It’s late spring in a typical ski resort, the snow is melting, the parking lot is empty, and the streets are bare. The mountain manager breathes a sigh of relief and gazes dreamily at his golf clubs gathering dust in the corner of his office. He can’t wait to kick back and relax this summer.

Then he checks the final budget numbers on his spread sheet and gets an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. The resort did okay over the winter and there’s enough money left for summer maintenance, but capital expansion will have to be put off again. Something has to change!

The above scenario may be a bit drastic, but there’s enough truth in it that it sounds familiar. That’s why so many resorts have expanded into summer. Off-season revenues can make a key impact on the bottom line.

Many of the summer activities being developed are attractions, aimed primarily at drawing in transient guests. It’s good to capture that transient activity. Ziplines, bungee trampolines, and mountain coasters, though, do not encourage regular, repeat visits. They are attractions, not sports. A family that visits repeatedly in the winter because they are skiers/riders may only visit once or twice in the summer due to the lack of real sport activity.

For repeat business, you need something more active. Hiking is an option. But downhill mountain biking best mirrors winter operations, and has a proven ability to generate repeat visits. Many skier/riders cross over to downhill riding where it is available, and most cross over to some kind of cycling.

And it’s a familiar business. This customer has the same needs in the summer as in the winter – quality well-maintained trails, rentals, guiding/lessons, children’s programs, accommodations, retail shops, bike repair and F&B. These amenities are present in the winter, and most could be ready to go in the summer with some minor retooling. Even the ski school can convert to a bike school fairly easily.

All that is needed is the bike park itself. If only that were easy, too.

THE PATH TO FAILURE

Unfortunately, a lot of ski resort operators who have decided to get into the bike park business have failed to follow the same approach that makes them successful in the winter: planning. Bike parks require the same degree of planning and careful construction as a ski trail network. Our company, Gravity Logic, developed the Whistler Bike Park and has assisted several other resorts as well. We have seen the error of failing to invest properly play out many times in both North American and international resorts. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

There are several reasons for the typical failure. The following scenario is purely fictional; any resemblance to an actual resort is more or less coincidental.

Many bike parks are envisioned and built by enthusiastic riders working either for free or nearly so. These riders typically build trails that they want to ride—gnarly, advanced to expert level, unsustainable trails. The mountain work road becomes the (highly unsatisfactory) beginner trail, and the intermediate trail is nonexistent. There is no budget for maintenance, and the trails become eroded creek beds or rock gardens because they were poorly designed.

These trail systems do little to attract intermediate riders and families. Female riders (50 percent of the population) are often intimidated by trails befitting an extreme bike movie setting. Injuries are sustained due to poor quality trails, and because riders are tackling trails above their skill level, and/or due to lack of proper signage.

The initial enthusiasm and positive energy about the bike park soon turns to sour grapes. Riders stop coming, revenues drop, and the bike park closes. Then the U.S. Forest Service fines the resort for environmental damage.

The senior managers who were skeptical of bike park operations in the first place point the finger at the enthusiastic, overworked, understaffed, unsupported bike park manager and fire him. The whole exercise turns out to be counterproductive and a big waste of money.

THE ROUTE TO SUCCESS

It does not have to be that way. Many resorts and land managers are now looking closely at downhill mountain biking for summer revenue and are planning accordingly.

Just a few years ago, there were very few good examples. Arguably, the most successful bike park in the world is The Whistler Mountain Bike Park, and the sheer size of it can scare off smaller resort operators. One might assume that, unless a resort is the size of Whistler, there is no use in developing a bike park.

However, few resorts need to be the size of Whistler. In fact, too much vertical can be a hindrance for a bike park operation. Whistler Mountain Bike Park operated with only 1,150 feet of vertical before the Garbanzo zone added 2,200 more in 2005. Before that expansion, the Whistler Bike Park comfortably generated more than 60,000 bike park visits each summer, due to careful planning and well-thought-out operations.

Since then, visits have more than doubled, to roughly 130,000, and generated more than $17 million in summer economic benefit for the municipality of Whistler (the actual number of visits in 2010 is not public knowledge, since WB was privately held at the time and didn’t report those numbers). While these figures are impressive, quality bike parks are economically viable on a much smaller scale. It’s less about the quantity, and more about the quality, of trails.

Many of the bike parks that we have worked with—such as Sugarloaf, New Brunswick; Jarvso, Sweden; and Bukovel, Ukraine—are small operations with less than 1,000 feet of vertical. And all are experiencing double digit growth. Jarvso, in its first year of operations, almost doubled its projected visits. Sugarloaf visits were up 50 percent over the previous year, which was its first year in bike park operation. Bukovel, in its third year of operation, increased visits by 30 percent over the previous year. When bike parks are done properly, it is possible to grow the business fast.

Winter Park’s Trestle Bike Park is a great example of how good planning and execution are rewarded by growth in revenues in all sectors—operations, rental/retail, bike school/guiding and F&B. The bike park’s visits increased from 8,000 in 2008 to nearly 16,000 in 2009, and then to nearly 23,000 in 2010. Winter Park revamped its rental/retail facilities to make them the most profitable sector of its summer operations. Also, the Bike School experienced a 1,000 percent (that’s right, three zeros) increase in business in 2010 over 2009. Trestle Bike Park is the fastest growing bike park in North America, possibly the world, and is poised to become the busiest bike park in the U.S. in 2011.

The elements of success in all these operations stem from a well-executed plan geared to customer satisfaction, precipitating repeat visits. This plan is built on a carefully designed and constructed trail network. That’s the backbone of a sound bike park operation.

While there are only a handful of successful bike parks currently, there are many more in planning or startup stages around the world. Besides Jarvso (fully operational and expanding), three other resorts in Sweden should be in full operation in 2011. Closer to home in North America, Gravity Logic currently has eight major bike park projects in various stages of planning and USFS approval process. We expect that at least four of these projects will become operational within the next three years. We have also done feasibility assessments for resorts in the Dominican Republic and Philippines in the past year. This is a growing sport!

THE BUSINESS CASE

The average bike park can be built for a fraction of what a golf course would cost, and faces a lot less competition. How many golf courses are within a 100-mile radius of your resort? Now count the number of bike parks within the same area. The opportunity exists to be the first one on the block and to shape the market.

The capital and operating expenses are a fraction of what is required for a winter operation. Typically, only one chairlift is needed. There is no need for a fleet of expensive, diesel-guzzling groomers, just a diesel-sipping mini excavator and a tracked front-end loader. Compared to winter, the summer labor force and onhill amenities are drastically reduced. Tools consist of a couple of chain saws, shovels and picks. Pickup trucks or UTVs can be “borrowed” from some hibernating winter department, such as housekeeping or roads and parking (as we did in Whistler). Overall costs to the company are reduced by the sharing of resources and maximizing the use of existing equipment.

Demand exceeds supply. The opportunities are vast, as the mountain biking industry is experiencing a transformation influenced by the emergence of quality bike parks. The positive economic impact of bike parks has been documented, and more bike parks are coming on line. This growth should translate into more affordable bike equipment, and more people entering the sport, leading to more dedicated riders.

And these riders travel. It is our experience that they behave much like skiers and snowboarders, traveling to parks in Whistler and Winter Park. The non-lift-assisted trail systems in communities such as Fruita, Colo., Moab, Utah, and B.C.’s Nelson, Burns Lake, North Shore and Kamloops, also show that a quality trail system will attract riders from afar.

Bike park developments are on the rise, and can be a positive addition to an existing ski resort operation. Yet successful models are few, and this can complicate the decision-making process when a proposal for a bike park is raised during a planning meeting (I sat through a few of those nailbiters myself while managing the Whistler Mountain Bike Park).

As with other summer operations, it’s important to get help and advice from experienced sources. The most important route to bike park success is to get the best help possible from a reputable design firm. Check their resumé, call their clients and visit the resorts. Create a master plan. Commit enough resources to do the job right. Follow the plan into the future. Then reap the benefits!

Privately-owned Gravity Logic specializes in bike park and trail design, construction, retail, rental, bike schools, and management. The company was started in 2005 within the Whistler Mountain Bike Park to provide consulting services for other resorts; it was sold to its employees in 2007.