[Closed] Private woodland. Is it possible to make money out of riders?

http://www.viceroyswood.co.uk/
http://www.coedllandegla.com/

Llandegla's biking business model is based entirely on getting other people to pay for things then taking the profit- nice if you can make it work.

I think the main hurdle would be insurance.

[i]Private woodland. Is it possible to make money out of riders?[/i]

Based upon previous posts' on STW, no...

Northwind ain't wrong.....

I don't think it's possible as it would rely on riders paying for a pass to ride a wood they can already access illegally.

I'm just dreaming..

Does Drumlanrig sort of fit this 'model'? Do/Can they 'only' charge for parking?

Chicksands, aston hill and PORC?

Swinley (but the system's more abused there)

although all of those places like llandegla rely on donations of time + money to build the trails which you're unlikely to get if there's no access or cheeky trails to start with.

nice bit of dry cynicism their Rorschach... even Northwind should know llandegla use almost the same economic model as the Forestry Commission in Wales the good old tax payer pays for it all..... if it means the government has less money to tip into propping up the moribund windfarm industry.. keep doling our money out boys....

No chance of charging for parking either.

Drumlanrig is privately owned, but they have a number of income streams.

What about Golspie?

Completely hypothetically it should be possible, but would need an unusual set of circumstances. There's loads of places in the UK are v weak for mountain biking - literally nowhere decent to ride. How many of those are over an hours drive away from anywhere decent I'm not sure, much less but still probably some. Local riders would pay to ride in these locations. Problem is they'll pay to ride something good, not something mediocre, and good requires big investment in MTB terms. The nature of the sport also means you're talking several miles of trail before you can talk about having any sort of facility to offer.

A wood is likely not going to be enough, and it sounds like your wood where riders are already riding anyway wouldn't work. You'd need a coincidence of captive market (no local trails, limited scope to build anything substantial, driving anywhere good a total ballache) then capitalise on this with a quality development. So it sounds like a bit of a pipedream by and large but could maybe work for some spots in the UK if a real visionary got hold of it.

mAx_hEadSet - Member

even Northwind should know llandegla use almost the same economic model as the Forestry Commission in Wales the good old tax payer pays for it all.....

You can't be serious? Llandegla (Tilhill? One Planet?) uses public investment to generate private profit. FC doesn't- all operating surplus remains in the public purse.

Garry - I think you're right. Glossing over the investment needed, stopping riders riding it for free would never work would it?

People moan about car parking charges as it is..

People moan about [s]car parking charges[/s][u]paying for anything[/u] as it is..

Think you had a typo there...

If you had the space, the volunteers and the time you could build the trails then follow the forestry model and lease out the Shop/Cafe space until the business is built up then boot them out for some higher paying corporates.

UK Bikepark I think is another example, I think they own the land there, but I may be wrong.

Cheers, Rich

I wonder if there are any trails anywhere in the world that are pay-to-ride in the simplest sense. Plenty will charge indirectly for car-parking, and there's bike parks of course with uplifts, some places have a yearly membership charge with a tag on your bike - but XC trails through the woods with a hut at the bottom with a sign saying 'Adults £10, children £5' seems like it would be hard to do.

this place only allows walkers but has some nice singletrack, I can imagine if they had more land and could set up a separate biking area they'd do quite well;

[url= http://www.wildernesswood.co.uk/ ]http://www.wildernesswood.co.uk/[/url]

I reckon I know the wood you're talking about. It would make for some very good riding wouldn't it! Trouble is there's too much about, in that people can park elsewhere and access other services, e.g. cafes etc.

They could probably set up something fairly specialist though such as some very good DH runs, don't know if that would attract people to pay if they did a really good job...?

For xc stuff it's in an area that's already very well served.

I've often wondered about this. I used to a lot of fishing and day ticket waters are commonplace - almost the equivalent to trail centres. But, theres also syndicate waters where you pay a yearly fee to have a quieter lake/river which offer the chance of bigger fish. Suppose a mountain biking equivalent may be some private woodland with something out the ordinary - something the likes of Glentress etc don't offer. Dare I say it, something like Stainburn. It'd have to be a small scale I suspect to have any chance of getting your money back - theres no way you could buy thousands of acres of land a'la Glentress and charge people to ride. You'd also have the problems of people just riding into the woods and riding. Stainburn-esque facilitie would be easier to manage by restricting access to one point.

Like I said though, you'd need to offer something you can't get elsewhere. My proposal would be Stainburn but with some smoother whoopy(TM) singletrack that would be like one huge pump track - genuine singletrack though, inches wide through beautiful landscape with optional super, mega tech sections. And some jumps. You'd need to constantly be evolving the trails though so offer something different all the time.

Sounds like it'd be really, really hard to make money out of it. Unless you did it somewhere devoid of any other decent accessable riding.

Oh, and what gingerss said, I think somewhere with a range of downhill runs would stand more chance of making money, purely because in most areas of the UK, that side of the sport is less available than the XC-ish side which is already well served by world class trail centres. Hamsterley for example, have been charging people to ride the downhill runs for years and seem to be doing ok (well, they're still around!). Plus they evolve their runs quite often I believe to offer something new regularly.

This is the only pay-to-ride XC trail* that I know of in the UK

http://www.spirthilltrail.uk.com/

Maybe drop them a line?

*Yes I know Viceroys, Aston Hill etc have XC loops, but by all accounts their bread and butter is the DH/4X stuff.

Does this woodland begin with Co ? I've just been looking at your previous post and trying to work out where your based 8)

I've often wondered if Wharncliffe would be suitable for a chair lift and charging for use of it as the majority of the riding in there, DH or XC involves climbing up a big hill! Surely if you just put in a chair lift and charged for use of that it then takes away any insurance issues as your not charging for use of the trails themselves, and it avoids the problem of people using trails and not paying.

this place is pay to ride;

[url= http://www.deersleapbikes.co.uk/about-deers-leap-park.aspx ]http://www.deersleapbikes.co.uk/about-deers-leap-park.aspx[/url]

[i]Just south of East Grinstead in Sussex, Deers Leap Park has 240 acres of dedicated mountain bike tracks of every grade from family-friendly trails to single track and north shore in the woods.[/i]

Surely if you just put in a chair lift and charged for use of that it then takes away any insurance issues as your not charging for use of the trails themselves,

Unfortunately not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupiers%27_Liability_Act_1957

wwaswas, I'd guess that any income from the trail at Deers Leap is secondary to income from the bike shop.

I object to paying for access. I will pay for something if there is an obvious benefit. You'd need to have proper trails and not just clear a track through the trees.

You'd also need to keep costs low as anthing more than a fiver makes me think a bike place is expensive. I can park in the lakes for a fiver or at glentress so this is what you are competing with in my eyes (obviously if you have a captive marke then you might do better).

Personally I think you'd do better building trails and trying to make money through other means like a cafe or shop.

I've often wondered if Wharncliffe would be suitable for a chair lift

It's only about 100m from top to bottom! To put that in context Fort William is 600m! You'd struggle to justify an uplift transit van at Warncliffe!

Your idea is before its time a little

But give it a few years and trail centres will be like golf clubs - you won't pay to get in, you pay to keep other people out. 🙂

Much forestry in the UK is a commercial in one respect or another. As others suggest, very few areas could even make enough money to maintain any access infrastructure or manage the wider environment, let alone “make money” from riding. However, there have been (financial) incentives to allow access through permissive bridleway access – usually for a specified period of years. The DEFRA or Natural England websites would have details of how these operate in England. It certainly wouldn't make you much money and is fairly similar to other environmental or “stewardship” subsidies available for other forms of landscape management (the FC have details of these – for instance the Woodland Improvement Grant, which can cover public access IIRC). If the area you are thinking of has owners who are amenable to the idea and would welcome some financial input for little additional management hassle this kind of thing could have been relatively straightforward to set up. I don't know if these schemes are continuing though and the idea of paying to ride does not sit well with me personally.

"You'd need a coincidence of captive market (no local trails, limited scope to build anything substantial, driving anywhere good a total ballache."

Old east Midlands Quarry perhaps ?

Isn't Penshurst (PORC) pay-to-ride?

Not sure how many people get away with just turning up and riding, it's been years since I was there. They have a load of DH runs, a couple of jump spots, pump track etc so there's certainly the trails to ride even though it's a relatively small area. Car parking, cafe etc on site.

Problem is with a random wood is controlling the access to it and making sure that there are the subsidiary bits there that people expect when they're paying. Cafe, car parking, changing facilities etc.

swaffham might be your best example. TINY wood. used for enduro mx practice.

make real money out of it i believe.

So, on a most basic level, the most obvious problem is that people do not want to pay to ride?

That and it's impossible to actually control access which means it would be trust based...

And yes Funky

No chance, it seems to be a fairly common theme on here that a lot of MTBs are too cheap to pay for parking, let alone riding trails.

So unless you could Police it, and could manage the 'trespassers' who claim the shortest route is along your trails you would be stuffed.

A few problems with that wood...

1. Where would you park
2. Its really quite small isnt it.
3. Ocassionaly I ride through it to link 2 nice bits of moorland, and dont want to have to pay (granted its private), but would you give me a discount for only passing through?
4. The locals would love it as it would give them plenty of opportunity to nick expensive bikes to feed their drug habbit.

Would the local council be more willing to do some thing on the other side of the hill where the kiddies play ground etc is?

Here's something http://www.halesuperbole.co.uk/mountain-biking-cheshire.htm

So, on a most basic level, the most obvious problem is that people do not want to pay to ride?

There's some cognitive dissonance at work though - as is often mentioned, people don't think twice about spending £50 on their bike to fix a problem, but ask for £3.50 for car-parking and it's a major cause of hand-wringing angst. So actually I think you could over-turn the resistance to pay-to-ride quite easily if everything else was right with the trails. It's getting the trails right and policing access issues already mentioned that would be really hard. If the development is quite small I guess that makes it easier to control.

Its too small, and it would be a struggle to create anything in it to justify charging.

The best way a private operator can make money would be through providing an uplift, like at UK bike park or Revolution. There is no possibility for an uplift there and the runs would be too short to warrant one anyway.

Never ever had a problem with using it anyway so I think it would be wasting your time trying to legitimise anything.

Our local woodlands are leased by the club and membership is £30 a year. Day tickets are £5 a day.

There are several hundred members and a decent amount of day tickets get sold too.

Its certainly no money making venture and relies heavily on a volunteer committee and members dig days.

Council are potentially willing to do all sorts. More importantly, will local riders be willing to dig..

More importantly, will local riders be willing to dig..

From experience, a few but less than you'd think.

And definitely not if someone is trying to make money out of it.

Ianv - I think it's a non starter for this particular wood. Plus on a more personal level, I would be taking a huge risk on access by sticking my head above the parapet!

Jambo - is it more gravity based?

Jam bo - as a volunteer trailbuilder, I know only too well the ratio of riders who also dig.

As for making money. How else do you convince the owner of a wood to allow you to not only give access but to build?

This is completely hypothetical as I don't own a wood.

[img] [/img]

I'd be willing to dig as long as it was a not for profit operation. I'm conscious that with private land there is an element of owners making money from volunteers. I have a fear about this at Gisburn where a visitor centre might attract a purple mountain type café which profits from the trails that volunteers have built a proportion of and maintain.

It might just be me, but I'm surprised that Drumlanrig attracts volunteers given the cost of entry, which must make the owners a tidy income whilst the trails seem to be mostly natural.

I ceretainly would not pay to ride. Trails are best built by volunteers or aere based on motorcross trails like nearly all of thetford forests single track. I mostly right of way and bridleways for XC rides anyway. The only rides I drive now are races, petrol has become too expensive to keep driving to trail centres.

Bm0p - most trail centres are miles from nowhere and yep, fuel is becoming prohibitive.

So, if really good, quality trails were created in or around big city's or towns it would save people driving. They would save loads of erosion over the winter months too.

But if you owned a decent piece of land and were not into bikes, realistically you would want to at least cover the costs of looking after your land.
I think Drumlanrig falls into this category. Looking after that house and all that land takes money.

The trails at Drumlanrig seem 'natural' because that's how they're designed, it's a heritage woodland, grey council paths with berms and rock features for the stormtropers to ride round just wouldn't be appropriate. Hand dug trail isn't hand dug by the rabbits and wee folk y'know it costs peoples time, and there's a good lot of the trail is digger dug but using as dug material so seems natural..

Also, the spend on maintaining the trails and the wee bit of expnsion that happens here is only just covered by the total income from mountain bikers paying at the gate. So there's definetaly no 'tidy income'
It costs peoples time to strim back the trail edges and replace bridges that wear out, it costs peoples time to go round brashing up all the short cuts people insist on taking in their need for a fast lap or something (kinda missing the point of riding a route isn't it really), it costs to provide good clean toilets and showers and safe clean car parking.

Guys, get real with how much really it costs to build and run trails and civilised facilities. If it wasn't for the bus tours and families that cross subsidise the rest of the facilities there would be no trails at Drumlanrig and we still get people who 'only want to ride the trails' so let me in cheap.. What about the Grannies who only want to visit the gardens - well there are a whole lot more of them so actually they're probably paying more for you to ride the trails....

It's gonna have cost £20+ in petrol, you're more than likely riding a £1000+ rig and you can get a good two hours of riding or more if you go another couple of laps for a measly £6, what do we have to do????

Are you detecting a note of frustration here??? The FE have built a rod with which they beat their own backs IMO giving away millions of pounds of investment way too cheaply or even free (oh boy do they regret that now) unfortunately the same rod beats everyone trying to make something good happen in this 'business'

OK - calm down Rik - go dig some trails or something - breath deeply -

Pow'r tae yer pedals everyone - sorry about the rant 😳

The other problem that Mugboo would have is that the local area is full of fantastic quality single track riding anyhow.

I could see a local development working in the winter though when local trails become a mud pit.

Rik - having ridden your trails once a few years ago (in winter and oddly, no method of paying, we asked if we could donate but were told not possible), they are superb and thankyou.

As a SingletrAction trailbuilder and organiser I have every sympathy. £6 doesn't even buy a pair of Superstar grips!! Mind, at least you get that. Up at Stainburn we don't even have a donation box..

Funkydunc - don't get too hung up on which wood, just run with the concept. Although as you say, there is plenty of the year when all those lovely woods are minging, God bless the Swampthing 🙂

The trails at Drumlanrig seem 'natural' because that's how they're designed

Then that's a testament to the quality of your work and the thought put in to the trail design. Personally I thought £5 to ride the trail was a reasonable amount to ask, my discomfort comes from volunteers working on trails that might benefit a private enterprise, but then that's my issue and if people are happy to volunteer then that says alot about their selflessness.

Good work all the same.

scu98rkr - Member
Old east Midlands Quarry perhaps ?

slainte 💡 rob

The way that it works at Drumlanrig is that if you join the Rik's Bike Shed/Drumlanrig Club you get access to the trails and limited facilities (car park etc but not the gardens and play park).

The club get the membership fee which is slightly cheaper than a Drumlanrig season ticket due to the lesser access (last year we had access to all, so our membership was the same as the estate season ticket).

The club 'volunteers' then do some of the maintenance on the trails - barrowing in gravel if required to strengthen the surface on clay areas, knocking out puddles etc and we get to build some new hand built stuff - which obviously benefits the local riders more than most. If I'm supervising these digs then I'm volunteering too as a club member.

Most of the maintenance is done by the ranger service - the strimming, grass cutting and windblow clearing etc. Anything technical will be a combination of me and the ranger service - stone pitching / woodwork etc.

If budgets allow (based on numbers on the gate) the estate might employ me to build some new sections or last year for the first time in 10 years rebuild a section that got severely frost damaged in the really cold winter.

We'll probably be in clearing brash off the top section soon as the estate are clearing out the 'big' windblow now, some of that trail might need rebuilt after the forwarders have been in.

The club will use the funds to support coaching and equipment for the local kids and also it can be used for match funding if we ever get around to applying for a grant (I'd like to get a nice swoopy singletrack green/blue trail for novices/families)..

It's a partnership between the ranger service, the local riders and rik's bike shed and it's what's put the trail network on the ground. We are just about tolerated by the powers that be - but there are plenty of nay sayers who would rather see the woods go back the the hunting shooting and fishing brigades and any sneaky peripheral parking is noticed and always gets flagged up at estate manager meetings as a reason not to invest. So please don't and please disuade others if you see them as it's a big issue.

Pow'r tae yer pedals