how every thread goes? Pretty much why I started with "**** off", cos it was obvious this one would!
BMCC is good but the problem with it is that after an hour you've done every trail there.
BMCC is good but the problem with it is that after an hour you’ve done every trail there.
It’s unlikely you’ve done all the trails in an hour, including the options, and you almost certainly haven’t done them all well.
I’m not really up to black trail riding - certainly not the type with huge drops and mandatory gaps so I’m on the blues / reds there with a few of the smaller black options. I find it a great day trying out different things on different jumps and all the different routes at the bottom section etc. I tend to go once every other year so I’m not a frequent visitor to get bored of the trails. Pretty much so BPW once every other alternate year with BMCC and usually enjoy my BMCC day more on the whole.
Antur this year in a few weeks time to mix it up a bit - only been there once and quite enjoyed it last time.
I've always had the same experience as @v7fmp. Always a bus if you want to do more runs, never really had to wait for than a handful of mins, drivers chatty and helpful, parking can be a bit of a faff, but cafe's always churning out food pretty quickly, everyone there pretty friendly. Trails are sometimes shut for maintenance, buts that's fair enough, never not had a great time
I've always managed to do as many runs as I wanted. Never less than 10 certainly, Hardly recognize that its the same place from some of the descriptions some folk on here are saying about it.
Have to say im in the same boat as @v7fmp and @nickc, always had a great day out, my first visit was just before covid hit us and ive been back 3 times now at different unlockdown points.
Never waited more than 5 minutes for a bus, and drivers always friendly and helpful.
I normally download the trail map in advance and try and plan out at least 5 or 6 runs, so im not messing about at the bottom or the top, its literally, get on bus, head to trail get down, back to bus and repeat. The amount of people i see at the top trying to decide what to do next is just a waste of time in my opinion. especially if you have booked a month or more in advance.
Take my own lunch which i nip back to the car to get when i need it, but never spent more than half hour eating.
All in a great day out and ill be back once the silly half days arent a thing anymore.
Currently planning a bike park wales long weekender for next year so going to try and hit Dyfi, BMCC, BPW and potentially FoD.
For those of you who have only waited minutes for a bus, I think I must live in another time dimension...
Honestly, I am not doubting what you say. It's just this has not been my experience at all and looking at the set up, I fail to understand how it is possible.
As for BPW itself, I've had some great days there and loved riding the trails but the attitude of the people behind it and how they treat their customers means I wouldn't go again. I believe they have improved but too late for me I'm afraid.
For me the problem em is the super slick set up at Flyup/FOD, it makes BPW service look crap. Its an u fair comparison, but its still true.
I also think they had the opp to make it more like a ski resort, and have missed that completly.
If you are a super fit ripper then a few extra climbs won't touch the sides, but there are kids and old fat people that would make good customers too...
I bet they are a larger proportion of the population too.
Been there twice in the last couple of weeks and the drivers were excellent.No queuing and that's with restricted seating.It was mid-week so perhaps weekend uplifts are worse.
Not really. The landscape dictated the layout in the main. The uplift runs from virtually the lowest part of the site
really? it always feels higher when your riding from sign on to get the first lift
I think maybe my expectations aren't difficult to meet, I'm normally on a break from work if I'm going, It's mountain biking, in Wales, I don't have to cycle uphill, and there's food within rolling distance...That's pretty much all my boxes ticked if I'm honest.
It seems some people have forgotten how to have a laugh on a day out.
You win some lose some.
Some days the uplift is quick some days its not.
Some days you get stuck behind a backpack all the way down your favourite trail.
It's a trail centre not a race.
yes £41 is getting well steep!
Not really. The landscape dictated the layout in the main. The uplift runs from virtually the lowest part of the site
really? it always feels higher when your riding from sign on to get the first lift
Eh? You come out of the centre and ride a downhill to the uplift area. The uplift starts at the near lowest point innit.
Eh? You come out of the centre and ride a downhill to the uplift area. The uplift starts at the near lowest point innit.
Apart from the bit where you come out the centre , ride uphill, downhill a bit then uphill again to get to the uplift.
You ride uphill about 15 feet through the trail entrance to the left of the buildings, then maybe nearly a minute of rad downhill, then a walk up the tarmac turning circle about 100 yards. I'd say you're still lower! 😉
yes £41 is getting well steep!
That depends how you relate it. I do a days riding at Silverstone and it's £269. Makes £41 seem cheap.
Heck you can barely do anything for 8 hours for £41.
How much is bowling? Or an indoor skate park? Cinema for 3 movies?
How much is bowling? Or an indoor skate park? Cinema for 3 movies?
Charging by the hour, bring it on **** yeah awesums.
People on the internet desperate for businesses to charge them more, eh?!?! Don't worry they will happily oblige!
£41 quid is a lot for me to spend but to be honest I think it's just about ok. There is a lot of overheads on something like now. However as it's at the top I think it's got be be well organised and slick. Haven't been since pre pandemic so can't comment about now but it always was a fair way from slick and efficient.
spending the majority of my day queuing and sitting in a van with a bunch of blokes doesnt feel like mountain biking to me. i prefer to pedal/push up as i feel like i have spent a day in the woods by the time i go home rather than in the back of a bus/van. you can also feel the conditions changing throughout the day which again isnt so noticeable in a bus.
In say as you see mode I was there with friends yesterday and it was superb. The new check in center worked v efficiently. On a "sold out" day we didn't wait more than 5 min for a bus all day, including the lunchtime. It was 4 years since I've been and the trails have really moved on. The berms are epic and the v granular grading system works perfectly to enable me to inch up to my mince-ceiling and not break myself by going way beyond. Was a great value day I felt.
olly2097
Full MemberThat’s normally me, but it’s crying over the start of Bonneyville.
One of the weirdest bits, not that hard but there's always a crowd looking on, so you don't want to arse it up ;o)
There's a few weird little bits that cause panic for folk i notice, like the entry off the wooden bit for A470 and so on, best bit of BPW, just get up and session them, loads of time to do certain stuff even on a push up day.
We were there on Tuesday, definitely the best day I've had at BPW, even if I did break a wheel and lose a little time from the mechanical. 9 runs (could have got more in but I was riding the trails I wanted to ride without any thought to where they end etc), only really had to wait noticably twice. There was a bus loading and a bus ready to load most of the time and sometimes 2 loading, which helped, but I think the bigger difference was the drivers and crew- they were all helping out so the loading time was faster (and they were way more cheerful, except when telling people to wear masks and I can't blame 'em for that).
Some trail improvements I hadn't seen before, like Halfcut being extended/completed... new trail Groot was a bit of a disappointment, OK to ride but soaking wet on a dry day, not well built at all, so they can have a black mark for that. Trails overall in great condition apart from Groot, and Escort felt a bit neglected. Changes to the older trails seem a bit more logical than before, keeping more of the old feel? Same old qualifiers issues still there but they're never going to fix that are they.
Still prefer BMCC and FOD but we had 5 days of uplift and they were all bloody brilliant tbh.
As a comparison we did BMCC yesterday and I don’t even know how many runs we did, but we were always either riding, loading up/unloading or on the tractor
What an amazing place, we had a dry day again but that place is just ridiculously fast and has the best built jumps of any bikepark I’ve been to. I can commit to stuff much bigger than I usually do up there, you can just trust the lips to send you the right way, especially now they’ve rebuilt the moto line after the bridge a bit
It's kind of a shame they had to build over the old little jumps at the bottom, they were some of the best learner jumps ever, but the new ones are pretty close to perfect for me. (so's the first jump on Outback, it's like they built it just for me)
was there Saturday for the first time in 2 years with a group of 8 we had a good 8-9 runs on the 9am-130pm slot and rarely got stuck in any queues for buses, trails were quiet top to bottom and in tip top condition, we had a blast!
Went last week with Mrs Ready on the 9.30-13.30 shift and got 6/7 runs in - and we didn't get 1st uplift until 10.30. Booking in was a breeze, buses were plentiful so we never waited, drivers were friendly and helpful.
Had a plan of action so didn't stand at the top faffing what trail to ride next, and didn't do any trails that end up at the bottom of the hill (Terrys Belly, Hot Stepper) until the very last uplift, then sessioned the top half until the final run back to the van. I don't mind paying £35 at all for the amount of fun I had on some excellent trails!
Can't wait to go back
v7fmp
Free Member
@northwind – what issues do you see with the qualifiers?
Personally I find the qualifiers at BPW infuriating, primarily because several completely fail to reflect the character of the trails they head up. The aforementioned drop at the head of Vicious Valley is a great example, a wooden drop off, at the top of a trail that contains nothing of the sort. Bonneyville's rock drop qualifier is similar, there's nothing like it on the rest of the trail.
Deep Navigation's qualifier is however pretty good, purely because BPW seem to have now defined the first few metres of the trail as its qualifier, without changing it at all.
Some of the Qualifiers are appropriate to the features, but some are just dictacting the potential skill levels.
Some trails confuse me though, Locomotion for example which is 2/3 of the way down Sixtapod, but has some pretty decent drops on it.... bigger than most drops on the 'drop' trails weirdly enough. But i'd expect it's not that hard to end up on it by mistake if going down Sixtapod.
A470 is on my list of 'meh' after my last crash there, but that little drop off into it is absolutely horrible.... horrible horrible thing.
horrible…. horrible horrible thing.
the little wooden platform? Don't have an issue with that personally, like Bonnieville which I've heard others say they find challenging. I think it so depends on how you first encounter them as whether they give one pause for thought. If you hit them right the first time, they never feel that bad subsequently I've always found the drops on Coal not Dole as my personal bug-bear...
Was a BPW on Saturday - put me into the "what are they whining about" bucket. Had a great day as always. I did 7 runs in the morning uplift session without pushing it. Only did three in the afternoon session before calling it a day as I wanted to save my self for the next day. Only time I queued for the uplift for more than 2-3 mins was at the start of the afternoon session when I arrived at exactly the worst time and had maybe I had a 10 min wait as they frantically loaded everyone on.
Other notes;
- Bike wash now free (think it was a quid before?). Can get queue-tastic if you time it wrong though.
- Still never seen that monster sized bus running - just seems to sit around looking impressive!
- Food better (but found it perfectly OK before)
- Check in seamless
- Shop friendly and helpful
- Bus drivers all in great humour
- Still seems to be nowhere near enough parking even with recent added capacity. I just make sure I turn up nice and early. Not sure what they can do about that one really.
As it is also mentioned on the thread - was at BMCC on Sunday. That was fantastic, as it had been on my visit last year. I pretty much did the Blue every run, with a sprinkling of red options on the bottom half. Got ten runs in without pushing at all - and that was with me stopping at 14:30.
horrible…. horrible horrible thing.
Weeksy cordially invites the “I’m a better rider than you ner ner” responses 😂
Quite excited to say, will be there Weds with Jr and will report back how brill a time we’re having.
weeksy Full Member
Some of the Qualifiers are appropriate to the features, but some are just dictacting the potential skill levels.
Several trails have qualifiers that primarily dictate a certain skill level at riding drop-offs, then proceed to have no further drop offs along their length. That's just silly.
v7fmp
Free Member@northwind – what issues do you see with the qualifiers?
They're often irrelevant to the trails and that's counterproductive, stops them working as effective qualifiers and at the same time puts off people- paying customers- from riding trails that are appropriate to them.
Vicious Valley- woodwork step/drop, nothing else like it on the rest of the trail, puts people off (and that's a big deal for this trail, since it's the first tech red, basically the door to the reds and it's shut for some people for no reason. ChrisL who posted here is your perfect example.
Escort- just a notch cut in a log step, easier than the rest of the trail, no qualifier effect, and gives no idea of the trail. Guarantee you that people have ridden the quali, thought it'll all be fine, then come a cropper.
Dai Hard- a gap jump, for a trail with no gap jumps, put me off riding the trail for the first couple of visits but it's just completely inappropriate (this one's double ironic as it's been rebuilt completely, but still isn't relevant.)
A470- irrelevant to the trail, puts people off and ALSO invites people in wrongly-this is me, the first 50 feet or so of A470 says "You'll love this" and then it totally changes.
These are the ones that stick in the head. I'll give Coal Not Dole and I suppose Halfcut a pass since the qualis aren't really appropriate to the trails but they're cool big signature features in their own right, but halfcut's double weird since as far as I can tell they've just smashed this big rock drop at the top and the rest's the same as it always was?
2 things had always stopped me doing A470. 1. The horrible qualifier drop and 2. There was always a queue of people waiting to ride into it.
That was until last Monday when I got there and there was no-one else around, did the drop in which is completely out of character with the rest of the trail thinking "what the **** was I making a fuss about for that?" Then rode the rest of the line often thinking "Aggghhhhhh!" it appears big jumps scare me more than hucking off a drop to flat along Insufficient funds, ACDC or any of those others I'm always going too slow to clear. Probably because my timing/technique sucks and I've been bucked more times than a rodeo rider.
Yeah the qualifiers are a bit off, I remember the original Dai Hard and Enter the Dragon; ETD used to be my favourite (until 50 shades popped up) and it had that awkward drop which was kinda relevant, there's a few drops but they're all fast rather than awkward but the big features are all jumps rather than drops, the big tables, & the gaps entering the woods. But then Dai Hard has the gap jump (admittedly it's tiny) but no real jump bar the wee road gap on it
Then they built 50 shades and gave it a stepup as a quali, all the features I can think of are drops on that trail
RE Vicious valley, is that the one with the little road gap or is that Wibbly Wobbly? Always mix those up
All that said, Sixtapod has no quali but that can be the most dangerous trail once you're at mach10 and trying to double the humps up
@Northwind - ah ok, i see what you are getting at. I personally haven't had a problem with any of them (not trying to blow my own trumpet), but i can certainly see how it can put others off riding trails that may well be within their skill set. Or vice versa.
And now i think about it, i probably do avoid Dai Hard due to the double. I can do it, but wouldnt want to ride a trail littered with them, as its not my strong point. But as you say, it sounds like i am missing out on the trail as there arent any along it?!?! An odd choice by BPW.
I can't remember the names of them but I can't do at least two of the qualifiers on the red trails and have no problem on the trail itself. The blacks I can't do, qualifier or trail!
