Brilliant idea. I shall be digging in my pockets for definate, and hopefully persuading others to do likewise.

Are there any civil engineers out there? One way of getting the bill down might be to try and find MTBer's with the required professions to give their time instead of cash?

A very good plan!
I have no money myself, but the missus is an engineer and knows lots of bods in the civils and major works contractors, so I'll pass this on to her to pass about. Maybe we can get a press release into some of the Civil Engineering trade press?

A bikemagic.com pledge?

*quickly hides as a poor student who's never been there or is likely to*

It would be amazing for the sport, maybe a BM collection would be a good idea as I wouldn't be able to help money wise being a student bum....

Well I'd be spending plenty a weekend there. I'll chip in a fiver!

I live in the South Wales Valleys, and i have a passion for MTB. I'm not the best Dowbhiller by a long way, infact the Dragon Downhills in Aberdare / Merthyr Frightened the s**t out of me.... you just gotta try it.
I work for a Civil Engineering Consultancy in Cardiff, Jason's idea is "Do-able" (Engineering Wise). I would definately give my time for nothing on this project.

Jason Get in Touch!

Nigel, Jason's email is at the bottom of the story - I'm not sure he's checking the forum...

If anyone can work out a good way of arranging a BM group pledge then we can certainly do something.

set up a bike pmagic paypal account? so members make donation? Sell anything of worth you have lying about at the towers on ebay so we can bid and the proceeding go to the fund?

Sponsors donating a certain amount could dopt/sponsor their 'own' chair, with name plate, or be allowed to paint/sticker/decorate their chair how they want (within reason of course).

Also I went on a one man chair in Italy (at a ski area) that seemed to require much less beefy intallation than most other chairs, looked like just a few pylons with a smallish drive motor at the end. Though it seemed to be old fashined, up close it looked brand new. It was in the Cinque Torre ski area near Cortina d'Ampezzo.

I would suggest that maybe just focussing on the DH/Freeriders might be isolating a lot of people with cash....I would probably stay away from that kind of environment personally...

But, if there were some general purpose trails on site too - which maybe were served ny the same lift - you could attract interest from a far wider variety of riders, opening up a much larger pool of cash! Don't get me wrong - I've ridden for 17 years and there's not much I don't try to ride, but I don't want to feel excluded on the basis of my suspension travel - and I'm sure plenty of people feel the same. As is, my cash would stay in my pocket.

Whistler is a bike park for all - not just the gravity set. I'm not trying to put a spoiler on a great plan - just trying to support it through a bit of Devil's Advocacy!!

Bah, we have plenty of good XC trails in the UK. Away with thee devil boy, bring on the DH!

Are these donations or membership?
I wouldn't like to think i'd be putting money up front just to pay the same lift fees as someone who hadn't shell'd out hard earned cash.
Innerleithen's the place for me.That's where my money would go.

But, if there were some general purpose trails on site too - which maybe were served ny the same lift - you could attract interest from a far wider variety of riders, opening up a much larger pool of cash!

There'd have to be a broad appeal to make the thing viable, I think.

i thought you XC boys relished the ups as much as the downs.... i certainly did when i was into the XC side of the sport!

FR / DH gets a slagging for not *deserving the downs* cos we dont ride them, then you want a piece of a chairlift!!! c'mon...

More seriously, the project IMO is viable with just the gravity set on board.... but what would give a unique flavour to the place (though i admit i dont know rheola) for the xc crowd would be some *full on* XC such as seen in whistler and a little bit in the alps...

there is a but here though... all weather xc trails we all know are vastly expensive...i dont want DH orrientated funds to go into such a project until the DH runs were paid for.

with the technology moving on there will be a continuing increase in the number of us needing lifts to get our vastly overspecced steads to the tops of hills, this could well be the future - though only in areas with development monies to boost the finances of the project.

It would be good to have the option to include in an XC loop aswell as it just being used by the 'gravity set' – whilst guiding in Cham we often used to incorporate lifts into loops. We still climbed, but it just meant that we got more descending in.