I am thinking of organising a few ‘Mates Races’ this summer for the local Mtb scene. The idea is shamelessly stolen from the one that dirt did down in Sheffield.

Has anyone got any ideas , tips for organising this type of thing. Want it to be of the enduro type race rather than pure dh or xc as most of me and my mates ride 5-6” bikes. Us the local hills, couple of stages each event and add the placements up to get the overall winners.

So any tips? Suggestions etc. I saw a race once in the peaks whilst sitting in the pub opposite 18bikes where they had a mass start and they all started 40m away with their front wheel in their hands, they had to run to the bikes, put front wheel in and then go – thought this was a great idea for a mass start race to spread it out a bit ( and 1 I will be stealing!)

Was thinking of one race to have a dual slalom style race. Two up racing on a plain sloping field with some markers to slalom down.

Loads of people have done this – please share your ideas!

If you are locate in Aberdeen, and fancy doing it drop me an email and I will include you in the mailing list.

cheers

Check out the Big Bike Bash. This started as a mates race/event in my back garden and has grown a bit over the last 3 years

WCA – hwo did you start it off? was it an email around mates, how did you get the word out?

I like the sound of the Trailer Bike challenge. Is that something we can build in?

I used to do these every week in Philadelphia but it was maybe lower-key then what you have in mind. Basically everyone turned up – sometimes rode round the course to see the route, sometimes it just got described and there were a few markers laid out. It was a fixture of the scene there so you got decent turn-outs some evenings, but no more than say 30 people at max. It seemed quite organic in that no one was really in charge, but there was a nucleus of 4 or 5 very fast riders who would lay out the courses, organise things a bit.

The trails they used were definitely the key to it. It was woodland but a bit sketchy woodland, a burnt out car or two laying around. So there were few walkers and you could leather it round without anyone getting upset. Saying that they still had issues with the local stick men IIRC.
Great times tbh – if you could set something up similar it could be an excellent introduction to mountain biking for a lot of people.

How did I start it?

8 bottles of Leffe, wife watching Ice Dancing in TV, Internet access and a drunken post on STW.

Between 20 – 40 people turned up at my house a few weeks later and set up tents on the lower lawn. I knew about 6 of the people, then rest were total strangers or names off this site.

The first time I did the BBB proper I was quite lucky and quite stupid. I managed to ‘borrow’ the whole youth activity centre for a weekend and then got some mates to do all the work.

EG
soma_rich = Director of Music – get a stage, PA and a load of bands to play for free
luke = Director of Beer – organise and run a real ale festival
FredDibnah/RudeBoy/ElfinSafety = director of colouring in – do graphic stuff
James = Director of web monkey stuff – Do website
etc

I then just ran around telling people about it and trying to think of as many fun events to put on during the weekends as I could. Oh, I might have posted about it on here a couple of times too.

PS The stupid bit was running the whole thing with no insurance of any kind so that if someone had got hurt or sued I could have lost everything! The lucky bit was that it didn’t happen

start off with a short, gently sloping hill, some sticks and 4 people on bikes.

that’s how the sheffield mates-races started…

i’m not really sure, but i think part of the success was having loads (and loads) of locals who like few things more than dicking around on bikes….

Garry – i think this is a low key thing, 20-30 max i woudl think , and that would be getting lucky. I was planning on marking out the course with flour just before the off so that no real evidence woudl be left of it after a few days.
Garry – did you have a points system and a league for it?

i like the idea of everyone brings a prize and sticks it on the floor, who ever came first gets first pick etc….

like the idea of getting a scene going as there is a hell of a lot of bikers up here in abz, and nothing like this which i think would be brilliant. like th eidea of people taking it in turns organising different months etc.

WCA – thinkign of something alot smaller than teh BBB, but hats off for that, i think what you have done there is a real acheivement.

ahwiles – great idea. think i know jsut the place for that as well!

Couldn’t have done it without the slaves mates

Recently on one of our regular Wednesday night rides we had a Pork Pie Enduro (pork pie for the winner). 12 of us sellotaped a 99p stopwatch to our bars/stem/toptube and then went and did 4 of our local downhill trails. The organiser went first and then stood at the bottom with his pencil and pad to take the times and we all took it in turns to set off. Press the red button – go – PEDAL, etc. – cross the ‘line’ and press stop. Time noted down, off to the next stage.

Back at the pub out came the laptop from the car and in went the results. Beer and pork pie and a good fun time!

This sort of thing – http://dirt.mpora.com/news/mates-races-monduro-halloween-special.html
involves a lot more effort and help from friends.

I helped start the cake races at tavi woodlands.

quite simply, we had a couple of radios, a stopwatch, pen and paper. generally we’d mark out or tape a 30-60s section of DH track, time as many runs as people could be bothered to time for and then go home.

it grew a bit and now they have fully fledged race series with BC points and everything.

Like the idea of cheap stop watches and everybody self times. that is a good’un.

some good stuff here, thanks everyone.

we’ve been looking at a enduro type event in our local woods with using strava. set up the segments in advance and everyone uploads there times.

We’ve had a few “Race Nights”, just to mix up the normal weekly rides. We usually pick a selection of 6/7 different local trails. The best way is to have a mixture of trails that include various styles of riding; singletrack, tech downhill, tech climb, tracks with a choice of lines, longer sections with mixtures of everything, fast & swoopy etc and even a ‘track stand’ round. This gives everyone a chance to do well. Usually we will do staggered starts with somebody at the other end with a mobile phone & stopwatch to record the times, and have a few stopwatches so we can stagger starts & have 2-3 riders racing at once. Great fun…actually must sort out another one!

I thought about hte use of strava, i am sure we can incorporate it somehow…..

Anyone be interested in setting up some races in/around Steyning Woods and Chanctonbury? There’s climbs, singletrack, a few bits of light DH. xc etc.

Be great to a semi-organised thing with either one big loop or a few loops of a 7/8 k route, plus the Steyning MTB folks have a relationship with the landowners.