You stay up, ready for Midnight, only to find that the biggest MTB event in the Country cannot be entered electronicly and payment is done by Cheque! 😕 this is 2009! get it together!

and why cant I type into any of the entry form fields other than team name?

Ahh, but at what other event do you get tea and bacon sarnies when you sign up in person?

of course they could have online entry if they wanted to – but it’ll be full by the middle of next week so why bother?

It’ll still be full by the middle of next week!

If you’re printing the form off, why not just write the details in in hand!?

The categories are still odd I see, why no Elite men/women? I can getting rid of elite mixed would make more sense, rather than only having ‘expert mixed’ as the top category. I bet that puts off a lot of top pro teams, which maybe is the intention.

Payment by cheque is a real anachronism- I haven’t had a chequebook, except for business account for years now, and most shops don’t take them anymore.

I guess cheque payment is so any entries that don’t have a place the cheque can just be shredded and not have to have some one making lots of Paypal / bank transfer / CC refunds.

Whats wrong with filling in a form and posting / delivering? If instant, click of a mouse gratification is your thing a 24hr race might not be…

SSP

I would bet there are fewer drop outs from mail/cheque applicants than on-line.

However, rather than ranting here about it – why not email the organisers and offer to set up online automated payments for them. If its first come first server should be easy enough – if its done by selection then you’ll need to set up authorising the card then either drawing down the funds or canceling the authorisation. Can all be done… …of course you’ll need a secure server, and credit card merchant account or pay someone to process it for you.

blimey if you’re this stressed now how you gonna be on the startline?

I run an over subscribed motorcycle event and payemnt by cheque is still the best way. Its easy to refund if over full for a start. We looked at using a company who do the entries for a lot of cycle events. Would have had to add about 205 on to price to pay them. To do a refund cost 15quid!!! Using PP no way so it would be taking a credit/debit card. Not worth the cost to set it up and its quite a hassle. Its also easy to reject those who fail to do a decent job of their entry form. We get quite a few who push their luck or just lie and its very hard to reject those unless we can just bung it all back to them. Also we want to choose who we have. Be a real pisser if automatic entries came up with 90% elite wouldn’t it? There you have some of the reasons why paper is still used. Oh yeah. There are still many people out there who very sensibly do not give their card number out willy nilly.

it’s part of the charm of Mayhem.

Although we are not bothering this year (so it’s guaranteed sunny & dry)

Loads of really popular events do this (the Fred Whitton Challenge is a good example), any event that sells out so quickly, the easiest fairest way to guarantee everyone an equal chance is still postal entry.

Just wondering how many of the people winging about not being able to enter online, paying by cheque etc. have ever organised any sort of event, or even helped at one?
Cheques-haven’t you got a credit card? I find every month I get a ‘barclaycard cheque’ attached to my statement-problem solved!

Never felt the need to get up at silly o’clock to print the form off etc.The four years that we did it(2004/5/6/7),just got up 15 minutes earlier than I normally would,first class stamp & post.
None of this silly jumping in the car to deliver it by hand nonsense…….

There will always be those people that comp at the bit to enter an event!