Bike Park Wales today – what's the chance of getting uplifts without booking?

Got the chance to ride BPW with a mate who already has an uplift pass booked. What’s been peoples experiences of turning up and paying the £4 a time. It’s fully booked obviously today… not sure I want to be riding up the fire road loads of times while he’s sitting on the bus!

Can you get a job please? Your life is depressing me!

Look when you’re most important choice of the day is ‘a morning of sloth or tagging onto a BPW trip where I might have to pedal’ it’s very hard to get motivated to look for another job. I am starting to think about it tho. Although I found the prospect less than appealing 🙂

You’ll get on no problem. You may miss an occasional van, but it’s <10 mins for the next one.

Thanks for that Weeksy – best go and tell the better half the DIY is on hold today then!

Get early and you’ll get straight on. Just after the lunch break and at the end of the day you might be waiting a bit.

First thing, no one is ever on the first bus or two.

Towards end of the day, people break their bikes and themselves quite often.

I know people who have had 6 or 7 pay per ride on a saturday no problems.

Aren’t people getting rather annoyed that its fully booked up 3 months in advance – regardless what day it is??

Wouldn’t it be better if BPW just put a 2nd or 3rd bus on each day so us riders could actually use the service??

Its tricky to argue with their business model as it is always busy but it does seem crazy to me. Same goes for all the drivers taking 1 hour for lunch at the same time.

They have 2 buses at times midweek now. I forget but think it was Thurs/Fri is 2. Certainly was last Thurs anyway.

I wouldn’t go so far as ‘annoyed’ but it is a little frustrating that it’s booked up so far yes.

Driver told us that they limit the buses to protect the trails from over use. As they add more trails they intend to add more buses.

timidwheeler – Member

Driver told us that they limit the buses to protect the trails from over use. As they add more trails they intend to add more buses.

I think that’s the part people often forget. The trails at BPW are holding up brilliantly, apart from a couple of braking bumps into the hairpins/berms on the lower blues/reds, they’re as good as they were at the start of their time. You double the number of riders… you double the number of bikes… you increase the wear on the trails massively.

Personally I think it’s a clever business model.

By keeping uplifts booked months in advance the demand will constantly be there. If everyone could just turn up at any time and get a lift they would regularly end up running buses less that half full, most likely at a loss, and eventually fold completely.

This way the ‘mystique’ of BPW continues for longer.

It also acts as a safety system by at least partially controlling the number on the trails at any one time. As someone who has had a significant stack there (and still recovering nearly 3 months later) I for one AME restful for this. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted some weekend warrior ploughing into me while I still lay broken on the trail.

At some point they will have more trails than they can get people up onto the mountain.

I’ve managed to do 10 uplift days there now, including opening day uplift and i’ve never thought any of the trails have been busy.

FFS alex you did 90km on the weekend! have a break!

admittedly if i could i would! 😀

So why do they have 5 buses , 3 of which are normally all sitting in the carpark?

I guess that they are all leased – so costing a pretty penny

I’ve heard that getting drivers is one of their main difficulties – as they rely on local agencies

We’ve just answered you

supply and demand
plus trail upkeep.

But the answers are illogical….

supply and demand

demand = people wanting to book but can’t because its fully booked
supply = not enough spaces on the bus

plus trail upkeep.

upkeep can be handled with more revenue
more revenue created by more uplift £30 daily charges

Back 🙂 Apparently two buses were going to run today but a whole party of 16 didn’t turn up so they ran one. Meant about 40 min wait after lunch but the sun was out, and I certainly had no intention of riding the climb!

Loved the place, trails in very, very good condition and so many of them. Not sure of my favourites, might be one of the super swoopy blues. Only rode one black and that wasn’t one of the hard ones!

I wasn’t sure about ‘pay to play’ mountain biking but BPW is worth the cash. Can’t wait to go back and GO FASTER 🙂

@v666ERN yeah and I went to spin last night. That hurt. I didn’t ride the 20km round trip to get there tho. The legs said no!

fewer vans in the week to reduce trail erosion apparently

1st time there today and wasn’t booked onto the uplift but managed 8 or 9 runs by just paying for it on the day.

Don’t know if we were just lucky or not but it saved my legs as the original plan was to just keep riding up!

It’s bloody annoying to find out after you’ve waited 3 months to ride only to find out that fully booked to bpw means 34 riders (midweek-2 minibusses @17 riders each. ) 3 empty busses on the car-park.

Enjoyed myself immensly though.

I had the same thoughts as the OP when I was there last Thursday. Chanced on a visit as I had some work up there. Arrived at 1600 and got two climbs and descents in before close at 1800. No chance of any uplift apparently, told not worth even trying / waiting.
Quite a few people riding up. The break even on the minibus has only got to be a couple of riders at £5 each. As there were staff and buses at the base it did seem odd that they didn’t want to take my money.
They need a chairlift!

This is good to know as I’m going with a group at the end of Oct and I’m the only one that hasn’t got a uplift place prebooked

Been to BPW 4 times, ridden up the fire road every time due to not booking 3 months in advance. Great trails, enjoy it every time, would be nice to get an uplift though…

Do tend to go to Cwmcarn and use Cwmdown more recently as I can get on the uplift pretty easily.

Ah, was there Tuesday too. One of our group was unable to come so from sign in there was at least 1 spare spot.

To be honest much as it pains to book 3 months ahead it does increase the anticipation of fun. Took a guy who’d not been before and both of us had a blast.

Bloody cheeky frenchi in Lycra on a 100mm single speed kona with v’s shamed most of us there though, 8 ascents and a lot of top 10’s for him on the stravas.

Any of you the chap with the tallboy? Chatting to you at end of day, I’m the fatter of the two

Nope, grey Nukeproof Mega with a set of BOS forks leaking oil 😉 My mate knows the chief mechanic so he gave us the ‘tour of tours’. We arrived pretty late so only got five runs in. Which makes me want to go back to get a few more in.

The only time we couldn’t get onto a bus with a day pass was after lunch. There were about 25 riders waiting. After that, never had a problem. As they build more trails, they’ll run more buses I guess…

Driver said another track opening 6 ish weeks time and planning in for another 10!