[Closed] End of Uplift Scotland

Yup, fingers crossed there's a buyer lurking in the wings - it's already sorely missed at Ae, and sporadic at Inners.

Best of luck to Tally with whatever he's getting involved with next, it's been a great run.

(PS - We built the website/booking system, so if anyone is looking at taking it over, gie's a shout and we'll be able to give you the low-down)

Heard a while back that Rowan sorrell and uplift hamsterely were interested, never heard any more though.

Best of luck Tally.

I had a wee sniff myself (was contemplating a redundancy package at the time) but I got wind that there were experienced uplift companies interested so I butted out, wasn't the most sensible of plans 😆

Sad to see Tally go after all this time though. How dare he have a life outside uplifts

[quote=Northwind ]I had a wee sniff myself (was contemplating a redundancy package at the time) but I got wind that there were experienced uplift companies interested so I butted out, wasn't the most sensible of plans
TBH what innerleithen would benefit from, is letting someone run the place as a venue rather than just run an uplift. There's some good work in the flyup project that doesn't have to be thrown away just because the mechanical uplift part isn't likely to fly- other uplift places prove that.

Aye I can't imagine under the current setup it's particularly profitable so a bigger operation would be excellent

Hard to see how to make a bigger operation without funding new trails though.
There's only so many gnarcore riders to go around, so if you want to attract enough riders to run a 'venue', there'd need to be at least a couple of blue/blue+ trails.

Bit chicken and egg - no funding without the people - no people without the funding.

BoardinBob - Member

Aye I can't imagine under the current setup it's particularly profitable

I don't think this was confidential, hope not- Tally said he was making a good living off a couple of weekends a month, but now he needs his weekends back. Course he's not including all the web wrangling, social media and marketing, and trailer fixing there.

Yeah, best of luck to Tally. He came and rode The Distance at the weekend, cranking out around 160Km on his hand built frame and stem. His frame looked great, so a frame building future awaits.

There's only so many gnarcore riders to go around

Selling out every weekend as it does would question your analysis....

In the last year I can think of at least 3 new tracks that have been built, one of them we ride all the time on the uplift as it's a bloody corker.

When was the last time you were on the uplift?.

TBH what innerleithen would benefit from, is letting someone run the place as a venue rather than just run an uplift. There's some good work in the flyup project that doesn't have to be thrown away just because the mechanical uplift part isn't likely to fly- other uplift places prove that.

I think flyup is privately owned? I keep saying it but mountain bikers need to stop relying on some overstretched underfunded disinterested civil servants to provide them with their mountain biking, the post foot and mouth glory years are long gone now. I think we've been spoilt though, given how reluctant people are to spend a fiver parking their audi to mince their santa cruz around glentress, I'm not sure the pay to ride model will be as popular as it is in other countries. I'm sure if you ask nicely FCS will lease/sell someone inners!

When was the last time you were on the uplift?.

I don't - there's no tracks for mincers.

There was never a question if the current uplift was popular, but I was addressing the idea of running it as a 'venue' which has a whole other level of costs associated with it, and therefore needs much broader appeal.

To quote an article on the BPW site:
[i]Being the UK’s largest mountain bike destination means that we provide a lot more variety than most other venues. We are essentially a trail centre, a downhill venue and a freeride park all rolled into one.

To cater for a wide spectrum of riders, we have a wide range of trail styles to suit different abilities and preferences, from natural technical style trails through to smoothly manicured yet highly challenging jump lines and everything in-between.[/i]

I've never ridden BPW, so can't comment.

Uplift Scotland were separate from FCS who build and maintain the trails. I'm not sure what involvement if any they had with trail building in an official capacity.

Anyway, tender is going out now, typically I missed the bus (dum tish) on this one, always meant to do an uplift but something else always came up.

Best of luck to Tally though, hopefully someone will pick it up and keep it going.

Selling out every weekend as it does would question your analysis....

How many riders is that though? He used to be able to sell out 2 full-sized coaches almost every weekend (always quieter during race season) but those days are long gone

Prior to the issues with carrying people in the Landies, I think it was 33 tickets p/day at Inners. Not knowing (anything whatsoever) about the ins and outs of the tender, in theory the limiting factor is the number of mini-buses & trailers you could run on any given day.

Day passes were always in demand and sold out well, the demand's certainly there.

Opportunity for someone to pick the business up, I'm pretty sure of it.

*edit - not to mention all that's available at Ae too, that's been a sorely missed service for quite some time.

Northwind - Member

There's some good work in the flyup project that doesn't have to be thrown away just because the mechanical uplift part isn't likely to fly

Doh, meant Aimup not Flyup!

in theory the limiting factor is the number of mini-buses & trailers you could run on any given day.

As I was saying though, it used to be 2 coaches with 2 cattle trucks. If you were quick (and skipped the push to the top) you could sneakily double up runs too! So that was over 100 people a day

Hard to say what the demand is, only Tally will know really.

Gutted, even although i kinda heard it was in the pipeline. Only done it a couple of times but thought it was a good set-up. Hopefully someone else will take up the mantle. Good luck to Tally in his new ventures