Would you be willing to pay an "e-bike fee" to ride at MTB parks?

[Hobo Mikey]

I understand paying for car parks which money goes towards maintaining the trails etc. But paying extra for a E Bike is just Bullshit and just an excuse to take money from folks. What next pay so much for weight because your heavy on the trails, Jump on the scales sir, WOW you had a big breakfast that will be £10 please.

 

[7869hodgy]

I understand paying for car parks which money goes towards maintaining the trails etc. But paying extra for a E Bike is just Bullshit and just an excuse to take money from folks. What next pay so much for weight because your heavy on the trails, Jump on the scales sir, WOW you had a big breakfast that will be £10 please.

Amen

 

[Banktramp]

I understand paying for car parks which money goes towards maintaining the trails etc. But paying extra for a E Bike is just Bullshit and just an excuse to take money from folks. What next pay so much for weight because your heavy on the trails, Jump on the scales sir, WOW you had a big breakfast that will be £10 please.

perfectly put, surely you would pay more for the uplift, drivers wage, fuel, vehicle cost and emissions ??

 

[apac]

perfectly put, surely you would pay more for the uplift, drivers wage, fuel, vehicle cost and emissions ??

BPW was advertising a job available for an uplift driver. £10 an hour.... on a casual basis.

 

[j3ayy]

Surely is an E Bike rider doesn’t use the uplift it shouldn’t cost as much to enter? Better for the environment lower emissions & all that.

 

[apac]

Surely is an E Bike rider doesn’t use the uplift it shouldn’t cost as much to enter? Better for the environment lower emissions & all that.

The price to enter is only £5 more for an Ebike. The cost for the uplift is a separate fee of about a extra £30.

 

[j3ayy]

The price to enter is only about £4 more for an Ebike. The cost for the uplift is a separate fee.

I have never been to BPW so don’t really know. Yea i would pay a little to be able to use my EBike but including FREE Electric top-up if needed.

 

[apac]

Uplift about £30
use of electricity £5
bike entry £14
Ebike entry £19
sheep..free ????

 

[j3ayy]

Uplift about £30
use of electricity £5
bike entry £14
Ebike entry £19
sheep..free ????

WOW thats expensive. Our local Dalby Forest it all the same price & there is loads of EBike that use the trails.

 

[Hobo Mikey]

perfectly put, surely you would pay more for the uplift, drivers wage, fuel, vehicle cost and emissions ??

Yes I agree pay for uplift service, that is an extra service but no more than the guy sat next to me whatever bike he has.

 

[apac]

Cheapest way to do BPW is to pay for a normal bike(as no one checks what bike you've brought) and pedal to the top.... £14 . Though the third time up gets wearing.

 

[Morph]

Yeah you can book uplift for Ebike at BPW. To be honest, they don't check your bike when you get your bike tag. You could just pay for a normal bike.
Jesus dude, do you think it's good idea going to the bike park with all those injuries.

Never a bad time to ride! I’m taking it easy and have Leat body armour, which is great. Body heals fast, was 28th Feb, and was back out on the bike in May. I’m by no means WC level ? but can hold my own, nearly 50 too, so making the most of this bloody brilliant sport while I can! You’re a long time dead!

 

[Cris]

Best way to ride BPW is book uplift, same price regardless of bike, then get there early and smash a couple of pedal up runs in before the uplift starts ?

 

[jooles]

In our world of “Wales is the most environmentally concious of all nations” it’s weird that a diesel polluting truck uplift is financially preferred to an environmentally friendly Ebike. Well in terms of the order of most friendly to the planet it goes:

Pedal Up on non ebike.
use Ebike charged from sustainably sourced elec.
Use the diesel truck uplift.

on this basis one could argue cross subsidy should be given from those paying for the most environmentally damaging method to the least in ascending order.

Or as one said, use the eeb to explore the huge network of ‘natural‘ trails that exist in South Wales.

I‘m local to BPW don’t go there more than once every couple of years and take my non eeb if I do.

FOD don’t charge for Ebikes.
Afan
CwmB
etc.

However in fairness to BPW they make it clear and obviously a big part of revenues come from uplifts and eebs don’t feed into the model…

;-)

 

[#lazy]

Uplift about £30
use of electricity £5
bike entry £14
Ebike entry £19
sheep..free ????

If on an ebike and use the uplift the cost is ;
Uplift about £30
Bike entry £14
No need for recharge at £5

The farmer over the top has the best looking ewe’s but he charges 5 fags and a bottle of diamond white ?

 

[MrSpoon]

I thought the problem in the US was that you don’t really define an ebike in the same way we do in the uk/eu? We have bikes limited to 25kph with assistance only which makes it pretty simple. When I visit a bike park there is sometimes a surcharge but this is to make up for the reduced money taken on uplift and the increased number of runs I can get in over an acoustic.

 

[KnollyBro]

At the two biggest Bike parks in BC (Whistler and Silverstar), class 1 Ebikes pay the same price for lift tickets as regular bikes which is fair. I have gotten a few "that's cool", "that's an ebike?" to weird looks of "why would you want to ride that here?" Its the only bike I own (Levo SL). As for all other trails in BC NOT on private property, class 1 ebikes are "allowed" everywhere. With the influx of new riders and their lack of trail etiquette, there will always be those that abuse this privilege.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-parks-ebike-policy-1.5262734

 

[Endoguru]

I’m going to ride mine anywhere a non Ebike can go. If we only rode what was “legal” in the US, mountain biking never would have survived here. I’ve been riding since the early 80’s and every trail was off limits to bikes. Over time, enough people took up riding that we couldn’t be ignored, or banned any longer. Class 1 Ebikes are the same for me. None of the arguments against them are based on anything more than hate, with no logical reasons behind them.

And no I wouldn’t pay more than non-Ebikes to ride the same trails. My local bike park charges less for Ebikes if you are willing to pedal uphill and not use the lift. If you want to uplift, the price is the same.

 

[Endoguru]

I thought the problem in the US was that you don’t really define an ebike in the same way we do in the uk/eu? We have bikes limited to 25kph with assistance only which makes it pretty simple. When I visit a bike park there is sometimes a surcharge but this is to make up for the reduced money taken on uplift and the increased number of runs I can get in over an acoustic.

The Ebike haters in this country hate all ebikes. They refuse to acknowledge there are differences in types of Ebikes.
As Chris Rock once said in his comedy routine: “ I’m often asked as a black man, do you hate Mexicans, Jews, Arabs and whoever the same as white people?”. The reply is comic genius: “ We don’t have time to divide you up into groups, we hate all you all”. Substitute Ebikes for ethnic groups and you have the mentality of the Ebike haters in this country. Only without any comic intent or sense of humour. The irony is that the mtb crowd that hates Ebikes would have faced the very same prejudice they have against Ebikes from every other trail group if they had been riding back in the 70’s and 80’s. I love mountain biking, whatever bike you choose. Except for XC racing. Why would you possibly want to be that miserable?.

 

[Calsun]

In the USA the places that support motorbike use have charged a fee for maintenance for years and it makes sense as there is a higher liability for the operator. Usually horses and their riders take priority over bicyclists and hikers on the trails and paying a fee to get the horses and their excrement off the trails would be great.

 

[PetrD]

If exists an equestion about ebike entry extra pay, then ebike user should have ask to cancel or change any motor speed limit.

 

[Simminney]

Don't worry, BPW is just somewhere everyone has has bad accidents.

BPW is crap anyway. There are much better places to ride in South Wales and they're free. BPW is just for tourists.

Is BPW really crap? Where in South Wales is better? I live in Merthyr Tydfil and am looking for advice.

 

[MMBB]

In Australia I haven't seen one place ban ebikes or charge more money for them. Same price for a shuttle if it's ebike or non

 

[Morph]

Is BPW really crap? Where in South Wales is better? I live in Merthyr Tydfil and am looking for advice.

No, it’s not crap. It’s a decent set up, brings tourist revenue to Merthyr, and is a good day out for a group of mixed skill riders.
Is happily pay any of the uplifts, they don’t make a huge amount of money and if anyone of you have done dog days, you’ll know how much graft it is to maintain even the blue runs.As an analogy- BPW is like buying your beef from the wholesale Costco etc, Trail centres are like supermarkets, uplift like Antur, Inners or Revs are like your local butchers, and self building is pretty much like raising the cow yourself!

 

[apac]

Is BPW really crap? Where in South Wales is better? I live in Merthyr Tydfil and am looking for advice.

It's not crap really, I just have a love and hate affair with it. I live a 20 minute drive away, but when I go there I always crash bad.

 

[jooles]

Is BPW really crap? Where in South Wales is better? I live in Merthyr Tydfil and am looking for advice.

If you live in Merthyr you can get a big discount off the annual pass fee, contact the guys at BPW. You also have runs around Cwmbran, Risca, Afan is 45 min away max (towards Swansea on infamous 465) and a plethora of networks and trails all over the valleys around Ponty too; you need to go explore. However BPW has some more natural stuff.

I’m not really a BP rider more natural trails. However it’s a super centre (defo not crap) and certainly won’t demonise them for charging an additional fiver for you to use an Ebike over non Ebike. If you can afford a £12k kenevo SL then a fiver won’t bust the bank. It may grind on a principles basis but not an economic one. Personally I’d prefer to climb with the wind in my hair rather than sit in a stuffy bus full of sweaty riders. Covid or no covid.

Going forward the huge growth in Ebike users will force such centres to more accept Ebike. Reading the content from BPW they recognise this and discouraging Ebike users will dent overall revenue to a greater and greater extent forcing their hands. I reckon they will put an Ebike uplift route that’s less loose and not prone to torque damage ( see comment below).

In my experience ebikes do little difference to trail erosion on the way down, indeed many ebikes now weigh similar to DH and gravity non Ebike rigs. It’s more the climbs, especially in winter. On a full fat Ebike the torque can chew the uphills more. Certainly not to the extent of a dirt bike but more than using a non eeb.

some like the bike centres, well enough for BPW to grow and grow which is however you look at it good for our sport. Others like taking to the hills, discovering and exploring. Which to me an Ebike is in its element with.

 

[Mr President]

It's a bullshit reason. Any pedal pass fails to contribute to the uplift revenue so they should all be the same price.

As expressed it seems anomalous since as you say neither pedal or ebike contribute to the uplift revenues, but there is some logic in saying that Ebikes will cover a lot more trail distance in the day. So asking a premium to contribute to the trail maintenance does make sense.

 

[Endoguru]

As expressed it seems anomalous since as you say neither pedal or ebike contribute to the uplift revenues, but there is some logic in saying that Ebikes will cover a lot more trail distance in the day. So asking a premium to contribute to the trail maintenance does make sense.

I would disagree with this unless you are going to charge everyone based on how many laps they do. Younger and fitter riders will do more laps on non- Ebikes than I can possibly do on an Ebike. At one of the bike parks I can do about 6-7 runs and I’m trashed for the day. Some of the young rippers do 10-12 laps on non-Ebikes. I would love to see the reaction if you started telling them they are going to have to pay more because they are riding so much.

 

[steve_sordy]

I would disagree with this unless you are going to charge everyone based on how many laps they do. Younger and fitter riders will do more laps on non- Ebikes than I can possibly do on an Ebike. At one of the bike parks I can do about 6-7 runs and I’m trashed for the day. Some of the young rippers do 10-12 laps on non-Ebikes. I would love to see the reaction if you started telling them they are going to have to pay more because they are riding so much.

A charge per run from top to bottom appeals to me as a fair way.

 

[Mr President]

A charge per run from top to bottom appeals to me as a fair way.

Endoguru makes a fair point and pay per run is ultimately fair, but I can't see a way to implement it. Honesty box?