Pentlands – Hillend – interesting times

Kaesae of this parish set up a meeting with the manager of Hillend ski centre to discuss possible mountainbike developments and asked me to go along with him.

The manager is very keen to do this seeing it as diversification for them as the ski centre is fairly quiet in summer and he would be looking on it as another revenue steam.

There is huge potential with access to the land to the east of the ski slope possible and possible vehicle uplift from the bottom of the access road as well as using the chairlift as uplift.

There is possible funding for professionally built trails if there is a business case for it. Just using the chairlift there is room for 2 or 3 trails of a 1km or a bit more in length with 100 m of fall. going right tot eh bottom of the access road 1.5 – 2 km ( or maybe a bit more) with 170 m of fall

So guys and gals – I am prepared to drive this forward and collate info and stuff but there are huge holes in my knowledge. Can anyone who is interested in getting involved email me?

This is just the start of things but we need some basic idea of numbers and stuff to know if its actually worth looking at in detail

Things I need to know
1) DH racing – how long / how much fall is needed for a DH racetrack? is 1.5 – 2 km with 170 m fall enough?
2) assuming it is enough would racing on that site be viable? Can racing make money for the owners?

Assuming two trails – a bermy blue of 1 km and a jumpy red / black of 0.8 km

3) How many folk would be prepared to pay to use a chairlift uplift to these trails? For now just an idea of local folk on here if they would or would not would be helpful. The skiing is £12 for an hour but you have loads of runs up and down the ski runs in an hour

3) or for single uplift what would be reasonable?

so thoughts / ideas / comments / slaggings please leap in

Ta

Good job both.

It would not be to my tastes, but from a commercial point of view a small (much smaller) crankworxs style bike park may be more appealing and give rise to people spending a longer time at the venue. Have not been to Hillend in a while but if i recall correctly the viewing would be quite good for a slopestyle competion venue.

EDIT: I should say i aint a DHist nor do i possess any mad bigair skillz but there is good chance i would pay to watch a decent level competition and see how good folk can be.

Is that the place thats visible from the ring road East of the City?
Has potential im sure.
Good luck with the project Kael / TJ

That’d be cool. I’m not exactly local, but I’m in Edinburgh fairly often and would definitely use such a facility, especially with a reasonably priced up lift.

Not sure how long/how much drop you’d need to race on it. The track at Moelfre is about 1.5km with a 250m ish drop I think (For the BUCS student event anyway, I think the BDS route is longer?). Not sure how standard that is though?

What’s the average gradient at say GT red trails? Might be able to make them longer than 2km? I guess that would cost more though.

I suppose the Q is about who you want to attract – hard core DH guys, families, GT type riders?

Mind you I am not your target market, I doubt I’d spend much time there, and if I did I’d certainly ride up a few times.

Looking at trails for normal folk as well – think something like the freeride / bermbabyberm at Glentress so stuff for everyone. No point in pure XC trails tho – no one would pay for that would they when the whole of the pentlands is there?

Bigyinn – thats the place

Wahtnobeer – how much is a reasonably priced uplift?

2 km is roughly how long you could get them zigzagging across the entire area which is less than a km squared

Who would be the target audience – whoever would pay

I’d use it, I’m no DH’er though but i’d assume to make money it needs to be aimed at the masses (but providing a bit of a challenge to get a fast time) rather then pro-level DH’ers. No idea how much i’d pay, i guess 12 quid an hour for 1 or two 1-2km tracks may seem a bit steep (lol) if its sufficiently good fun its not too bad i guess.

What about creating a skills area and finding some local skills coaches etc? That might provide additional income.

What about creating a skills area and finding some local skills coaches etc? That might provide additional income.

good call

Wahtnobeer – how much is a reasonably priced uplift?

Million dollar question. I’m trying to think what I’d be prepared to pay, but without knowing the quality of the trails its hard to know? It would need to be priced competitively compared to an uplift at Inners for example.

I guess if the trails were good and entertaining enough to keep me busy for an afternoon I’d pay at least £10?

how many uplifts for your tenner would you expect?

I think he means £10 for an afternoon. A ski resort is ~£30 a day £20/half these days?

Who would design the trails? I think quality of design would be the main factor here, build a good name and people would come, if they’re known not to be as good as say GT, they won’t.

I doubt there’s enough bikers in Edinburgh alone to make it sustainable.

There is massive potential on that little piece of hill, I’ve walked it since I was a kid and go there all the time walking as an adult.

For the past 3 or 4 years I have wanted to see something done up there and let’s face it this would be a great reasource for the MTB community.

What I think we need to focus on is one or two windy sweeping tracks that have enough features to practice techniques on and also keep people entertained, rope bridges, see saws, north shore type sections, also the usual drops and other bit and bobs.

On top of that a few fast and exciting short tracks so riders can build up their endurance and really hone thier skills, DH / 4x practice tracks, realistically we all need to simply put forward as many idea as possible and then narrow them down to the best ones.

That said there is a lot of potential to have a MTB park on our door step, with training and tuition / coaching, bike rental. It’s a long ways off but it could be great for every day riders and also our athletes to have somewhere they can train and also have an influence on what the tracks are like.

My money’s on a “Kaetec Bearings” mobile workshop (think chip van) being parked there permanently 😛

I’m with Cynic-al on Q3…if i did want to use the trails, i’d prefer to ride up than get a chairlift. Might use the chairlift a few times max a year. As for what i’d pay, i guess it would depend on quality of trails/if i liked riding them, £10 for an afternoon would be ok. Difficult to say really.

Have you factored in trail maintenance budget plus amount needed to build the trails – will be a while before any money could be made after building the trails?

Try getting in touch with the guys at Dirt Schoolmaybe? Chris is a UCI commisaire or something like that and he and Andy will have tons of contacts in the local and national mtb scene. Rowan Sorrell is also a trail builder, I think he’s doen a lot of teh new stuff at Lee Quary, so between teh three of them you would have a pretty good resource, if they were interested.

Maybe have a dig about and see what research has been done for the Inners lift and if any of that is useable?

Actually Chris is

UCI Gravity Sports Coordinator 2011 – present
UCI Technical Delegate for the mountain bike World Cup and World Championships (2008 – present)

so will defo have an insight into what is needed to make a comp course.

The slopestyle angle could be a good one too and may be something the centre will have more of an insight into as the inspiration has really come from snowsports and I think they have hosted comps in the past.

If they were to gear up their facilities for bikers the cafe, or whatever they have up there, could also become an information hub for general cycling in the Pentlands which could possibly then be used to encourage more sustainable use of the trails. But that’s maybe getting a bit ahead of ourselves.

DGOAB – this is back of a fag packet stuff right now just to see if it looks at all feasable

It has to be able to make money for the centre

Inners/Ae pricing

Uplift Scotland runs a bus based uplift service from the bottom of all the trails, no more pushing!
Cost is £32 per day, for this you can get 8 lifts to the top at Innerleithen or 10 lifts at Ae forest.

Sounds interesting. I’d probably not use it (other than maybe once or twice to see what the fuss is about), but then I’m not a downhill rider.

I can see a day ticket being appealing to downhill riders who otherwise have to push up at Innerleithen or are restricted to uplift days.

Re who to design it, here is another suggestionfor someone who might be able to provide some thoughts.

Firstly well done guys. It is a big challenge to make work with obvious obstacles to overcome, but worth exploring.

As for size of track and cost, well its never going to be able to be particularly steep, but if its technical enough that would be a challenge in itself. Somebody mentioned on a previous post that Berm baby berm is only 30 meter drop, so you can obviously get a good run in there if well thought out (although obviosuly it aisn’t a downhill track). Would be easy enough to get an idea of length and drop of somewhere like spooky, could just take a note next time I use my GPS…

I think the issue you might have is cost. You only have to see the hoards of kids on downhill bikes at inners to see there is a market, but I’m not convinced they’d be willing to spend 12 quid an hour. £20 max for an afternoon seems a more realistic offering, better it to be cheap and in demand than exepensive and dead. Then again, they find money for 900 quid forks, so maybe I’m just tight.

I’m not a downhiller either, but I’d certainly use it a few times a year. That said, I suspect most of the (younger) folk who would use it aren’t on this particular forum.

I think it’s a great idea. I’m certain there’s a market in central Scotland for it.

Much easier for the Groms to get to than having to get their parents to drive them down to the Borders.

kennyp – Member
I’m not a downhiller either

Not what your bike suggests 😉

Could be a winner, but you’d have to pack a lot into the trails to make it worthwhile and different to GT and Inners – they have that market sewn up for ‘free’.

Think of the northshore-style potential (Edinburgh’s “South shore”). You could have one ‘trail’ with trickier sections and options; drops, jumps etc. If there was 2km of that I’d pay to use it. And otherwise 4X style courses which could be used for races, jump trails ranging from small, beginner stuff to serious big stuff and everything in between. It needs to be a seriously intense experience at whatever level a rider might want in such a small space, not a 3-4 minute bimble down a hill side.

Do you have details of the total area available for building? (ideally pictures on a map, for the hard of thinking)

I’d definately use it, how often would depend on the quality of the tracks. It’d have to be pretty dense in terms of riding- if you think about your glentress reds or similiar, there’s usually quite a lot of nothing in any section of trail.

Jump lines are compact and you can have different features/levels side by side- a la glentress etc. That’s an absolute must, kids love jumps and they’re very replayable and also very watchable, so it’d be an uplift magnet (and also, jump bikes don’t ride back up very well!)

Is there any way of restricting people from pushing up and riding? Also is there any easy way to ride to the top? I don’t know the area.

£12 an hour isn’t a goer IMO. Not to be negative, but compared to £30-£40 a day at FW or Innerleithen. I think with bikes you’d want a single run/half day or single run/full day structure?

I seem to recall that Whistler Bike Park had found the best gradient for trails was about 1 in 10. Any more than that and you end up with serious erosion/maintenance issues.

Have a look at Aston Hill – that’s short runs in a small area, and they’ve got 5(?) runs jammed in there, plus a full XC loop and 4X.

Be aware that the kind of people who want a regular uplift won’t be the kind who want blue or easy red trails, other than as a warmup. Doesn’t have to be stunts and monster jumps, but steep, rooty, gnarly twisty is always good. (again – see Aston Hill or FoD as an example)

As far as cost goes? £25-£30/day, *provided* I can do solid back to back runs and there’s enough variety to stop me getting bored.

Good work OP chaps. FWIW I’m not really in the market for this – not that local, not a dher – but I think it would be a good thing. I’ve ridden, run and skiied in the pentlands/ hillend though, and visit/ work in Edinburgh reasonably often so know the potential if you can find the backing.

I think from your post you recognise what you have to compete with and the limits of the site – a great variety of xc routes that are free to use locally, dh tracks that are free to ride at Innerleithen (etc), uplift days, local skate parks (indoor/ all weather). You need to make the most of the existing site to offer something that is different from these competitors and cannot be replicated easily elsewhere if you are to attract financial support for a proposal.

To me, the things that Hillend offers over competing sites is existing infrastructure (lifts, parking, changing, floodlights…) on a hillside. Beyond those things there isn’t anything that can’t be done elsewhere where restrictions are potentially less. That’s absolutely not to say that this is a non-starter, but in my eyes, any successful proposals will build on these things – and make a case to improve the financial viability of the existing setup.

I agree that you need to have a big base of potential customers who want to return regularly to use the facility if you are to get backing. To relate this to the above – you have a hill and a lift. XC and park stuff is catered for locally already and don’t need Hillend’s infrastructure. For these reasons I agree that your model should be downhill oriented. How though do you maximise the crowd that is willing to “pay to play” and give them something that is worth paying for that can compete with Innerleithen’s variety/ length of trails, and their uplifts? I can’t see a purely elite level setup being viable due to the numbers willing to pay, and something too low a level will not make people likely to return frequently enough. You probably need to hedge your bets a little – stuff that all levels can enjoy at different paces, different amount of air times etc… without issues of being too crowded on the runs. That takes some skilled design. I’d also look for examples elsewhere, both for the types of tracks that prove viable, but also the way they are operated.

The issue you raise about cost are key. You need to demonstrate that you can compete with skate parks and uplift days (see above posts). One way around this might be a membership or season pass type approach – £150 a year seems very different to me for £15 an afternoon, and the operating costs (assuming everything is up and running) aren’t varying massively regardless of if you have 1500 year members versus 15,000 individual visits. I know which I’d bet would be more likely for the same resulting income from lift passes.

I also think the coaching thing is a great suggestion and “adds value”. Floodlit riding on all-weather tracks in winter is a bonus. Investigating different ways of running the operation (clubs, trusts… alongside or within existing setup) may be dull, but probably essential. I’ll stop there before I ramble even more. But I agree with a lot of the thinking above.

how many uplifts for your tenner would you expect?

If Inners is £32 a day, half of that for a half day of as many runs as you can do would be about right.

North wind, all of the land for the park is available and it is very steep with a lot of natural terrain that could be enhanced, you would need to walk it to believe the potential.

I’m learning DH so I need somewhere close to train so I can spend maybe 3 to 4 hours there when ever I have the time, it will not cost £12 an hour all we will be using is the chair lift not the ski facilities.

The potential is there and if we get stuck in there is a good chance the council will support us!

Well done Kaesae and Teej , For Inspiration look at the family fun trail at Laggan which hasn’t a massive drop but is great fun for Kids and Parents alike. Then maybe a 4x style track and a downhill Red and Black If possible . What about getting the GT trailfaries advice and possibly someone like Steve from I-cycles.

Northwind – yes I know the total area possible. well less than a km x a km basically most of the land to the east of the ski tows

You could stop people riding it for free – exceptions under the LRA are possible for specific things. NO easy way to ride to the top that I know of

£12 an hour is what the skiers pay – but they will get loads of uplifts in that time – they only have a 400 m descent so they are going up and down a lot. I just mentioned it as a starting point. £30? a day / £20? a half day / £?? per lift is possible – at the moment its all up in the air. Price would be where they can make money but you need the punters to come.

Anyone know anything more about the length / fall on a DH race course? Is a DH racecourse also the sort of thing you practise on?

This development would have to be more than XC stuff – slopestyle / 4X , DH, jump lines – thats the sort of thing I am thinking would be the sellers – with blue red and blacklines maybe?

Waht would sell?

Good luck TJ and Kaesae! Nothing much to add other than to be prepared for a fight against the NIMBY’s at Fairmilehead. There’s a lot of expensive/big houses that overlook Hillend and I imagine there will be a lot of objections to new trails cutting into the hillside, lighting etc. Just because there’s already a big ski slope there does not mean there is automatic support for further development! Get locals involved at an early stage of planning. No point drawing up grand plans if they’re going to get destroyed by the local resident’s committee(s)… (or indeed local environmental groups, ramblers, etc…)

This will be a coaching / training facility, yes there are trails all over the place that you can use, however this is very steep. So short very technical trails are the way to go.

That said there is also the potential for longer sweeping trails, think of it as a small bike park, where riders go to practice there descents and techniques like cornering.

The proximity of it will be a major selling point for riders, as all you would need is a free morning, afternoon or evening.

Laggan uplift is £2 a trip. £20 a day £35 a weekend – is that a more feasable amount?

How many times would yo want to ride a km of red freeride / black DH n a day?

TJ and Kaesae, but what are you doing for this project? Trail design? Feasibility study? Not being funny but if someone is talking in investing what must be tens of thousands to do this properly won’t they want to get professionals in?

Seems you could be putting in a lot of effort work and the company may say go ahead and make millions, not go ahead at all?

Just wouldn’t want you to be wasting your time.

NIMBYs – Its already there mostly.

Check on Sheffield Ski Village – I believe they’re doing something very similar. When that place was up for sale for £1 a few years ago a mate and me considered doing this there but didn’t have the bottle. Given the booming MTB scene down there I kind of regret it now, but haven’t checked back on what’s happening.

TJ and Kaesae, but what are you doing for this project? Trail design? Feasibility study? Not being funny but if someone is talking in investing what must be tens of thousands to do this properly won’t they want to get professionals in?

Yes of course if its feasible to do so they will

Two plausible options- full pro build at a significant cost or smaller scale volunteer build if the former cannot be justified.

What I am doing is helping the manager there by gathering information from the potential users. Perhaps our input will help sway the decision making process – you never know. Just trying to help push this forward.

yes the centre is looking at it as a commercial project.

TandemJeremy – Member

Northwind – yes I know the total area possible. well less than a km x a km basically most of the land to the east of the ski tows

Sorry, what I meant was, can you actually show us? The explanations given so far aren’t clear and I can’t find a definition of the park boundary (an easy way to do it would be to make a square of “route” using bikehike incidentally)

A trail’s actually pretty compact, so if there’s, say, 250m of usable width out to the east then you could have a heck of a lot of rideable trail in there. It gets complicated once you have long crisscrosses o’course but you’d want some fairly direct lines and some wider ones. And as long as you keep them all the same shape then zigs and zags nest into each other.

Any prospect of using the west side, where the trees are?

You can sneak a bit of extra altitude on at each end of the lift, but once you get to the point of going way back up the road to add on an extra 50 metres drop, it’s only 2/3ds of an uplift.

Does anyone have the old innerleithen pdf that had the gradient lines on? it’d be a useful comparison for people trying to understand what the numbers actually mean. New one has no gradients 🙁

Interesting that they are interested in this, they must have some of that money left over. If you do mean the area to the east of the ski slopes, there are quite a few walking/dogging trails in there already, to give an idea of what you could fit in. It isn’t so steep on that side but you could get a couple of short rides in it. I’ll be interested to see what PHRP & FoP have to say on it!

Bigjim – It seems like significant funds are available – upgrades toe the ski trails are intended as well. Needs a business case

PHRP seem to be onside in theory.