AIMUp – Action for the Innerleithen Mechanical Uplift

I’m surprised that no-one from AIMUp has been responding to the questions on this forum. I would have thought that building a large grass-roots following could only help.

Bob, Guy Wedderburn is an old FC croney and we know how nebulous those relationships can be so its no surprise money had made its way towards his project.

I think the central problem was summed up nicely earlier by Crikey:

Until there are actual figures and actual costs, its a vanity project for about 350 downhillers, I’m afraid

You can hypothesise about only “needing” 14 riders per day @ 30 quid each but the bottom line is that even with those very moderate figures, on wet crappy days in November you will not consistently find those 14 riders! Even if 60 people turn up on a particularly good saturday that doesn’t cover the weeks expenses, but you’ll be asking the same people to come back again next weekend. and the next. and the next.
Even if you can find some day visitors on a good day they wont turn round on a crap tuesday and say “i know! Lets go up the chairlift to see bugger all at minch moor”

Its all irrelevant anyway until you know how much it will cost and have done accurate, relevant and realistic market research.

I’m starting to sound like a broken record so i’ll shut up now 🙂

Can I stick my neck out a bit and say that I hope it doesn’t get built?
I love Inners, mainly for the reason that there are top quality trails with no-one on them, I usually have the place to myself.
Building a lift would encourage more facilities, cafes, toilets all that malarky, which GT already has. GT is far too busy as a result, which detracts from the fun and also has seen a lot of the trails sanitised for the weekend warrior.
I think Inner’s charm is the fact that it is slmost hidden from the masses at GT and from a purely selfish point of view I would like it to remain that way.
And I like a few rides to the top (35LB coil sprung full suss) Usually knackered after 6-8 runs in a day but I can’t see me doing many more than that with an uplift there.

If thousands can flock to the Scottish ski resorts to ride boiler plate ice in between horrendous lift queues on antiquated ski lifts, I’m sure there must be enough riders out there to support a lift at Innerleithen.

Morzine in June was heaving, and I mean absolutely stowed, with hundreds of British downhillers. There are plenty of riders out there.

Proper uplift with multiple trails less than an hour from Edinburgh and and hour and a half from Glasgow would be amazing.

GT is far too busy as a result

Havers.

The car parks are busy.

The top of Spooky Wood is busy.

But the trails are generally very quiet even on peak weekends. I’ve never encountered any congestion at GT.

If thousands can flock to the Scottish ski resorts to ride boiler plate ice in between horrendous lift queues on antiquated ski lifts, I’m sure there must be enough riders out there to support a lift at Innerleithen.

There’s far more skiers than there is mountain bikers.

Morzine in June was heaving, and I mean absolutely stowed, with hundreds of British downhillers. There are plenty of riders out there.

Hmmm! Alps or one hill in Scotland, I wonder what they’ll choose?

I’m sure I’ve come across as far more negative than I actually am, but the success of the whole 7 stanes project is a pretty fragile one in my opinion. Over the last 4 or more years, we would do 3 or 4 trips up a year, with the full B&B and nights out in Peebles or Innerleithen. I’ve not been to any of the Stanes for about 12 months, largely due to the cost of transport and accomodation, choosing to ride more locally.
I view my experience as an example of how fragile, maybe how fickle we can be in terms of our riding and in turn, how delicate the balance is in terms of economies like the Tweed Valley.

I would hate to see one large scale project like a lift go wrong and have a knock on effect on inward investment in the area for years to come. Do what works; xc trails and lots of them, rather than all eggs in one basket..

There’s far more skiers than there is mountain bikers.

Both unofficial sources but

“There are nearly two million skiers in the UK and they need to be represented by a top level ski and snowboard team,” said Bell.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/robhodgetts/2010/03/british_skiing_faces_slippery.html

2.5 million regular trail riders and “enthusiasts” + 3 million casual cyclists

http://www.imba.org.uk/research_and_reports/MTB_Usage_Stats.html

Hmmm! Alps or one hill in Scotland, I wonder what they’ll choose?

313 racers turned up at Inners last month: http://www.sda-races.com/sda/event.asp?EventID=54

313 racers turned up at Inners last month: http://www.sda-races.com/sda/event.asp?EventID=54

but the reality is you’d be asking those 313 racers to come to inners every weekend to help make it viable. the other thing is they were all there for a race, would those 313 return irresepective of where the next round of the SDA was? i doubt it i’m afraid.

Build it and they will come! Personally I agree with this. Uplifts are ok, but you still spend most of your day sat on the bus. It is always a struggle to organise dates my friends can all make when the uplift only runs once or twice a month. Weekday trips are much better for me too, with my son in nursery my wife isn’t left holding the baby for a constant 48 or 72 hours like a long weekend.

As previously stated, Cwmcarn runs most days and is usually full with only one and a half tracks to offer!

313 racers turned up at Inners last month

For a race out of 2.5 million regular trail riders and “enthusiasts” + 3 million casual cyclists that’s not many.

2 million skiers with limits to where you can ski in the UK, there’s virtually no limits to where you cycle.

Hmmm! Alps or one hill in Scotland, I wonder what they’ll choose?

there’s only one hill (to ride) in whistler, but I’d rate the riding above what the alps has to offer. Likewise, the other BC resorts (silverstar and sun peaks) are on a smaller scale than whistler (probably 20-30 trails each) but still have enough variety to keep you going. Personally I get bored of the alps after a couple of years there. I expect most DHers in Europe do. If there was another option that didn’t involve the costs of whistler (its easily £1500 for travel and accomodation for 2 weeks) I expect it’d be packed. Sure, a wet november weekday wouldn’t see that many riders (you could even close the lift midweek on the offseason), but on a summer weekend its not unfeasable that you could have 500 people on a hill – and that would pay for a lot of miserable weekends

there’s only one hill (to ride) in whistler, but I’d rate the riding above what the alps has to offer

I’ve not been to Whistler but I’d imagine like the Alps it’s a bit bigger than Inners.

The Alps, Whistler and to a certain extent Fort Bill all have the infrastructure in place they just needed to attract bikers. Inners has some bikes and none of the infrastructure, they need to build and maintain the lift and attract enough riders. You may get 500 on a summer weekends but is that really going to pay for the rest of year, I doubt it. The costs are huge and with very little attraction over the winter there’ll be no real income.

Whistler has a large hill, but the base lift (providing access to 48 trails) only rises 350m, which is probably a similar scale to inners. There is another lift above that, accessing another ~20 trails, but its only open for ~1/2 the season

[very little attraction over the winter

i disagree with that – there are no other lift-accessed trails in the northern hemisphere open before June or after September. If this was open year-round, it’d become the only destination to go to for bikers throughout europe, even america, during the winter. I know of bunches of riders who go out to New Zealand for off-season riding (such is the gap in the market) – I think a year-round bike park would be as busy, if not busier, in the winter as in the summer

I don’t think counting racers is the same as counting bikers (I wish !). To continue the ski analogy, loads of folk ski – how many race ??

I also think all this talk of costs/benefits is missing something – the huge benefit to Scotland in general, not just in tourism but the social benefits in encouraging healthy outdoor living and exercise in general.

Health stats in Scotland are apalling for a developed country, and not going to improve without huge change to the accepted norms – this kind of thing would get some folk out of the shopping malls and onto the hills !! And in the long term out of the hospitals…

I was at Lac Blanc in the vosge this summer. Small bike park, 6 trails, probably less vertical than Inners YET it sells more summer pass tickets than any where other than Deuz Alpes and the whole Portes du Soleil area. It was absolutely rammed due to its relative easy access and it was renting out over 100 bikes each weekend and all these had to be reserved at least a week in advance.
I think Lac Blanc is a good case study as to what could happen at Inners if done properly and that you would be amazed at the numbers that would use a chairlift if the trail network was democratised a bit. Not only hard core downhillers but their kids and partners, XC riders looking for a change, kids/adults trying riding without the hassle of of getting sweaty. I think 500 a day on a summer weekend (maybe half that mid week) could be easily achieved and even winter weekend would still see a fair amount of action.
If the lift and trails could be done for reasonable money then I am pretty sure it would be sustainable and good for the local economy.

If thousands can flock to the Scottish ski resorts to ride boiler plate ice in between horrendous lift queues on antiquated ski lifts, I’m sure there must be enough riders out there to support a lift at Innerleithen.

This.

Disappointing but not surprising to see the usual ‘can’t do’ attitude in this country reflected on STW.

This.

Disappointing but not surprising to see the usual ‘can’t do’ attitude in this country reflected on STW.

Come on then convince me otherwise? Let’s see you rough ideas of outlay, annual running costs, fees and number of riders.

Come on then convince me otherwise? Let’s see you rough ideas of outlay, annual running costs, fees and number of riders.

Very roughly – if you averaged 35 riders a day (based on pure guesswork but not unrealistic imo) paying £35 each you would get £450k a year. Say it was £100k a year for staffing, maintenance and running costs (again pure guesswork), that would still mean if you could do it for £4-5 million it would pay for itself in 10-15 years, assuming no subsidy/grant. If the plans included bike hire/cafe this would generate more income.

I really fail to see how this is less sustainable than some of the ski ‘resorts’ in Scotland which let’s face it often only have a few good weekends a year, and have far more infrastructure to maintain/support.

It’s very hard to estimate numbers as nothing like this currently exists in the UK, but it could really take off.

Back of envelope calculation: Doing a bit of googling it seems that average prices for a 4/5 seater lift in the alps is 6m Euros (£5m) a lift that is not designed for the alpine elements might come in cheaper maybe? so @ 5% interest that would need £250,000 to service borrowing.

Lets say there is an average of 300 riders paying £20 a time and the lift is open 150 days a year. Turnover would be £900,000.

Should leave more than enough to pay the overheads I would have thought and that is with pretty conservative user figures. Other profit streams would then also open up, bike school, bike hire, cafe etc and there would be increased spending along the tweed valley which would help all the locals.

Sorry grum, but this is the fundamental problem. You’re essentially making it up.

It’s fine to criticise negativity, but this could end up being a massive white elephant, which could jeopardize funding for the rest of the Tweed valley for the next 30 years. It needs to based on actual figures, not invented ones, and needs to be sustainable.

Would you be happy to go back there in 20 years time and say to the people who live there that a chairlift to take mountainbikers up a hill was the very best thing you could do with all that money?

Grum – the numbers were done for the previous proposal. they simply did not add up in any way nor does what you say. Interest payments alone on a loan of several million would be a few hundred thousand a year.

If you want the facility to exist it would need a capital grant of millions and many hundreds of thousands of pounds of subsidy a year. More than all of mountainbiking in the UK gets now. No new trails anywhere else ever again?

If every MTBer that currently goes to the tweed valley paid for a £10 lift every trip instead of riding for free they still would not have enough income.

The previous financial case made for it by the enthusiasts was laughable in its hopeless overoptimism. Do you really think Innerleithan would get an average of more people on it than Nevis range gets on a busy summers weekend?

Its nothing to do with

the usual ‘can’t do’ attitude

. Its about being able to understand reality. Its simply not viable in any form to have a mechanised uplift at Innerleithan

I would love to see this but…

I rode the Fort Bill uplift one sunny wednesday this June, I reckon there were 6 other riders on it. Maybe 10 at most. There were considerably more walkers but I’m guessing the Nevis range might be of more significance for the average tourist?

back to the question earlier then – how do the scottish ski resorts manage to run? They are busy for incredably short seasons, without huge numbers of visitors..

I’m not saying its viable without a grant, but I don’t think that matters. If someone can find £8m for a cafe/center, why not £8m for a lift?

Visitor numbers for Glentress average almost 1,000 per day and are projected to increase by around 50%. That’s the sort of numbers needed. And given the FCS investment at GT, do you think they’d want a competing facility just along the road? It would make more sense to improve the cycle links between the two.

Not sure Fort William is a good indicator of what could happen in the tweed valley. It is miles away from any decent population densities, is a ballache to get to and has only two runs.

Very roughly – if you averaged 35 riders a day (based on pure guesswork but not unrealistic imo)

As i said earlier, until you have current, accurate market research that can reasonably predict actual numbers that are not based on finger-in-the-air calculations nobody will touch this with a barge pole.

its nothing to do with a “can’t do” attitude (but i’m sure STW will thank you for the moniker) its all to do with commercial risk.

Personally i feel that these folk who expect it to be done just because someone created a facebook page about it are a little naieve – full of good intentions but nobody is putting their money where their mouth is for a reason. If it was a valid commercial idea it would be running by now and making lots of money for the investors. The idea has been around long enough and i think that speaks volumes.

edit –

back to the question earlier then – how do the scottish ski resorts manage to run? They are busy for incredably short seasons

exactly – incredibly short seasons, people are willing to pay for scottish skiing because when its good its good and its local. but if we had year round cover do you think these same skiers would return every weekend spanking 35 quid a pop? I dont think so…

5 lab – generally they are not viable – making losses and the infrastructure has been in place many years – and when it is good skiing they get thousands and thousands of people there not dozens

Its not just the capital costs – its the running costs as well.

When the financial case was done for the previous proposal (in 2007 when money was more easily available) they were assuming more people on average every day of the week paying to sightsee and ride a bike down than Nevis range gets on its busiest summer days.

Factoid for you: there are 1.5 million people living within 86 miles of Innerleithen. Not sure what the figure would be for Fort Bill ??

back to the question earlier then – how do the scottish ski resorts manage to run? They are busy for incredably short seasons, without huge numbers of visitors..

I’m not saying its viable without a grant, but I don’t think that matters. If someone can find £8m for a cafe/center, why not £8m for a lift?

None of the naysayers are answering this.

edit:

when it is good skiing they get thousands and thousands of people there not dozens

On how many days a year does this happen?

When the financial case was done for the previous proposal (in 2007 when money was more easily available) they were assuming more people on average every day of the week paying to sightsee and ride a bike down than Nevis range gets on its busiest summer days.

Why do you keep banging on about this when it’s a different proposal?

Talking about what’s commercially viable in Scotland – ok, if they only did what’s commercially viable there would be no ferries along the west coast and to the islands.

Different proposals? Show us the new detail then that has suddenly changed this from a pipedream to a valid business idea.

Poor analogy about west coast ferries – people rely on them to survive. a bloody chairlift is not necessary for survival

Grum – why do I keep banging on about this – because it shows how ridiculous the proposal is.

Somehow this new proposal for a miniature funicular is going to cost half what a chairlift would do and generate twice as many visitors – when the visitor number for the previous proposal were shown to be completely ridiculous.

Lets see you come up with some numbers that make any sort of sense

and before you go wheeling out the local tourism angle for inners “needing” a chairlift to survive the area is pretty well compensated with the existing facilities.

I’m sure the community would thank you though for lumbering them with a hefty ongoing bill for a chairlift that will fall out of use soon due to lack of numbers.

It doesn’t have to cost £5 million though. I’ve been searching for the article but I can’t find it, however it stated that the new chairlift at Glenshee cost £1 million.

It doesn’t need to be an all singing and dancing 5 seater super chair. The 5 seaters are effectively a waste in the alps as the ones I saw could only take two bikes at once anyway.

Boardingbob – 5 million is the number that the enthusiasts for this are using – it would be 10 million for a basic chairlift, 5 million for this miniature funicular ( that does not look at all suitable IMO)

Remember access roads would need to be built, power brought onto site etc – all in place at glenshee

As above – pure ‘can’t do’ attitude. Pathetic.

Scotland I believe markets itself as a world class biking destination, has won awards etc in the past – something like this could really help to make that a reality.

As a nation we can waste vast amounts of money on expensive foreign wars, the olympics which only benefit the area of the country which is already economically most developed, Wembley stadium @ £800m or whatever it was, but it’s completely impossible to build a small chairlift/funicular up a hill in Scotland? OK then, let’s just have a negative, moany, defeatist attitude.

Just skimmed this thread, but I think that as things stand, what the proposers want to be doing is looking for grant funding to help with the capital outlay, for example from the Scottish equivalent of a Rural Development Agency. This is the way that the FC build trail centres. Purely privately funded centres exist too, but judging by the likes of UK Bike Park, Esher Shore etc. they are on a much smaller scale.

The pay-to-ride bike park industry is still in its infancy and it’s also possible that this could be picked up a few years down the line by someone who can afford to foot the capital costs.

Grum – I ask you again. Produce some realistic figures then and find a viable case. I have looked at all the proposals for this – have you?

Do you want all the money available for mountainbiking development for the next couple of decades in the UK to be spent on this one small project?

Its not a negative moany attitude – its realism.

This has been talked about for a long time – no private investors have come along – why – because it simply is not viable in any form. Its simply too expensive for too little benefit

Allow the renewable mob to put turbines up there on the condition that they put in the chair lift and provide the energy to power it. Job jobbed.

Do you want all the money available for mountainbiking development in the UK to be spent on this one small project?

Can you produce some realistic figures about what “all the money available” amounts to please?