james foster
“Build it and they will come,” Kevin Costner famously said in Field of Dreams, and that’s exactly what brothers James and Tim Foster did when they sold their worldly goods, pawned the family silver and headed to North Wales armed with nothing but a bold dream, very limited trail building experience and a degree of personal riding cred. Their creation, Revolution Bike Park, proved hugely popular. Unfortunately, Revs, as it affectionately became known, is currently closed due to larch disease, but James and Tim are determined to get it up and running again as soon as possible.
How on earth did they find such a hidden, remote location? “We were living in Cornwall, and quite quickly narrowed down the search to North Wales as a place that would work for the business and be somewhere we’d actually like to live,” James explains. “We looked at various sites before deciding on Llangynog, as we felt that the site worked, and we loved the village and area. The whole family pooled all their assets and savings, and we bought the forest. Tim worked really hard to involve the village as much as possible early on in the project, and to be transparent about what our plans were. They’ve been amazingly supportive from day one. We’re very lucky to have stumbled upon such a great community.”
With just 120 acres to play with, the brothers knew a bike park would be a tight fit, but decided to go all-in anyway. “We’d travelled to various places in Europe to ride, and it gave us the idea that we could build something similar on a more condensed scale in the UK. At that point, there weren’t many full-time uplift-serviced venues here, so we thought we’d have a go. We first had to build a road to the top of the hill and then everything followed and grew from there.”
Within their confined space, James and the trail builders created a masterpiece of efficiency. “We plan it by the lay of the land,” he explains. “I’ve spent 12 years on that hill and I’m familiar with pretty much every corner of it, and more importantly, what’s underneath it. Knowing where the good dirt is allows me to plan for DH tracks or big jumps. The main aim is to build stuff that we actually want to ride. We’ve had a few different members of the trail crew over the years, and
all have been passionate riders, so everyone’s had an input and helped to create what we all enjoy. Anything that we make, we always come back to over time to make it better, so the trails are constantly evolving.”
With trails such as the 50:01 and Vision lines, and a wellearned reputation as the playground of the famous faces of the gravity elite, all should be rosy at Revs. But with the pandemic and the recent venue-closing outbreak of tree disease, they’ve had a tough time balancing the books. Revs 2.0 is now in the planning stage, although mother nature and the strive for perfection mean it’ll be a while before they can reopen. “The hill has been cleared of trees and we’re in the process of finalising the replanting plan,” explains Susha Reynolds, the venue’s business manager. “It’s a steep learning curve and a very expensive job to replant, but obviously essential to ensure the future of the park and reinstate the habitats for wildlife. It should happen in early spring. We can then begin the next steps.”
She adds: “We very much intend to bring the park back, but don’t want to do it in a way that’d be detrimental to the reputation we’ve built over the past 12 years. We’ve neither a real timescale, yet, nor an opening date in mind, but it’s likely to be years, not months, unfortunately.” However long it takes, you can bet it’ll be worth the wait.
“i’ ve spent 12 years on that hill and as a result i’m familiar with pretty much every corner of it, and more importantly, what ’s underneath it”