LPG
likes thicc birds
I've been to bright a couple of times and I'm a bit disappointed with the new rule (lastly rime was just before the rule. We went as a group for a long weekend camping and riding. We would typically pedal mostly but we would often self shuttle after a morning of pedalling using our campsite at the bottom as the shuttle spot so people could chill out between runs. This rule interrups that freedom to do as you like and means you need to compromise. I like bright and willnbe back at some point but we haven't been back since and it makes you reconsider if it is the best place to go.
I'm not sure what thredbos maintenance plan is, they might keep more spares than other ski fields for the lifts they run during the summer. They surely get more walkers than riders by far, but the riders will go up the lift many times per day. The walkers probably make it financially worthwhile.
That's not to say that they couldn't make the lifts work for a similar cost but it would probably interrupt their current maintenance and operator schedule. Its easier to have another business pay a commission to run riders up the hill in a bus than deal with changing their ways for a small bit of mtb based profit.
There is a fair bit of maintenance costs required for the lifts. I've been involved with overhauling some of the parts (mainly the lift gearboxes) and the typical schedule is for them to be removed once the snow is gone for crane access and then reinstalled before the snow is back. This means that each year some of the lifts are out of service all summer for maintenance. Places that do lift access typically have the bikes riding 1 lift only, if it was open for bikes they would have to use an alternate lift every 3 or so years. If something goes wrong during the summer and it can't be fixed in situ then they may risk having a lift down all winter if it can't be fixed in timeI'm not disagreeing with you, but it seems dumb to me that this is true.
Just don't understand how running multiple buses can cost less than a chairlift. Similar number of personnel required but 1 electric motor vs multiple IC engines? Surely the extra run time doesn't make any difference to the yearly maintenance costs and it's the snow crew being dicks about it.
Maybe they could hit up the gov to subsidize the cost of running a chair for the eco benefits over using IC vehicles.
I miss riding the horse hill chair...
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I'm not sure what thredbos maintenance plan is, they might keep more spares than other ski fields for the lifts they run during the summer. They surely get more walkers than riders by far, but the riders will go up the lift many times per day. The walkers probably make it financially worthwhile.
That's not to say that they couldn't make the lifts work for a similar cost but it would probably interrupt their current maintenance and operator schedule. Its easier to have another business pay a commission to run riders up the hill in a bus than deal with changing their ways for a small bit of mtb based profit.