Especially when having to deal with the entitled attitudes that come along with the SC-riding Audi-driving stereotypical bikers?

Let’s not forget bitter individuals surrounded by people they apparently dislike so much. Bad vibes man. Bad vibes.

Yup. Inners, Antur, etc you go to the top, smash your way down, grab a quick drink/snack, jump on bus, repeat.

You seem to be forgetting about the push up from the dropoff point at Inners.
That really is a pain in the ass.

At both Cwmcarn and Revolution BP injured myself the day before and could not ride. Was with mates away for weekend so was at both venues killing time. Asked if I could get a credit note for another visit, a no was the answer from both. No matter what their reasons are, it has soured me against both. A bit of flexibility goes a long way in customer service.

With the uplift I think part of the problem has been trying to deal with it by chucking more busses at it. It’s no use when they’re out of sync and two or three arrive at the same time. Plus the timing is difficult with so many different routes and a couple of different end points.

Stiniog has it spot on. Guaranteed that you get to the bottom and bus is just arriving, everyone gets on, back to the top and other bus is coming down. Simple. FoD is fairly similar and that’s considering there’s more of a variety of routes and some can take a fair bit longer. Always seems to be a bus to get onto at the bottom whenever you get there. Doesn’t need more than a couple. But then there’s a tiny amount of people there compared to BPW.

BPW, with the long term possibility of a much wider area as they’ve got permission for I believe, maybe it would be better to have multiple uplift bases to cover different zones. Bit like a ski resort. A ski resort with one base lift everyone descends to ends up with massive queues. With multiple base points it spreads the load out.

Of course the ultimate solution could be ski lifts 😉

I wonder how much one of those costs compared to the cost of running 8 busses.

If we hadn’t voted for Brexit, they could probably get an EU grant for one 😉

I have seen it packed and running brilliantly before. They ran the buses in pairs and it was very good. A couple of weeks later it was shit again, drivers stood around half way up or waiting.
They can do it, I have seen it with my own eyes. I can only surmise that they don’t want to.

You seem to be forgetting about the push up from the dropoff point at Inners.
That really is a pain in the ass.

Nope I’m not, as it doesn’t have anything to do with having a quick snack/drink/repair/fettle between runs at the bottom

But obviously it is a shitter if you’re doing a run from the top

A ski lift would cost an utter fortune – it was mentioned before they opened. I recently heard that if they tarmac the uplift road the buses won’t be able to get up the steepest bits when it’s icy. They could add more passing places but it’s a fair bit of earth moving on that hillside. Both Antur and FoD use an actual two lane road for some of the uplift which speeds things up.

There is also a safety issue – BPW’s blue runs are very accessible but also very fast. How many more crashes would be caused by rider fatigue if novices were getting 15+ runs in? At the end of the day last time I finished with Dai Hard (no I didn’t send the road gap) because I knew it would be safer than hooning down Sixtapod.

It’s not too bad a drive from Bristol, but when you get there first thing and they won’t let you use the loo until the cafe opens at 8.30….

Well. I wasn’t best pleased and certainly didn’t want to get my biff out and wee in the car park 😆 🙁

Another of their customer-friendly policies! They left me standing outside in the rain once (I’d come by train because I didn’t have a car so had nowhere else to wait) and wouldn’t allow me to wait in the cafe because their insurance wouldn’t let them.
Just the most petty little jobsworths you’ll ever meet.
This thread is making me realise how much I dislike that place!

At both Cwmcarn and Revolution BP injured myself the day before and could not ride. Was with mates away for weekend so was at both venues killing time. Asked if I could get a credit note for another visit, a no was the answer from both. No matter what their reasons are, it has soured me against both. A bit of flexibility goes a long way in customer service.

The day before is pushing it. You can’t expect them to do that. They have to run a business after all.

BPW, if you drop out day before or even same day, someone will snap the place up in an instant if it’s a weekend. No loss to them. But they’ll still say no and basically pocket two lots of uplift fees for you dropping out.

As an aside, it’s something that’s wrong with the airline industry also with certain airlines having a flat refusal to accommodate changing or cancelling bookings no matter what reason and yet can resell the seat no problem and thus cash in twice. This is being investigated at the moment by the EU I think.

BPW, if you drop out day before or even same day, someone will snap the place up in an instant if it’s a weekend. No loss to them. But they’ll still say no and basically pocket two lots of uplift fees for you dropping out.

But that’s in their terms and conditions. We also get that with motorbike trackdays, no refund/swap within 7 days of the event, before that you pay a fee, before that, no fee.

It’s not like BPW have hidden this, it’s there and clear when you book.

Reading this makes me realise that there really are some miserable feckers in the world, mostly moaning about other people being miserable.

Oh the ironing.

I get the wife to do my ironing..

It’s not like BPW have hidden this, it’s there and clear when you book.

Absolutely. That’s why I’ve just written it off, but on asking nicely and if demand is high with people on the lookout for drop outs and so likely to not lose money, it’s good customer service to be a bit accommodating, especially if you’ve had to cancel for unforeseen circumstances.

Not a moan as such. BPW is still a great place. Just flexibility goes a long way. Bit like warranties and support with bikes & bike parts. The companies that are held in high regard tend to be the ones that do the upmost to satisfy the customer even if it’s technically bending their T&Cs.

I think it’s an ace place. Never had a problem with the uplift, I’ve been a fair few times now, always at weekends and at different times of the year. Only complaint is that it was bloody cold when we went in January. Maybe I should moan about that?

If I had a voucher, I’d probably just think to myself ‘Oh, it’s run out…that was silly of me’ and that’d be that.

I must just be easily pleased…but for every one moaner on here there’s probably 10 people who think it’s great. As always STW isn’t the be all and end all of the mountain biking community 😉

Paul B – Member

Only complaint is that it was bloody cold when we went in January. Maybe I should moan about that?

Aye, it’s shocking that they haven’t done something about the January weather, especially at £7 a pop.

Just park by the roundabout and ride up and down all day on an e-bike. What’s all the fuss about?

When we went a few months ago a mate came at the last minute on his ebike (knackered ankle means it’s the only way he can get out for more than an hour) & had a day pass with single uplifts, whilst we had full uplift passes.
It did mean we didn’t get too many runs together due to the queues but he got as many runs as us, we got 8 uplifts & he got 4 uplifts & rode up 4?times before his battery got really low.
We were mainly hitting Hot Stepper/Terry’s Belly and one guy had about 6 punctures which slowed us down somewhat but the ebike on the uplift track seemed to be about as quick as queueing and then getting the bus.
Think the drivers all had a little play on his bike which may or may not have helped him jump the queue once or twice, probably worked out even with the battery they all used!
I reckon an ebike is perfect for that place if you haven’t got a full day pass, helps conserve energy on the climb so you get to use it on the descents.

I loved the place on my first trip recently. When the trails are great, uplift and food fine, you have a two day pass with your mates and out on the beers after I don’t care if there is on occasion a slight sense of aloofness to the paying customer. Obviously no issue and his bike was fixed quickly and cheaply, but I just found it hilarious that in a deserted shop at the end of the day a mate who dropped his bike off round the back could not walk the five paces through the empty workshop in clean clothes but had to go all the way around to the front to pay.

one guy had about 6 punctures which slowed us down somewhat

Seriously!?…how do people manage this?….i’ve had one puncture this year and my riding has been mixed terrain including the very rocky Antur, marginally rocky BPW and soft terrain like FoD…and I’m running tubes still!

There’s got to be something inherently wrong with his setup surely?!

Have read all of the above and feel i need to add my comments to.
I think everyone loves the trails at bpw, that’s a given, and in some
ways is churlish to knock the place, but it could and should be better.
As someone with 30 years in catering i could weep at the system, set
up and food/staff there.
May i earnestly implore the management to check out, the ridge cafe
at haldon, the national trust cafe at llanhydrock, the cafe at cardinham
woods, to understand the massive revenue stream they are missing, they
are not perfect but light years ahead.
I maybe a mincer on my santa cruz, but a decent cup of coffee cannot be
to much to ask, six of us rode there a few months back, none ate there.
If you cannot sort the catering, franchise it out, management need to listen
to its customers, mountain biking has come on leaps and bounds in the uk
in the last few years, please don’t take it all for granted.

Hello Singletrack forum members! Thanks for all the feedback (good and bad) and also passion (good and bad) for BikePark Wales. Sorry it’s taken us a little while to pick up on this thread, it’s been very busy at the park and I (Martin, one of the directors) was sent a link to this forum thread whilst in the middle of believe it or not a customer service planning/training meeting!

There are a lot of comments in this thread and I’ll do my best to respond to those that have come up repeatedly. As a general rule we’d prefer to engage with customers face to face and would prefer they raise any issues at the time in person (as this gives us the best chance to give the customer a positive outcome) so you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t get involved in a drawn out back and forth on the forum. Anybody is welcome to e-mail me on martin@bikeparkwales.com and I’ll happily arrange a phone call or a meeting in person.

Anyway, I’d like to give a bit of background on a few of the points that have been raised.

Vouchers

Firstly I’ll address the original comment regarding voucher expiry dates. All our vouchers (which can be redeemed against uplift, coaching, hire and BPW events) may be redeemed at any time up to 12 months after the purchase date, in fact the booking just needs to be made within 12 months, you can then book 3 months in advance so effectively you have 15 months to use the voucher. This is made very clear at the time of purchase. The reason we do this is to encourage them to be used and not left to go dusty forever and as some of you have pointed out, for accounting reasons it is preferable not to have a number of very old vouchers floating around on the books. We feel 12 months is plenty of time to book and use the vouchers.

Customer service

This is absolutely our number 1 priority and we DO CARE, A LOT! BPW was formed and is still owned and managed by a group of passionate mountain bikers. We are not “sleek city folk” as we have often been accused of being and we are by no means perfect but I can guarantee you that nothing is more important to us than making sure that as many people as possible have a really, really great day at BPW. I’m pleased to say that this is the case for the vast majority of our 65,000 visitors a year. We are in the middle of implementing some really great staff training and are focussing on this as our number one priority.

Entry Fee

We feel this is excellent value, in fact the £7 fee doesn’t even cover our maintenance and development costs on the trails. @dennis99 commented:

“The trip to BPW and just ride up is no more than turning up and parking, no real cost there.
A little bit of trail erosion cost by riding a lot less than the number of runs you would get by the uplift.”

“A little bit of erosion cost” in this case means 7 full time members of trail crew, excavators, quad bikes, pickup trucks, stone, whacker plates, drainage pipes, specialist contractors, insurance, lease costs etc etc. We re-invest far more than we make each year from the £7 entry fee in ensuring we have the best network of trails, in the best condition in the UK and that the trail network is constantly evolving and improving. Hopefully you will have noticed that each time you visit there have been noticeable improvements to the trails

No landline

Unfortunately we are on satellite for internet and have no landline. The Landline connection fee is extremely expensive and the internet speed on offer is below what we can get via satellite or 4G so it isn’t worth the investment as it’d actually provide a worse service than we have now.

Café

Exciting news is that we have just hired a new catering manager and the menu and café offering will see a complete re-launch over the coming months. We are the first to admit that the café is the one area of the business we as a team of directors had less experience in, we’ve now hired someone who is very experienced and motivated to breathe some new life in to the café

Toilets

We took onboard comments about not being able to access toilets outside of centre opening hours back at the beginning of the summer and have since installed portaloos permanently in the car park for this very reason. They aren’t perfect but hopefully will help out those caught short!

I hope this goes some way towards reassuring you that we really do care and that we are listening and doing our best. We feel we have created a great facility that tens of thousands of riders enjoy each year, we’ve also had an extremely positive impact on the local community through direct and indirect job creation. We are working very hard to continually better our offering so thanks again for all the comments!

Martin and the BikePark Wales team

Bit harsh with my £100 voucher though.. which was a gift (i had lost it so lost track of the date) and literally a few days out of date by the time id realised.
Response from who i spoke to was just nope… you cant use it.

Great response. Seriously, 12 months is ages. It’s always going to lead to unfortunate events and timings but that’s life. No offence at all, but if I had £100 vouchers I’d be sure to keep track of them to make sure they weren’t wasted. BPW can’t be held responsible for that.

Bit harsh with my £100 voucher though.. which was a gift (i had lost it so lost track of the date) and literally a few days out of date by the time id realised.
Response from who i spoke to was just nope… you cant use it.

Where does it end though? If they allowed discretion up to a week past the expiry date, we’d just be having the exact same thread from someone who was two weeks past expiry. And if it was two weeks, moaning from someone 3 weeks past, repeat ad infinitum.

Customer service = Everybody is a special case that the rules do not apply to because ‘reasons’.

BPW win thread closed.

If you are interested in the back story of BPW from Martin’s perspective then this podcast that I came across recently might be of interest;

Martin,

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Keep up the good work.

Response from who i spoke to was just nope… you cant use it.

But thems the roolz.

And I agree wholeheartedly with Rorschach’s comment.

I’d be interested to hear from Martin about if they have any plans to try and improve the uplift service. What is the current strategy? Buses in pairs? Are spaces for all buses available for booking (online) every weekend or is it just a few?
Martin must realise that there is lost profit due to people wanting to come but not being able to book due to it being stacked 6-8 weeks in advance, and not wanting to buy a day card because you can barely get on a bus beyond 1030hrs.

Problem is though, even if they put 50 busses on a day, what happens to the trails, they turn to crap. Too many people = trashed trails

Credit to Martin for coming on here and giving his view.

I have been going to BPW 3 or so times a year since it opened. I have never had a bad day out even in traditional Merthyr weather conditions. No where is perfect but BPW is much more good than bad not least because the trails are spot on for what I want and well maintained.

Coaching – I tried this, not great, not poor, about middling.

Cafe – not particularly bothered about this I go to ride not have a Michelin starred meal. Coffee in the morning, baked spud for late lunch then back on the bike.

Uplift – I can see the frustration but I get between 10 and 13 runs a day and I’m butchered after that. A side benefit of the current system is that it limits the numbers on the trails, so rarely stuck behind anyone or holding anyone up.

A couple of times I haven’t booked the uplift but gone on the ticket card, both were good days. One of those days was a busy Sunday in August. Not having the pass I ride differently, get an early bus up then ride the top sections to the mid road back up till and head down. Repeat in the afternoon. If there is a queue at the stop I carry on to the tunnel and ride the lower sections till a seat is available on the bus. I probably get as much riding as if I had a day pass.

I find most of the staff are helpful, friendly and easy to deal with. Special mention to the drivers who are good company, plenty of banter and good local knowledge they are happy to share.

Problem is though, even if they put 50 busses on a day, what happens to the trails, they turn to crap. Too many people = trashed trails

I suppose. 6-8 weeks seems too long to plan for me, and probably a few other who want to visit often. I’d go every month if I could but life, work, kids etc don’t really allow me to plan that far in front.
Have to put a good word in for the drivers, a top bunch. One lad particularly (shamefully I can’t remember his name, it’s been a while) couldn’t be more friendly and helpful.

First visit yesterday with my son, sort of an early Christmas present for us. Weather was pleasant – unlike today. Coached by Grif in the morning who put together an excellent session. Covered more than I thought we would. He really improved my son’s technique and built his confidence too. Only problem was he was flying in the afternoon and I struggled to catch him.

Can’t believe people are questioning the £7 fee.
For the work they put in it’s minimal.

It’s just £7 ffs. What else could you do with that.