Saying your opinion if you haven’t organised an event is not valid I don’t think is particularly helpful .. unless you only want to attract sympathetic race organisers to your events 🙂

Okay so events cost alot of money to put on which means the required entry costs just for event organisers to not make a loss are not appealing to all .. so how do we get round this otherwise the smaller events will fall by the wayside and we will be left with very little opportunity to go out and race ???

Fin – Member
Yeh you can race for cheaper in the UK – but can you be sure – that
1) You are insured
2) The medical backup on site isn’t some retarded voulenteer service that knows nothing of biking injurys
3) There are adequate facilitys – like toilets and these are maintained
4) The trails/tracks have been constructed & ridden to ensure they are safe & Entertaining
5) They’ve got space for and have thought about the need to airlift someone
6) Have a timing system that gives accurate results
7) Ensure that there are lots of like minded people there
Ensure that there are lots of like minded companies there

Personally I see the freebies as a bonus – not a necessity – yeh it costs – but hey you are paying for the whole experience

we manage it on a tenner a race 😀

Okay so events cost alot of money to put on which means the required entry costs just for event organisers to not make a loss are not appealing to all .. so how do we get round this otherwise the smaller events will fall by the wayside and we will be left with very little opportunity to go out and race ???

if you don’t do it commercially the costs plummet, unfortunately the work increases, but if you can get a big team together and grow it you can make it work

Agree with Brownbacks there. I attended/ helped out with singage/marshalling/set up at the event Munrobiker organised (80-120 people I think?) and we had all the necessary stuff bar electric timing and everyone had a lot of fun for £10. I think the Icycles enduros are good value (certainly enough riding for me in a day). Having done one 661 event last year I wouldn’t do another in my current financial situation, the course was absolutely fantastic, the timing was as good as it gets and there was plenty of medical cover but it was just a bit too pricey considering I’ve had 80% as much fun for 50% of the money. I’m sure most people would rather have some dolla in their pocket than 5 milliseconds more accurate timing and a few more marshalls. However, I’m sure many will be happy to pay a premium for such a great event and as a commercial event if you can sell out at £60 or even £70 then why wouldn’t you?

i dont think £60 is a lot for a event i was paying £50 6 years ago for mx enduro 2 to 3 hour races. Thinking about doing a couple of the gravity one this year if you think there to dear just dont go simple as that but dont moan about it

I think the Gravity Enduros suffer a wee bit from comparison with, frinstance, Innerleithen MTB Racing events- Gravity put on a 2-day event for £60~ but Innerleithen put on more racing per day, for £30. But Gravity have extra costs since it’s a touring event- more site visits, less local contacts and local knowledge.

I’m more put off by the 2-day format if I’m honest, I’d sooner have the option of running blind and unseeded, rather than spending a whole weekend racing. But you do get a lot of event for your money IMO and I’m definately in for some more this year.

Don’t really understand why they come in for such particular stick- I’m paying £50 for 10 at Kirroughtree, which is a (longer) one day event with a simpler format and a much bigger entry. But I don’t see anyone slating No Fuss.

For 60 quid I was expecting a T shirt! I need one so I can show my friends how Gnar I am. Or at least meet us half way with a T at cost – it is advertising afterall.

Had to pay extra for my no fuss endurance dh tshirt… And TBH there was NO chance I wasn’t buying one of those, it’s much more efficient than actually getting my lad out and swinging it around

I’ve organised and helped at events at all ends of the spectrum. At one end you have something like Sleepless or Mayhem where you need 16 acres of (free) camping, fire routes and 100 page health and safety documents, plus staff that have to be there for a week beforehand to clear, set out and tape a course. I can’t remember what it costs to hire Eastnor, but £20,000 wouldn’t be far wrong, just for the field… Then there’s marquees, barriers, toilets, showers (that need water tankers driven up the hill to give the right water pressure…) paying for the bin men and all that kind of dull stuff. Oh, and you have to charge VAT on entries.

At the other end of things, you have a local cyclocross race, where it’s a tenner to race and you’re actively discouraged against making any profit at all by BC. The hire of the local park isn’t much, but trying to cajole a dozen friends to turn up to a park at 8am the day after New Year can be reasonably hard… Somehow I ended up having to pay £840 in BC levies after my event. Which was something like £4 per rider, with a further £5 per riding being expected to be returned in prize money. I reckon that by the time I’d paid the town brass band and the St Johns, I might have lost about £20 overall for the privilege. And that’s with a dozen friends helping out by borrowing course stakes from Pat Adams (they’re a quid each to buy!) and marking and tearing down the course.

Anyway… I reckon that some events might be expensive, especially if there’s a person trying to make a living from it, but you should try to see what you’re getting for your money, including all the hidden costs that you might not appreciate.

Then go and do a race in the States: This from Bikerumor: …Granny Gear’s are the highest of all events we checked. For 2009, a solo entry into 9 Mile, Moab or Big Bear was $310 to $340. A four-person team entry was $480 to $600. Like most events, prices vary depending on how early you register.

And that’s not factoring that you have to pay extra for camping, there’s no food vendor price-capping and even spectators have to pay to watch what has to be one of the dullest sports to watch if you’re not doing it.

Just my £6.50 (includes VAT) 🙂

Yes, its not golf you know, get real.

FTR last year at Ae I did appreciate that the medical personnel looked professional. Didn’t need them but their presence reassured me.

At the other end of things, you have a local cyclocross race, where it’s a tenner to race and you’re actively discouraged against making any profit at all by BC. The hire of the local park isn’t much, but trying to cajole a dozen friends to turn up to a park at 8am the day after New Year can be reasonably hard… Somehow I ended up having to pay £840 in BC levies after my event. Which was something like £4 per rider, with a further £5 per riding being expected to be returned in prize money. I reckon that by the time I’d paid the town brass band and the St Johns, I might have lost about £20 overall for the privilege. And that’s with a dozen friends helping out by borrowing course stakes from Pat Adams (they’re a quid each to buy!) and marking and tearing down the course.

despite all that there is a far stronger set of cyclocross events in the calendar than there is for mtb with at least one every weekend in striking range for most during the CX season

some thought into why that is might help fill the gap yawning chasm between the CX race scene and mtb

It doesn’t seem like much too me for what you get. A solo only 12/24 event which is one of the only few in the world, a great atmosphere at the start with pipers and an individual roll call to the start line for the top ten, amazing course which had so much work done to it for last years race, and 24 hours of racing!

I guess you could spend the 70 quid on a night out, but thats not really me. 🙄

Isn’t it quite late to be thinking about doing it now anyway since it’s in just over a months time..

It doesn’t seem like much too me for what you get. A solo only 12/24 event which is one of the only few in the world, a great atmosphere at the start with pipers and an individual roll call to the start line for the top ten,

I think that’s the problem for a lot of folks, they’re simply not interested in the frills – T Shirts, pasta parties, prize giving ceremonies etc.
Sort of irrelevant comparing it to a night out.
I think they’re way too expensive now and have simply stopped doing them.

A club member style event, run by the members, staffed by members and using kit that belongs to the members will always be cheaper than a professionally run event.
Unless you have run an event of this type it is hard to comment on what constitutes good value for money as you will have very little idea of the costs involved.
A professionally organised event needs to make money for the professionals involved. If it is too expensive, there will not be enough income to cover the costs as there will not be enough entries. If it is too cheap, there will be not enough income to cover the costs.
So the market sets the price. Personally, I think £1000 is way too much for a handbag but my wife thinks that is reasonable. I think 3 grand for a mountain bike is reasonable. It all depends on your point of view and priorities.
If you think an event is too expensive, don’t enter it. If enough people agree the event will either have to lower prices or cease to exist.

Unless you have run an event of this type it is hard to comment on what constitutes good value for money as you will have very little idea of the costs involved.

I disagree,
VFM is a consumer perception [not fact] and has little to do with actual costs to produce it.

Just to put it into perspective, I looked into that super elitist sport called sailing that I gave up as a teenager due to lack of funds.

£130* for annual sailing club membership at the local reservoir.

Thats 4 seasons of 2 races every sunday, 3 seasons of saturday races, and probably a wednesday night series over the summer. Plus training on thursday, friday evenings and all day Saturday/Sunday.

Put’s MTB entry fee’s into perspective dunnit?

*annual single adult, + £44 boat-park fee, Insurance £17 (TPFT), +2 duty days (manning the tea urn, start line or rescue boat).

Passport Du Soliel.
Ride all day in what must be one of the best MTB events in the world. Uplifts are included as are various food stops. 45 Euro’s. all in.!

Its In France.

http://www.passportesdusoleil.com/index.jsp?c=66005

Road, TT, and Cross, tend to be run by clubs and rely on members helping out, as for MTB racing, well there is no club structure and like Sportives tend to rely on businesses to organise races.

Take an event like Honc and compare to merida/chainreaction/etc Marathon series events. one is a club doing something the other a business.

Thing that gets me, is folk moaning about say £70 for event X being too much.

When they’d pay, say, £30 no bother.

Then they go riding on their £3k bike*….

I mean FFS you could spend half that on the bike, the change on weekends away racing and probably have more fun.

*yes, yes, I know you think an event Y is too expensive at £Z and you spent tuppence and ha’penny on your bike… but the people I’m talking about exist for sure.

as mentioned above, some of the organisers of road sportives must be making a fortune on every event (on public roads), some you don’t sign on for or get timing.

I’ve not done the SITS or MM for some time due to not wanting to pay quite a bit for riding worse than I could find at the end of my garden.

Reading fetish’s comments I’d take issue with the following:

Saturday you can start riding at 9.30am and then you can continue right through to seeding which finishes around 5pm. So that is approximately 8 hours on a bike for £30, or £3.75 per hour. Obviously you are not going to do this as you will be wrecked for the race on Sunday but even at half that time you are still well under £10 per hour.

Yes, but I could ride anywhere for practicaly free.

potential prizes

race against your friends

90% of people aren’t even close to the podium and prizes. They might wqnt to be better than X or so many places better than the last time, but those things don’t gain them a prize, so ironicaly its the pro’s/teams who get someone else to pay their entry fee who stand to gain from the prizes everyone else puts the money in for.

trails that you normally couldn’t ride down

Unless you’re local then just going to somewhere new for free gives you trails you wouldn’t normaly ride down.

I’d like to give it a go, but it’s about 2x more than even a roadie sportive, which are roundly criticised for being too expensive already.

Unless you’re local then just going to somewhere new for free gives you trails you wouldn’t normaly ride down.

Depends though, plenty of races are places you can’t ride otherwise – MOD land, private land etc. Wasing Estate which is hosting the (XC) Nat Champs this year is like that. Ditto Pippingford which hosted it in 2010.

90% of people aren’t even close to the podium and prizes. They might wqnt to be better than X or so many places better than the last time, but those things don’t gain them a prize, so ironicaly its the pro’s/teams who get someone else to pay their entry fee who stand to gain from the prizes everyone else puts the money in for.

In the GE and like most race series, you are not racing the pros. They are in a separate category so everyone has a chance to win prizes. All you have to do is beat your age category so its just a case of getting faster. For example, in GE, the overall winner in the senior category gets a Genesis Grapil frame. That does not sound to bad does it…

…especially when you can sell the prizes, to claim your money back on race fees….

Passport Du Soliel.
Ride all day in what must be one of the best MTB events in the world. Uplifts are included as are various food stops. 45 Euro’s. all in.!

More to the point beer is included in the price.

Depends though, plenty of races are places you can’t ride otherwise – MOD land, private land etc. Wasing Estate which is hosting the (XC) Nat Champs this year is like that. Ditto Pippingford which hosted it in 2010.

Yes, but is that a selling point? Is there not a single trail within the same distance (or for the sake or argument £60 of petrol further) of home that you’ve not ridden?

Depends though, plenty of races are places you can’t ride otherwise – MOD land, private land etc.

I don’t think that would be a factor for me at all unless it was somewhere particularly special
I can’t be 100% certain but I suspect I’ve never thought “hmmm …… wouldn’t mind being able to ride around the grounds of Eastnor again”

It’s not a selling point per se, certainly not for Eastnor, but I go to some races because I enjoy riding there. If you can’t ride it at other times then all the better.

…despite all that there is a far stronger set of cyclocross events in the calendar than there is for mtb with at least one every weekend in striking range for most during the CX season

some thought into why that is might help fill the gap yawning chasm between the CX race scene and mtb

I’ve mentioned before that I would like to see a nationwide network of MTB clubs putting on MTB races so everyone joins their local club, helps put on their club’s event and races at all the other club’s events, a bit like Running, Time Trialling or Motocross. Plenty of events to enter throughout the year in return for one or two weekends of your time.

I don’t think it will ever happen though.
Time Triallers can use more or less any road, Motocrossers can use any farm field and Runners can run anywhere.
Mountain Bikers want proper mountain bike trails and there aren’t many of those about that don’t use bridleways or footpaths.

Motocrossers can use any farm field

They wouldn’t get many entrants

Time Triallers can use more or less any road, Motocrossers can use any farm field and Runners can run anywhere.
Mountain Bikers want proper mountain bike trails and there aren’t many of those about that don’t use bridleways or footpaths.

Not really, you still need an MX track, but they do tend to be more club organised.

TT’s and running is a better analogy, why can’t we hold time trials (aka Enduro) on bridleways but we could (in theory) on roads.

On an upbeat note, the NT is looking into building blue grade MTB trails, and they’ve a long history of letting running/orienteering events use their land at minimal cost.

I’ve ridden MX, or scrambling as it used to be called, on little more than a flat field with a few stakes and ropes to mark the corners.
I suppose it’s all a bit more berms and jumps these days, so yes, you’re right, not any field.

I’ve mentioned before that I would like to see a nationwide network of MTB clubs putting on MTB races so everyone joins their local club, helps put on their club’s event and races at all the other club’s events, a bit like Running, Time Trialling or Motocross. Plenty of events to enter throughout the year in return for one or two weekends of your time.

I don’t think it will ever happen though.
Time Triallers can use more or less any road, Motocrossers can use any farm field and Runners can run anywhere.
Mountain Bikers want proper mountain bike trails and there aren’t many of those about that don’t use bridleways or footpaths.

I disagree about what is the key issue, the problem is that mtb is a “consumer” sport where people don’t tend to want to put anything into creating a local race scene (the golf analogy)

however it doesn’t have to be like that, we are lucky a gem of an idea took off and working with supportive councils means that we are on our fourth year, we have initiatives around coaching and participation on the go as well as the core race series. The team is growing as well which helps keep people involved when life/ babies get in the way. There are supportive people out there it’s just getting them together/ involved.

We’ll help out anyone who wants to setup a similar not for profit/ volunteer race series, especially ones close by so we can go race instead of running around in hi-viz vests

😀

Thing that gets me, is folk moaning about say £70 for event X being too much.

When they’d pay, say, £30 no bother.

Then they go riding on their £3k bike*….

I mean FFS you could spend half that on the bike, the change on weekends away racing and probably have more fun.

This..

thisisnotaspoon – Member

Yes, but I could ride anywhere for practicaly free.

TBH I do consider Gravity Enduro’s claims that free practice counts as part of the event time to be a wee bit cheeky. I could go and do a lap of the 10 @ Kirroughtree course tomorrow but No Fuss don’t put it down as a year long event with 364 days of free practice on their website. Practice is just riding your bike, not being in an event.

Though, again, I don’t think that means it’s not good value! Which is why I’ll be doing some. I just think they’re a wee bit cheeky about it.

some thought into why that is might help fill the gap yawning chasm between the CX race scene and mtb

Some good points from MTGraham above. Plus, the trouble/good thing with CX is that you only need a mile or two max of course, and much of it can be playing field grass, forest tracks, gravel or even tarmac. Singletrack trails are actually discouraged in bigger races as the course is meant to be 3m wide all the way round. That would make for a sucky mountain bike race course.

And as someone else pointed out, the road and ‘cross scene has a great tradition and structure of clubs, so there’s always people around to help. Mountain biking is such a solo sport that, except in a few great cases, there’s precious little mountain bike community spirit. I’m tempted to form a cycling club purely to get more helpers for my ‘cross race. (Now there’s some public spirited thinking eh?) 🙂

I think that’s the problem for a lot of folks, they’re simply not interested in the frills – T Shirts, pasta parties, prize giving ceremonies etc.

Well having been involved with 2 big races the last 2 years I can tell you your far fro right. It’s one of the most asked questions when they sign in, “Do I get a T-shirt?” “Is there a party afterwards?” “What prizes can I win?”

Running a little event of 80-100 people is not the same as doing a enduro event, Chipps has explained some of the costs up there but there’s many more. The medical cover some of you are talking about won’t be a patch on what’s provided at the bigger ones, if you took your £10 per head for 80-100 people it wouldn’t cover just that.

All those markers that you see that are essential, the rolls of tape, signs, arrows, generators, toilets, camping, food, water supplies, marshals, fuel, insurance, timing, promotion, PA systems, marquees and many more things all have to be paid for. They’re all gone up in price so the organisers could keep it the same and run at a loss or increase it to keep the event going. The entry rate and interest grow every year for the ones I’ve been involved in seem to priced just right.

Then there’s the other extreme of STW Weekender, very reasonably priced but because it’s held in a smaller area it does cost less but don’t be fooled it’s still expensive to setup.

Sadly this year I’m struggling to sort time off to get help out any event, my shifts have just fallen wrong.

Until people vote with their wallets or purses costs will remain high its the way of the modern world.

Then someone will spot a gap on the market to attract the price conscious mtb’er

Tesco value, Aldi, Lidl, etc are examples…

To add to this thread, Caersws Cup Rd 1 has been cancelled – they think due to the many other races in March, people can’t quite stretch their wallets to another one?

Perhaps this is a sign there are *too many* DH race events in the calendar?

Tesco value, Aldi, Lidl, etc are examples…

Sound the same, don’t quite look right and leave you empty wishing you had just spent a little bit more.