On Thursday 9th July wheels will spin again on Bikepark Wales’ s trails. But it won’t be quite the same as before just yet. Read on…

>>> BikePark Wales: the complete guide

The Bikepark Wales team write:

Services available from 9th July

From Thursday 9th July the following services will be open at BPW 5 days a week (Thursday-Monday). ALL WILL BE ON A PRE-BOOK BASIS ONLY.

• Pedal and e-bike passes
• Bike hire
• Bike shop and workshop
• Takeaway food and drink
• Coaching (private sessions only to one household group) email to book

We are working hard to open our uplift and hope to have some good news in the coming weeks but there are no guarantees at the moment and things change very fast. We will be sure to let you all know as soon as we can.

Trails

We must start with Kermit, a 5KM long swooping, swerving roller coaster of a singletrack trail that will be fun for everyone from a budding 5-year-old ripper to an experienced rider looking for some mellow flow. Kermit is the first top to bottom green trail at BikePark Wales and is the longest descending green trail in the UK. Look out for the “longest berm in the park” at the very end of the trail which now swoops you directly onto the patio, ready for a post ride beer.

We are so excited to be able to welcome novice and younger riders to BikePark Wales, it has always been our intention to offer something for everyone and now we finally can.

At the other end of the spectrum, Duncan our in-house jump builder extraordinaire has built what must be the best jump line the park has ever seen. The new Insufficient Funds sits just below the uplift queue offering a perfect opportunity to show off your whips whilst enjoying this creative line of tabletops, step downs and hip jumps.

Everyone’s favourite trail, Norkle has also had a complete facelift making your cruise to the uplift even better than before. The new Norkle has been dubbed “one of the best bits of trail building in the park” by our trail crew manager and he does not hand out compliments easily so it must be good.

Finally, after battling with the weather in February and March lower Willy Waver is now completed and ready for some fresh tyre tracks. WW2 follows the trend set by the upper Willy Waver rebuild and will give everyone a much-needed hit of post lockdown flow.

There have been countless other upgrades and improvements across the trail network so keep your eyes peeled.

Visitor and staff safety

The most important aspect of our detailed work over the last few months has been redefining how we work as a business to make the experience safe for visitors and our own team. We have risk assessed every area of our business and updated procedures to make sure we are Covid secure. We have covered everything from disinfecting hire bikes between uses to quarantining items of clothing that have been tried on in the shop, rearranging the centre and queuing systems to how we serve food.

We take this very seriously and want both our team and visiting riders to feel comfortable and able to enjoy a much-needed release from these stressful times. you can visit and enjoy riding your bike safe in the knowledge that we take the risks posed by Covid-19 seriously and have industry leading practices in place to keep you safe.

We are limiting the number of riders on site at any one time so things will feel a little different for the foreseeable future, with less than half the usual number of riders enjoying the trails. Please note that we are a pre-book site only (with the exception of season pass holders and under 10’s riding with a paying adult) during this period so please always book before arriving on site.

Along with other mountain bike destinations in Wales we have devised a Covid-19 rider code of conduct to help keep us all safe. Please familiarise yourself with the code as it will apply to sites across Wales

The whole team here at BPW are excited to be back doing what we love, to see and hear riders enjoying our trails once more, it hasn’t been the same without you and we cannot wait to welcome you back.

Infrastructure

Sadly, the pandemic has put a hold on the construction of our new visitor centre which had been progressing so well. The build will have to be halted at its current 60% complete status until we see a significant improvement in the situation.

However, on a very positive note during lockdown a 2-year project to connect the business to mains power was completed. This monumental change for the park means no more running off a noisy and polluting generator and we are now extremely pleased to be powered by 100% renewable energy thanks to our partner Ecotricity.

We have also connected the site with full fibre and a copper phone line, both of which will improve our ability to communicate. We have the slight issue of replacing the phone lines that we were relived of by some light-fingered friends just days after they were installed but we will soon be up and running.