we have had only one enquiry from a lady about racing in our series

http://www.brownbacksracing.co.uk

are they hiding and going to surprise us on the day or don’t they want to race?

We are sweating trying to get sponsors to offer prizes but its seems a bit pointless based on the interest so far

We are keen to have them racing we just don’t know where they are

It doesn’t actually tell you anything on that website, so how would they know that they could race there:
no dates
no race format
no information about anything except that you’re organising the portaloos

See my reply on BM:

There just aren’t very many, ever!

Look through race results on Timelaps, you’ll find a male category with 80 has 5 women!

IME women generally only make up 3-5% of total race entrys if yer lucky at bigger MTB races , so I’d expect a reletively unheard of race to have even less. How many entrys do you have in total?
or is this just elaborate SPAM? 😛

aP
dates are on the front page

more details on the downloadable entry form
http://www.brownbacksracing.co.uk/race_series/index.html

more comprehensive update going on the site this week

register for email updates here
http://www.brownbacksracing.co.uk/contact.php

more description here
http://www.singletrackworld.com/2009/02/new-xc-series-for-the-north/

entries… we have enough to make us wonder where the women are

Well I would come and play, but it’s a long way South from Elgin 🙁 Given the Southern bias of the English XC series I would have thought you’d have a fair few Northern based, even South Scotland ladies interested in racing.

If any ladies out there are hesitating about trying racing, go for it, it’s great fun and great motivation to get out on your bike for ‘training’ purposes.

Member of our club who used to race and had a rainbow jersey for her trouble, I seem to remember from her comments that there were only ever a few in her category, this was masters womens and was a few years ago. I also remember another member getting a bronze UCI worlds medal in CX, to be honest she wasn’t very fast but as there were only three women in the race…

If the womens races at national and international level are small, at local level….

plenty of ladies in the soggy bottom series. about 50 in every 500 across the classes/ages. Although the elite/expert has been a 2-rider race all season.

Maddie Horton (fullysussued.co.uk) ran 3 ladies-only skills weekends to conincide with the races and got quite a few ladies into the fun category who probably wouldn’t have thought they had it in them. Might be worth seeing if you could set up a similar thing?

It’s always been a mystery to me why there are so few women or any other ethnic minorities at bike events.

The Thetford Winter Series was capped at 600 entries this year and I think the womens category made for perhaps 40 riders, perhaps less.

more and more are showing up to Gorricks but I guess thats just growth in line with the other male categories too. In my experience a field of 15 at any race would be good although spread across catagories at a Gorrick you would probably have 30+

We had more than 40 women racers at the Black Park Race last Sunday. We even had enough to have a SS womens category!

I’ll mention it to the mrs. We are only 25 mins away and this is the first we’ve heard of it. Have you had many enquiries from men?

These girls race <http://www.dirtdivas.co.uk/race-team.htm&gt;

based in the south though

lots of enquiries from the men, only one for the ladies and that was a dad emailing about his daughter

all the entries so far are male

if we get 3 or more women they will a prize list etc etc

a few turned up at the event last year and raced

the problem is we don’t know if we are going to get none, 2 or 20 on the day so planning is a bit of a nightmare.

One of our sponsors already supports ladies road racing

and we are running a SS sub category if enough enter (male/ female)

any ladies around?

I will probably enter, not the first one though it clashes with something I had already entered. Planning on riding lee quarry first as well to see what I am letting myself in for.

im a lady my lord ! lol
dont have a decent bike to race tho…. altho im having a demo on the womens orange diva this weekend ! lets just see how that performs…

It’s always been a mystery to me why there are so few women or any other ethnic minorities at bike events.

LOL! I din’t know women were an ‘ethnic minority’!

managed to hand a lady rider a flyer/ entry form at the site

no other interest to date though

no other interest to date though

You’re not supposed to date them, just get them to sign up for the event.

I have never raced before and wouldn’t really have a clue whether I would enjoy it or not. I got into biking through my other half a number of years ago and he raced in his teens but hasn’t done anything since then apart from ride for fitness/pleasure – he said hes not keen to race but never really expanded on why not. I was tempted to come along to watch one of the races first to see if I might like to enter, just to check I wouldnt look like a slow fool 🙂

In my experience (of the Scottish XC scene) the ‘fun’ category is the best way to have a go without feeling silly. There are lots of different standards and of course once women see other women getting out there and having a go, they’re more inclined to have a bash themselves. So be a trail blazer and go for it!!

I always thought that racing was for people who’d ridden all their lives and were super fit had all the kit and special race bikes and that it would be aggressive, unfriendly and intimidating. One of the girls in our club had a go, an almost novice rider and I thought, “hell, if she can do it, so can I” I’ve found it fun, sociable and motivating and I highly recommend it. But be careful, it can take over your life 🙂

Our “Have-a-go Hero” category is the best for those who just want to try it

The course for that class is shorter and they don’t do the new “rollercoaster” section and some of the other new build

most people who enter will not have raced before and we emphasise the need for the faster riders to ride appropriately and allow everyone to have a good time.

Enter one of the early ones and give it a try, its only £10 afterall!

Right then Brownbacks am off to order a new cheque book – I am entering my first ever race 😆

domino
Thats what makes all the effort worthwhile

see you on the startline

I was at the BUCS (student championships) at the weekend. If people didnt either clear the a tricky downhill switchback or preferably fall off there was soo much booing (mainly from the downhill crowd i think). Frankly I bet this has put a good few female student riders off as a few of them just wanted to carry their bikes through this section.

We wouldn’t encourage that type of behavior and it wasn’t the experience at the event in 2008

The course is fully rideable and all-weather, ladies managed to cope with the worst stretch on the “Have-a-go Hero” course unlike some of the blokes

scu98 it has always been like that. Booing wasn’t meant to be nasty to be honest.
I remember in scotland 4 years ago in the comp cat, a girl didn’t get to ride one of the steps, so she pushed down. A jey-hey arrived had to stop and start shouting abuse at her, no need to say the DH crowd as you call it bullied the shit out of him for abusing the “pichounette”

I did the downhill and I did the first lap of the fun XC but my chain broke.

Your right it was a mixed crowd (XC fun + DH) but there wasnt any booing on the downhill strangely enough.

Frankly if people have enough guts to enter the XC champs which is always pretty hardcore I dont think they should get booed at all.

Some of the girls were clearly upset I could see one girl whispering some obscenities under her breath.

Everyone says “Booing wasn’t meant to be nasty to be honest.” but I cant really see how you can take it any other way when people start booing people who are clearly struggling.

I can kinda of the see people booing the elite riders if they were to walk it but I dont any/many did.

My girlfriend and some other females have done a few twentyfour12’s/D2D’s.

Last year they did a 24hr female team at Twentyfour12, they came either second or third but as there was only a handful of entrys, the rules stated no prizes would be given as there wasn’t enough entrants…seems a bit tight but rules are rules.

But then some girls from a Bikemagic competition or something got called up, so all the girls from our team got excited and though they were going to get to stand on stage, but no! They got mentioned but not called up. Fair enough, it was a mix up behind the scenes, but it still left them all feeling that their ‘moment’ had been waved under their noses and then snatched away from them seconds later. And obviously I don’t hold anything against the competition team, they did well and obviously the mag wanted the shot of their team on the podium…just like us lot, Sussex Muddyarse did!

I don’t see why they need to impose a minimum number of entrants to be recognised along with everyone else. They still raced all night with no sleep, one member down after a crash/trip to A&E whilst all us blokes opted for 12hr teams and got some shut eye in the early hours. Not the best way to encourage entrants in a minority category!

Our rules state 3 entrants in a category for prizes

if only a few women enter we will merge their categories which should mean that there are prizes. Not everyone can win one but they will be there for those who can.

our aim is to get people to race so we are trying to strike the right balance

if someone wants to step forward as the womens sponsor we will talk to them info@brownbacksracing.co.uk

I think the problem is a lot of women end up getting into MTBing through partners and don’t often think about racing. I raced for many years as a Youth and loved it but again people tend to forget about women and don’t get recognition so you get pi**sed off. I won the Juniors event at Malverns (in the 90’s!) and didn’t even get to go on a podium they just gave me my prize no announcements like they did with the men.

I know things have changed significantly since then but I don’t race any more as I’m not fit enough. I’m too competitive to enter a race if I don’t think I have a chance of doing well! Oh and it’s too far North for me sorry!

Our rules state 3 entrants in a category for prizes

Surely if two women turn up, and one wins she should get a prize?

There was an event I entered not so long back where the men got prizes, and the women did not, as according to the organiser there were not sufficient female entries.

I’m not surprised woman don’t enter races.

we haven’t forgotten about the ladies and they will get their podum moment, the same trophy as the blokes and a prize

the issue for us is to get enough ladies to keep it going for the series, at the moment we are trying sort it all out so they have somewhere to start racing

at the end of the day if we have an event which is 10% or 75% ladies
it doesn’t matter to us we just want to get racing off the ground.

Fair point richpips – I read the 3 Peaks programme again the other day – the blokes won decent cash prizes and the first woman won a set of wheels (I think).

I might need to come up with some witty quips for any hecklers then huh?

Fair point richpips – I read the 3 Peaks programme again the other day – the blokes won decent cash prizes and the first woman won a set of wheels (I think).

A friend who posts on here occasionally, and is regularly in the top three at events, has many a tale of prize inequality. 🙁

Prize lists are a complex issue, the reality is that the blokes entries will be subsidising the ladies when you look at the prize value to entry fees at most events.

For us its a bit different as we push to get the sponsors to provide the prizes and aim to avoid giving cash back out. This gives us the issue of persuading the sponsors to lay ladies prizes on and even harder if the ladies are leaving it to the day to enter so we don’t know they are going to race.

We are keen to get ladies racing in a series of events that are small, informal and don’t mean a weekend’s camping. Get your entries in before the first race and we will sort the prizes out. If you think you can support and are local email us and get involved info@brownbacksracing.co.uk

We are a local race series and want to get racing back on in the northwest, our aim is to do the best for the riders whatever shape they come in.

We are a local race series and want to get racing back on in the northwest

Oi! It’s already back.