Can you do your own uplift?

Say if we went to inners again I’d probably go in the van. Is there anything to stop say 5/6 of you just doing runs up and down the same way as the bus/cattle truck does?

A locked gate.

That’ll be that then!

I have a planned day, that hopefully one day I will be able to do.
8 stonking offroad descents in the Yorkshire dales, all with road access to them, with mimimal uphill cycling.

Hebden Bridge would be pretty good for a DIY uplift day I reckon, pretty much all accessible by road.

<planning mode engaged>

🙂

Only reason I asked is we went for a wander round a forest (welsh/english border) after new year, with it being forestry land there was a perfectly accessible road right to the top with a car park. Thought it would be great if we got the van and basically took it in turns to drive up and back down then swap each time. Then my mind drifted back to the inners uplift we did a few years ago…

You’d only have to get the permission of the landowner (FCS?) but I doubt you’d get it.

Have done it many times in deepest, darkest west Wales. It’s always exciting coming down the last time to see if the gate has been locked behind us 😀

Brilliant idea though, swapping drivers every run means everyone’s happy and petrol costs split between all mean it is fairly cheap.

wrightyson – Member
Only reason I asked is we went for a wander round a forest (welsh/english border) after new year, with it being forestry land there was a perfectly accessible road right to the top with a car park. Thought it would be great if we got the van and basically took it in turns to drive up and back down then swap each time. Then my mind drifted back to the inners uplift we did a few years ago…

If it’s somewhere without a locked gate I’d go for it, if it does have a locked gate I’d be looking to befriend the guy with the key 😉

I’ve seen a big group of lads doing their own uplift alongside the flyup uplift at FOD. Transporter and one of those cheap uplift trailers off t’interweb and I’d say they were getting more lifts in too.

I have the std issue FC key. Copies for a tenner 😉

I’ve seen a guy following the uplift bus at Inners in a Corsa. Looked like a dad ferrying his son up. Cheeky bugger.

My van got locked in at innerleithen years ago, back before there was an uplift.
Fortunately someone knew someone with a key 😯

Sometimes drive to top of Blue Pig, drop two off, they ride down, driver meets them at bottom, picks them up and drives back to top. Rotate driver and repeat…

Actually, have never done this but keep meaning to!

a few summers back a mate and i had the works van and were on our way back to Milan (driving to Munich).

we drove to the top of several passes. parked the van, rode down the trails and had a game of scissors, paper, stone. the loser had to hitch-hike back up to get the van and the winner got to sit in a bar, have a beer and keep an eye on the bikes.

Sometimes drive to top of Blue Pig, drop two off, they ride down, driver meets them at bottom, picks them up and drives back to top. Rotate driver and repeat…

Actually, have never done this but keep meaning to!

The descent:”time taken to drive down and back up” wouldn’t work out. Down from Heptonstall, around the turning circle, through Hebden and up to Hardcastle Craggs. Thats a few miles journey I reckon with 3/4 sets of traffic lights.

Doing it up the Oxenhope road though to the ice cream van layby. Letting the riders push up onto High Brow Knoll and then do the full thing from there down through Peckett Well etc would be excellent and meet at Hardcastle Craggs…

Way way back the chap that got me into carrying my bike to the top of mountains hired a transit and took me a a few friends to Inners to do the DH tracks. His plan was to go to the FC office, tell the chap we were going to work on the tracks for the Scottish Nationals the following week, get the key, then do uplifts.

Worked great, until we got caught and kicked out. A bottle of whiskey later and we had the key again though…..

Did an uplift at Glentress years ago with the NCL uni club.
One of the lads had broken his wrist, but came anyway to drive the van. We all piled in the back and he peggged it up to the top (no locked gates). The look on the faces of people riding up the black run as we piled out of the van and hooned off was priceless 😉

Cant you just ride up?

Edit:maybe that’s just too out of the box 😕

Cant you just ride up?

Not 10+ times a day.

ir_bandito – Member

Did an uplift at Glentress years ago with the NCL uni club.

Why would you bothering uplifting at Glentress? Can’t think of any tracks that would make that worthwhile

You can run your own uplifts at Hamsterley. Right up the side of the track in a 4×4 or around the perfectly good public road which runs from bottom to top. My mate has just bought a pick-up truck and we’re going to test it out asap.

Lennox forest is upliftable too

Interesting that you should say that Dan, how’s the riding in there these days?

Ton, woody2000, I had been toying with the idea of a charity uplift day on a couple of epic descents, Pig and others included. Perhaps we should indeed engage planning mode! We could even do some blue routes like Wessenden, or some summer epics like Willikay Clough

Foel Gasnach?

Good call superdan. Foel is a fantastic place.
Track 1 is my favourite there. Especially the drop at the end.

Legend, the trails are nice. You need to come up and see how things have changed. There are 3 of us local that have taken on board some undercover trail clearing and maintenance.

Nice one! I haven’t ridden there in a looonnnngggg time. Used to ride over from Lenzie, play on the Campsies then the forest then head home. This was long before even the (ill-fated) wood work was built

Are you still in Lenzie? There’s a team of us going up the forest next weekend for shits and giggles, you’re more than welcome.

Out West of the city these days, still within easy reach of Lennox though (by car). May well be up for that, will drop you an email next week

Cheers

There you go, just facebook stalked you

scapegoat, I am always up for something new mate….just need to sort a mtb.

We do it all the time here. IMHO it’s not worth it for anything other than a long descent. We have various methods. Take turns driving, give a jobless friend a fiver each, all take our vans and take each van up with the last van taking all the drivers back up. Generally we only bother with bigger descents, say 15 mins plus. If not you spend more time loading and unloading bikes than you do riding. I prefer using two vans and starting high, finishing low.

Why would you bothering uplifting at Glentress?

Because we’d had a big night out in Galashiels the day before and no-one could face the climb up.
I should say, this was about 13 years ago.

I’m getting a lift off my dad to the top of the Blue pig on Sunday, going to hit that then Pecket Well line I’ve been shown, then I’m going to ride back to Oldham. If I ask him to wait and run me back up so I an have a couple of runs on the Blue Pig I reckon he’ll tell me where to get off.

sharkattack – Member
You can run your own uplifts at Hamsterley. Right up the side of the track in a 4×4 or around the perfectly good public road which runs from bottom to top. My mate has just bought a pick-up truck and we’re going to test it out asap.

If that’s Hamsterley itself, no problem.

If it’s Descent, you’ll have the lads that run the uplift chasing you soon enough. They get ‘concerned’ about uninsured riders on the run they’re responsible for, which is kind of fair enough. They aren’t stupidly expensive in the first place. If you want your own uplift, do it somewhere there isn’t one already or people will just start making it harder to access trails…

legend – Member

Why would you bothering uplifting at Glentress? Can’t think of any tracks that would make that worthwhile

If a trail’s worth riding, it’s worth uplifting. Though these days access is restricted.

If a trail’s worth riding twice, it’s worth uplifting.

EFA. Can’t think of any trails at GT that are worth sessioning (other than Berm Baby Berm obvs 😉 ). Maybe Broon Troot before it got hammered but otherwise I find it a much better place for linking a fun loop together than anything else

It’s not exactly sessioning, just riding. So, linking a fun loop together, just with a lift to the top